The Island of Excess Love

Love in the Time of Global Warming #2

by Francesca Lia Block

Pen has lost her parents. She’s lost her eye. But she has fought Kronen; she has won back her fragile friends and her beloved brother. Now Pen, Hex, Ash, Ez, and Venice are living in the pink house by the sea, getting by on hard work, companionship, and dreams. Until the day a foreboding ship appears in the harbor across from their home. As soon as the ship arrives, they all start having strange visions of destruction and violence. Trance-like, they head for the ship and their new battles begin.

This companion to Love in the Time of Global Warming follows Pen as she searches for love among the ruins, this time using Virgil’s epic Aeneid as her guide. A powerful and stunning book filled with Francesca Lia Block’s beautiful language and inspiring characters.

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Mythology, LGBT, Dystopia, Romance, Fiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published August 26, 2014

About the author

Francesca Lia Block is the author of more than twenty-five books of fiction, non-fiction, short stories and poetry. She received the Spectrum Award, the Phoenix Award, the ALA Rainbow Award and the 2005 Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as other citations from the American Library Association and from the New York Times Book Review, School Library Journal and Publisher’s Weekly. She was named Writer-in-Residence at Pasadena City College in 2014. Her work has been translated into Italian, French, German Japanese, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and Portuguese. Francesca has also published stories, poems, essays and interviews in The Los Angeles Times, The L.A. Review of Books, Spin, Nylon, Black Clock and Rattle among others. In addition to writing, she teaches creative writing at University of Redlands, UCLA Extension, Antioch University, and privately in Los Angeles where she was born, raised and currently still lives.

Reviews

[Nemo ☠️ (pagesandprozac) · Rating 1 out of 5]

this was the world's most pointless sequel and the ending was FUCKING BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!why does pen have to be pregnant with the king's baby?? all bc hex couldn't get her pregnant i bet fucksidsnfs what bullshit is this. COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY!!! i guess i get it though, new life, rebirth, hex accepting shit, pen accepting shit, w/e w/e. still. also i don't mind cheating in books but only when it's done well, and this wasn't it just made me ANGRY!!!!!

if there's another book coming out (there might be; the ending was such that all strings were tied up but with a little room for more) i don't know if i'll read it. probably not tbh, even though i loved the first one so much.

i literally made a "sequels-that-shouldnt-exist" shelf bc of this.

to be honest if the first book hadn't been so good it would probably be three stars but i'm disappointed, and salty. the first book was one of my faves of 2016!! what the hell went wrong!!

I HAVE BEEN ON SUCH A BAD BOOK SPREE RECENTLY I THOUGHT I COULDN'T GO WRONG WITH THIS AND YET IT DID GO SO WRONG. FUCK. IMMA HAVE TO READ HARRY POTTER OR SOMEHTING

i'm now going to erase this book from my memory goodbye

[Journey · Rating 1 out of 5]

i couldn't give this 1 star because i really, really love how FLB writes. it's good regardless of how much i hate the actual story, lmao.

edit: i slept on it and this homophobic, transphobic, rape-apologist mess is a 1 star.

i can't get over what the message of this sequel is. i'm furious honestly. basically, Pen is raped (she is literally magic-enchanted and drunk, and a man has sex with her--and i can't remember if she specifically identifies as anything in the first book but RIGHT BEFORE this happens she says she's never desired a [cis] man before, and her mind protests that she's betraying Hex but this man verbally gets inside her head and tells her they're meant to be together, she's REALLY CLEARLY being magically manipulated). but it's not treated like that-- first of all the sex is implicitly described as being better than what she had with Hex. and it's treated as a dumb mistake she made that hurts her boyfriend and she apologizes so much for it and it essentially breaks them up and i'm just so mad. OH AND did i mention she gets pregnant from that and there's no question about whether or not she keeps the baby? not even a split second "hm this guy manipulated me and now i'm pregnant and this child is going to come into a world where giants eat people, maybe i should consider not having it"? wtf, FLB?!

