What? "Normal storytelling?" Link, is that you?

There's