[Carrie (brightbeautifulthings) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really impressed with Francesca Lia Block’s Love in the Time of Global Warming. Naturally, since I am incapable of doing thirty seconds worth of research on a book before I read it, I didn’t realize it had a sequel until I finished it. I try to never quit a series unless I’m really not feeling it, so here we are at The Island of Excess Love. There may be spoilers ahead for the first book. Trigger warnings: rape, misgendering.

Pen, her brother Venice, and their friends Hex, Ez, and Ash have been scraping by at the pink house after the apocalypse, but their adventures are far from over. When a ghost ship appears in the sea outside their home, it starts them on a quest that loosely parallels The Aeneid to an island ruled by a magical king who thrives on beauty and temptation.

It’s entirely clear to me why no one has ever heard of this sequel, since it falls well short of its predecessor in a number of ways. I didn’t fully think through the ramifications of a sequel before I decided to read this, but I realized in the first few chapters that no matter what happened, I probably wasn’t going to like it. My children were safe and happy at the end of the last book, and I wanted them to stay that way–but then, there wouldn’t be a book, of course.

I found the Odyssey parallels in Global Warming interesting (and occasionally over my head), but the Aeneid connections feel a lot more forced. I’m more familiar (and sympathetic) with Dido’s story than Aeneas’s, but I’m not sure the parallel brought a whole lot to the story Block is telling. It has elements in it that are interesting, but overall, it didn’t keep my attention the way the first novel did, and the writing seemed to lack some of the beauty/mysticism as well.

While I praised Global Warming for its diverse cast and LGBTQ representation, Excess Love has been criticized for some of its more problematic themes. The first is that Hex is in no way done justice as a trans character here. When the king is courting Pen, she mentions that she’s never been with a man before, as if Hex is suddenly not a man, and he’s misgendered several times before that. That’s not okay. More on the other after the spoilers mark.

Not surprisingly, the king’s advances drive a wedge between Pen and Hex. There were a lot of directions the character development could have gone, but that fallout isn’t adequately dealt with. Ez and Ash are little more than background characters, and no one except Venice gets the development they deserve. I found myself unsatisfied with the way Block leaves things. All in all, I think it’s well worth it to read Global Warming, but also perfectly acceptable to pretend that Excess Love never happened. I enjoyed parts of it because I enjoy the characters and the world-building, but it also has to be taken with a heap of salt.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. TURN BACK BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.

It’s not really clear whether Pen is in control when she sleeps with the king, but it looks an awful lot like she’s magically date-raped. Worse, she receives a lot of criticism and slut-shaming for it. I understand Hex’s feelings of betrayal, but rather than focus on the relationship dynamic between the two of them, the narrative maintains a critical tone toward Pen. She’s awash in feelings of guilt and shame, and we’re offered little insight into Hex’s feelings other than his anger at her. There are better ways to handle issues like this but, again, it doesn’t get the proper attention, and things are left rather open-ended.

[Literary Lusts · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was not as impressed with this book as the first. It still had lovely imagery due to Block's writing. I just didn't like how the story was told or the choices the characters made.

[Yuli Atta · Rating 1 out of 5]

Imagine you're back in time when those fanfics about a boy and a girl, complite strangers, meet each other, immediately fall inlove with each other, fuck, than the boy dies in some odd circumstances and the girl is surprisingly pregnant and if there is a happy end, than she finds a man in the face of her BFF and live happily ever after, are still popular and consider it for a moment- would you like it even though you know that it is not what it's supposed to be? Especially when it's a book about apocalypse. You know, I am an easy reader I rate books with five or four stars more often than with 3 or even 2, but with 1 I rate as rare as possible.
Just think about how bad this book was that I rated it with one star.
It wasn't full with problems around food or water or survival, no, it was full with teen drama like some soup operish teen fiction but at the time of global warming.
I regret reading this book and I'm gonna try to forget it and stay with the possitive feelings about the first one.

[Jamie (Books and Ladders) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was meh about LOVE IN THE TIME OF GLOBAL WARMING but THE ISLAND OF EXCESS LOVE didn't even live up to the first. The retelling aspect was even looser this time around and the characters acted poorly to one another specifically because there needed to be conflict rather than it feeling natural to the story.

I felt like this one tried too hard to be "better" than the first rather than its own story and it really hurt it because it ended up feeling like a cheap copy of the first with different inspiration. I'm also not a fan of cheating so be warned that this happens in this book. It could be called a "parallel" or whatever but it was stupid and not necessary.

I thought the length of the chapters was awkward as well. The pacing was alright until the chapter that lasts like 60 pages. The others you flew through but this one took so long because you kept wondering when it was going to end. I think the best part of this book was it's short chapters but that wasn't the case with this particular chapter and that disappointed me.

I'm not sure I would recommend this one unless you REALLY loved the first but I do want more retellings of mythology that include LGBTQ+ characters. I just wish this had been better.

[shady boots]

Does the guy on the cover have....antlers?

[Alison Evans]

TW for transphobia re: Hex not being a "real man".

[Asher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh man... I love Francesca Lia Block, and this was totally going to get five stars from me. Spoilers spoilers spoilers. BUT.

Pen has sex with the Enchanted King on the Island, after Hex throws a fit about illusions and storms off without saying a) where he's going, b) if he's even coming back. It doesn't appear like he's coming back. For all intents and purposes, it looks like homeboy flew the coop and abandoned them all. Not to mention the Island is a wild place of enchantments and everyone is vaguely high on love drugs the whole time they're there. The King loves Pen and has seen her in prophecies. Built this whole island for her, so she would be in comfort, and rest in order to go further on her journey and put the world back to order.

Hex LEAVES. Pen, thoroughly distraught, turns to the person who appears to love her to most in the world and makes a conscious choice to sleep with them.

Which she then beats herself up about, slut shames, and generally is way too hard on herself without placing any blame on the situation Hex left her in. And then later is like, "But I was drunk and high and you know what that's like!"

And I'm like, girl, you made a conscious choice and that's okay! Hex fucked up too! You're both allowed to fuck up and still love each other! Abandoning your partner is not okay. Neither is cheating - but she didn't even know it was cheating, because he left.

And then she's pregnant.

Now, this is a retelling of Greek epics, which means this baby might be Achilles, but Pen has also been both Odysseus AND Aeneas so far, and the Iliad happens BEFORE The Odyssey or The Aeneid in episodic structure, so I don't know where Block is going with this.

Also I am SICK of women becoming pregnant to advance the plot. It's boring, cliche, and I expected better.

[Melissa Chung · Rating 3 out of 5]

This sequel is loosely based on Virgil's Aeneid. The adventure that Pen finds herself on in this story is not as enjoyable as the first. In 'Love in the Time of Global Warming', Pen meets new people after the great "Earth Shaker". She is on a mission to find her family. She fights Giants and becomes a Hero.

In 'The Island Of Excess Love', Pen and her friends find themselves on a hopeless adventure to the Island of Excess Love and The Island of Shades. These two islands are filled with vices and tests that have to be conquered and won in order to make it out alive. I felt Pen wasn't strong at all in this story.

I think Venice grew to be a better person in this book. He should be the leader now that Pen has proven she can't defeat her sins. She made me angry with her weakness. Hex of course had his faults too. He was too prideful and didn't communicate with Pen or his friends. In the end everyone got what was coming to them.

[Han · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's gonna take me a long time to recover from this book, I think. I need a sequel, like, immediately. I care so much about these characters, I love the mythology references, and reading this book and its predecessor is like a dream. I highly recommend this to fans of post-apocalyptic and fantasy, but really to anyone looking for an excellent, quick read. Pen is an outstanding heroine, in part because she is fallible; she's not up on a pedestal for us to worship and adore, but more like we would be in her shoes.

This book hits a lot of diversity points, too. The main character has a disability, and pretty much everyone is queer and/or not white, canonically.

[Hannah (jellicoereads) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yowza. What a beautiful cover!

The Island of Excess Love was just as weird as its predecessor, Love in the Time of Global Warming. Unfortunately, it wasn't nearly as wonderful. There was also a dub-con element that left me feeling rather icky and didn't sit right with me.

[Doriana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wut the hell?

[Shannon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wish I hadn't squeezed this in before 2018 because now my reading year has to end on a bit of a downer note. Despite its flaws, I was really drawn into the world of Love in the Time of Global Warming in a way I haven't been with a Francesca Lia Block book in ages. Unfortunately, The Island of Excess Love takes all the annoying elements of the first one and cranks them up to eleven, while also taking the plot entirely off the rails (and it was already halfway-off to begin with).

First of all, I really wish Block would trust her readers to understand that these books are loose retellings of Greek and Roman epics without shoving it down their throats every other page by literally having the characters read and recite lines from them and say to each other, "Wow, this is just like that section of The Aeneid we just conveniently read!!!" I could deal with it in the first book, but it seemed especially egregious here. Secondly, even though they weren't the most complex and expertly-drawn in the first book, I enjoyed the characters and rooted for their survival and their budding relationships. Here, you can really tell how everyone except Pen exists for the service of the plot, as their motivations and actions are very inconsistent. They recede and often completely disappear into the background and have no real stories of their own outside of what's happening to Pen.

Honestly, I didn't hate this as I was reading it. It was a very quick read, and Block's dream-like, hyper-vivid prose does a good job of keeping you entranced by this strange little world. I didn't have much of a reaction to anything as it happened, but, after, I began to realize how problematic certain elements of it were. One thing I did balk at in the moment was the description that Pen had "never been with a man" or something to that effect, followed by a reminder that Hex is transgender. It's also implied here that Pen and Hex have never gone "all the way" sexually, so to speak, which I think is the bigger point Block is trying to make, in that things go further with the King than they ever have with Hex. But it's very sloppy and comes across more like Pen is saying that Hex isn't really a man. This reminds me of a point in the first book, just after Pen finds out Hex is transgender, where she says something like, "He. She. It doesn't matter." I brushed it off because the intent seemed innocent, but it also rubbed me the wrong way re: trans representation.. Also, Hex as a character was totally ruined here. He acted like a surly asshole the entire time and then victim-blamed Pen for what happened to her with the King, and this wasn't portrayed as a bad thing; instead, Pen goes on and on about how she needs to earn his forgiveness.

I don't know. I didn't mean to write a book about this, but the more I think about it, the more certain things bother me. Two stars for the fact that the writing was good enough to keep me from thinking about a lot of this in the moment, but it doesn't hold up well at all on reflection.

[Karissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an okay sequel to Love in the Time of Global Warming. I didn't like it nearly as much as the original book, although there was some beautiful imagery throughout.

Pen and her friends are making a life for themselves in the pink house on the beach. The world has ended but they are still surviving. Then a mysterious boat shows up on the shore and this boat brings up all the bad in our characters’ pasts and makes them relive it. Our characters end up heading out on yet another adventure to the Island of Excess Love. The story was written to loosely follow Virgil’s Aeneid.

The plot is very straight-forward and predictable, not nearly as dreamy and ambiguous as Love in the Time of Global Warming. I always enjoy Block’s beautiful sparkle in her writing, but that just wasn’t present in this book. The beautiful description is there, but our character feel downtrodden and tired...they aren’t finding beauty in this desolate world like they did in the first book.

The characters are not nearly as easy to engage with as they were in the first book either. In fact I flat out disliked them throughout much of the story. They make very poor decisions and treat each other poorly, there isn’t much heroic about this story.

Overall this was an okay read but a disappointing follow up to Love in the Time of Global Warming. Everything about this story felt tired. I would only recommend reading if you really loved Love in the Time of Global Warming and are dying to find out what happened to Pen and crew after that book.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This sequel to “Love in the Time of Global Warming”(which was based on Homer’s “Odyssey”) follows Pen as she searches for love among the ruins, this time using Virgil’s epic “Aeneid” as her guide.

Opening a few months after the point where the first novel left off, the young survivors are scraping out a meager living together. To escape their bleak reality, Hex begins reading from Virgil’s Aeneid, which seems to mirror their lives and experiences. Their fragile peace is soon threatened by dark dreams and restlessness. Merk convinces them to board a mysterious ship to seek answers to their plight, but instead turn on each other. Their actions spiral them closer and closer to madness.

A storm tears the ship apart and separates the group. Pen awakens on a strange island and discovers Hex’s corpse. Even as she does so, Hex approaches her, miraculously alive. He has also discovered a corpse, Pen’s, and is astonished to see her alive as well. They bury their doubles and Pen receives a clairvoyant vision that her loved ones live. The following day finds Hex and Pen guests of the Sorcerer King, who restores Pen’s sight to her and presses her to marry him.

Block’s lush, lyrical prose will linger in the reader’s memory long after the last page is read. This is a beautifully crafted homage to classical works. It is also a strong addition to LGBTQ collections.

[Carson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need a recovery period for this book. Francesca Lia Block grows in infinite wisdom by the book, whether read in the published order or not. My previous favorite of Block's, the first book in this series, is somehow a thin, nearly invisible line less awesome than this installment. For those of you asking, Does that guy have antlers on his head? there is a character seen by Pen in a vision sent to her by her mother, Grace. Pen's visions are a new power she has acquired after losing her eye to Kronen, the Giant. This is loosely based on The Aeneid by the poet Virgil. Hex has been reading The Aeneid obsessed with its verse, quoting bits and pieces of the epic where he feels it's most appropriate. Then Venice's hair catches on fire as he sleepwalks toward a mysterious ship the group had noticed by the sea the day before. Soon, pieces of Virgil end up in their lives and all signs point to leaving the house that Pen and Venice grew up in, their last ties to their parents lost during the Earth Shaker. Then the Giants come and they have no choice but to flee their refuge. Traveling in a bewitched vessel that brings out your worst fears and inner demons, they make their way to the Island of Excess Love. Each character has their strength individually and together they have survived, but when under a spell, will they be able to stay together until the end?

[wade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since this is the second in a series I don't want to complain too much. I did feel a bit out of the loop in this "young adult" journey to the "Island of Excess Love" Seems a little beyond both in its explicit sexual nature and the dreamlike illusions of the quest for your average young teen unless they are pretty mature in their tastes. This is another quest story. In this one a magic boat appears and takes five teenagers to a place where they are put under enchantments by the horn headed king and his sister. If that is your thing I think you will like it.

[Musings of the Moonchild · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary beautiful yet, horrifyingly realistic and fantastical at the same time.

Absolutely different from anything I have ever read. I can't explain how much I fell in love with this book. Francesca's prose is stunning.

She executed a story that had components of both tragedy, and terror with such beauty. I can't wait to read her entire catalogue of work!

For such a teeny tiny book, there was so much detail!

[Gincake · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, isn't it weird how you can love a book but pretty much hate the sequel? It's like this book was trying to copy the style and ideas of the first, but in such a heavy-handed and unskilled way. Also, the romantic drama took way too much focus and left all the other characters underdeveloped.

[Jessie Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such an odd book, in an odd series. It is a story and style that reads like no other and I love seeing what Black dreams up next for her strange band.

[usagi ☆ミ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hot damn. The story can't end here - it just can't! Review to come. <3

[Veronica · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars. Because I had high expectations and it was not met.

Okay, okay. So maybe I sound kind of pushy, but the second book is nothing compared to its predecessor. I don't know, maybe it's because of some of my biases but we all have it.

The art of story telling Block had in the first book is still there. The vivid imagery, the wonderful inspired plot and the amazing world building. What I am having a hard time grasping is what happened with Pen and the King. Yes, I am strongly against it and it sort of ruined the whole thing for me.

The way it was written would suggest she enjoyed it... which is sick? I mean, she came a thousand times??? But then again maybe she had been too drunk on magic and spells so the King whats his face could put a baby inside her, but WTF?! And the lines "I've never desired a man before" and "maybe it was finding out Hex wasn't born a boy was the reason she loved him (something like that) really threw me off.

I was downright angry. I mean, why did it have to happen? It's not my story, I know. I didn't write it or conceptualized it. I'm just reader and I guess that gives me the right to rant about it.

It was beautiful in its own way. The Island of Excess Love was like an escape most people would go to especially when they wanted something good after having all the bad. It was a wonderful read, up to that part I disliked. I kept shouting internally for it to stop. It was hard to read.

I could sum up my problems with this book with;

1.) It revolved around Pen. Only Pen. It's like the other characters no longer existed. Just drifted in and out of the story. Unlike the first one, where we actually got a glimpse into their lives? I mean why bring them along if they were just there. Literally.
2.) Hex, a transgender, was attacked. Yes, I am queer and I support the community but what the hell was happening here? First, he called a "she" and then labeled as "Not really a man" because Pen here "has never desired a man" before because Hex was not born male. What. The. Fck?
3.) Rape. Victim blaming. Pen portrayed as enjoying the said rape. Getting pregnant from said rape. Asking Hex for forgiveness for the said rape. Hex being an ass?? GETTING PREGNANT ON THE SAID RAPE?! I don't even know anymore guys.
4.) Lot's of loose ends. Plot holes. God damn it.

All in all, it's still a 2. My biases still had a lot of voting power on that, but if I let them, it would fall to a 1.

[Irina Villacis · Rating 5 out of 5]

antes de la lectura

se supone que este libro es como un retelling o una adapatacion libre de la eneida de virgilio pero nunca lo habia leido . en fin tampoco me preocupe por leerlo.
el primer libro me enamoró demasiado que a veces siento que era un cuadro hermoso pintado.

durante la lectura
lo senti mas bien como una historia corta que un libro , me pareció la mitad de volumen que el anterior . aqui en este libro predomina la ilusion , la belleza. se realza el talento de Francesca para imaginar un hermoso paraiso en una isla. a quien no le gustaria eso?
me senti como cuando aveces sueño que no estoy segura si es un hermoso sueño o una terrible pesadilla.
Pen , la cuentista junto a sus amigos se suben a un barco hacia una isla donde encuentra aun rey brujo con cuernitos. jajaj cuernitos. hubo varios destellos del libro de virgilio.

la relación entre Ez y Ash es un poco turbia , pero nada mas dramatico que la de Pen y Hex.
el final me ha parecido asombroso ni por aqui se me pasó que podria ocurrir ni quien era los implicados de todo. me ha gustado mucho como si estuviera leyendo una historia griega de hace siglos.
el primer libro era sobre un destruido apocaliptico mundo . habia una atmosfera de antaño y nostalgia asi como cuando pienso en los 50s pero en este caso antes del terremoto.
el segundo libro crea algo nuevo , totalmente nuevo asi que aunque me gustó mucho . prefiero el primero . este lo veo como un complemento a unas dudas que me surgieron por el camino acerca de que sucederia sus vidas , quien los dirigiran y todo eso.

final del libro
me ha dado unas enormes ganas de leer la eneida de virgilio y me he sentido un poco triste porque acabó en un final medio abierto. he sentido toda las sensaciones como si fuera yo misma. me gustaria leer mas sobre Francesca

[Catfairy books · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If stories are no longer our salvation we have even less hope than before."



Pen, Hex, Ash, Venice, and Ez are back in this epic tale depicting a modern version of the Aeneid. Revisiting these characters has been a bittersweet experience. (You might be wondering why I am using the word "bittersweet". You will find out later on in my review.) After reading Love in the Time of Global Warming I felt so close with these characters with their magical gifts and quirky personalities. Pen who can tell stories that glimpse into the future, the intellectual brooding Hex, Ash with his healing music abilities, artistically gifted Ez who enjoys painting his lover Ash as an angel inspired by a Franz Von Stuck painting, and her sweet brother Venice who has the charmed abilities to grow food from the ground. Even their lovable family dog Argos is still with them. These are the kinds of friends that I would want to forever be stranded with in a deserted pink house by the sea.




Finally Pen, Hex, Ash, and Ez find peace after the Earth Shaker, Kronen, and the giants. Pen has lost her eye and it is skewing her vision of reality. She refuses to see the truth and now she is retreating back into her own world. Even though, her friends see her as a hero after killing Kronen she just wants to hide in her pink house with her stories, books, music, art, and cherished friends. They are living in their pink house receiving food and supplies at their front doorstep consistently, reading their favorite books of literature, painting, music, and basking in the pleasure of contentment. Although Hex has a feeling that their contentment is only temporary when he sees a ship ready to set sail...

"Excess of love, to what lengths you drive our human hearts!"



The Island of Excess Love is a much darker story than Love in the Time of Global Warming. The characters find themselves in situations where they must find their strength of character more than anything else. Just like any story these characters struggle through their inner demons as soon as they set sail on their unknown journey. Reading about this island left me with a foreboding feeling. Actually most of the book left me with that foreboding feeling and a feeling of uncertainty with these characters. Since Francesca Lia Block is such a gifted writer I believe that is what she wanted me to feel after reading this story.





When they arrive in The Island of Excess Love their whole lives are put on a temporary pause and they get lost in a whirlwind of pleasures beyond their comprehension. Temptation overrules the characters once they set foot in The Island of Excess Love. Pen meets the magnetic King from the island who has horns growing out of his head. When Pen meets the King temptation begins to overrule her emotions and her whole world turns into this hazy pink fog of hallucinations.




Everything is put into question once they desert their pretty pink cottage. They must question their strong friendship, their love, and their whole lives after the Earth Shaker. Will their happiness last or is it all just an illusion? Most importantly they must question whether they belong in their dilapidated pink house or in the Island of Excess Love?


"If grief is like the blue of the sky and sea? You can't even see it anymore when it's all you have come to know."



Now they must face the future of their destiny and in many ways they have to face it alone in order for them to come together in the end...


Once I finished this story I was left bereft. I felt like it wasn't supposed to end! But then again I never read the Aeneid but this is the feeling that I had. The ending didn't leave me with much hope and it didn't give me that dreamy feeling after reading an FLB book. I have fallen in love with these characters and I just wanted a "proper happily ever after for now" kind of ending for them. Hopefully FLB will come out with a third installment and my Earth Shaker friends could get over all their drama and happily embark on another epic adventure on a "road to nowhere" again.



Suggested Playlist for Island of Excess Love:

1) Goodbye: Asobi Seksu (Great to listen to in the beginning of the book.)

2) Float On: Modest Mouse (Listen to it while they are in the sea.)

3) To Here Knows When: My Bloody Valentine (When the characters enter the Island of Excess Love. Especially the love scenes in the island!)

4) With Arms Outstretched: Rilo Kiley (When Pen starts having her issues with Hex after leaving the Island of Excess Love.)

5) It's the End of the World As We Know It (Perfect to listen to when they are trying to get back home after leaving the island.)

6) Road to Nowhere: Talking Heads (Towards the end.)

7) Let Me Back In: Rilo Kiley (The last three pages of the book.)

Check out my book blog The Bibliophile Catfairy at http://weetziela.blogspot.com/

[chinchil1in · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am SO disappointed in this book. Oh man. "Okay," I thought when I first started, "just have to get into it, get into the groove. It'll pick up - Block never disappoints."

But let me tell you: it did not pick up. And, apparently, Block does disappoint.

I'm extra salty because pretty much everything else I've read by Francesca Lia Block has rocked my goddamn world. Her stream-of-consciousness writing is (typically) this incredible portal into a candy-coloured, neon-lit, magical version of LA where art comes alive, weirdness is encouraged and embraced, and the horrors of the world are all living right under your skin.

THIS book, though, lacked all that sparkle. Maybe she's trying something new, trying something more linear and structured instead of her typical dizzying, almost psychedelic, explorations into intriguing characters...well, I do not like it. Everything falls flat for me - it just seems like the usual words, the usual wealth of imaginative language, is lost to her, was a struggle to tease out. Maybe it's because the premise was inspired by mythology; whatever the case, nothing felt new.

Block, I love you, but this one is not for me. Now excuse me while I revisit my battered copy of Dangerous Angels.

[Vanessah · Rating 3 out of 5]

To me, this book was just... okay. I didn't care much for most of the book, but some events did end up giving me all the feels. I really liked the mysterious events in the beginning of the book, it's toward the middle where it ended up losing me. Both Pen and Hex were a favorite couple of mine, especially since Hex was transgender. I really loved the rep, which made me fall in love with them to begin with. In the first book, they were AMAZING. In this book, I felt Hex was a little too aggressive/rude with Pen. I just felt he was completely different from the person he was in the first book. Something else that ruined it for me was the king; Dylan. Up until the antlered king came into the picture, I was okay with the book. However, once he came in and decided to take Pen away from Hex (SHE FREAKING CHEATED AND SLEPT WITH HIM, LIKE?!) I was done. I felt as if the author was trying to somehow justify Pen's actions, and make Hex seem like it was his fault because he left and didn't tell anyone when he was coming back.

Aside from the whole cheating part though, this book was okay. I loved Venice to pieces, and I'm so stoked that he met Acacia! I want a whole book about those two!

[Ella Grace Morrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book exceeded my expectations by miles after reading the first one which I hadn’t liked at all. Nevertheless I’d read the second out of obligation and I’m somewhat pleased that if did.

I finished this book in a day because of the suspenseful and alluring way it was written. Well done block, it wasn’t necessarily a ‘page-turner’ but I was always wondering what could possibly happen next. Anything could happen in these books as Blocks story didn’t have the enclosed space of a real life story or fantasy novel.

The way block writes the King bought the story up for miles it reminded me of Rhys and Feyre from the ‘À court of thrones and roses’ series. Although block didn’t build on this at all and instead killed off the king before any attachments could be made. Pen was forced to return to Hex a much more unsatisfactory relationship.

I do commend Block for her ability to take actions in her story that leave the readers in despair and characters imperfect. Pens eye and the king were the main examples I could think of. Also anyone else thing the LGBTQ+ was forced in the first and second book. Of course I’m completely accepting of the community but I don’t admire tokenism.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

CW: transphobia (type: misgendering).

Up front disclosure: I like this book less than Love in the Time of Global Warming. This is primarily because of the transphobic...thing? that happens. So at one point, Pen is thinking of sleeping with another guy, while she identifies Hex (a trans guy) as her lover. So she's already slept with a guy (Hex). There's a line about "she'd never slept with a guy before" when thinking about sleeping with the other guy. DING DING DING INCORRECT. Would've been fine if Block had written "she'd never slept with a cis* guy before". This bugged me. Not enough to ruin the entire book but your mileage may vary.

In some ways, this book is more depressing than Love in the Time of Global Warming. Poor Pen spends way more of this book in pain. Not unnecessarily - it fits the story - it's just a lot heavier than the first book. Still really good though, minus language issue mentioned above.


* Cis means "not trans". So if you were born with a vagina and you identify as a woman/girl, you're cis.

[Tea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Counting this as read even with flipping/quick reading the last 20 or so pages.

Left with too sour a taste at how Hex was treated as a trans character and Pen 'not having bedded a man before' passage. Also soured by the fact the king dude didn't back the fuck off when she was saying 'oh I still think I'm under some kind of mental spell.'

I want to like it, I'm that hungry for trans characters that have adventures and love stories that aren't conventional but this one misses marks and I'm left hurt and in the lurch. I hope Block does better and is open to hearing out readers who were hurt by this book's elements.

Can we NOT with magic + sex storylines where the reader is left wondering if what happened was consensual or not? Please for the love of everything. I'm so sick of it in fiction.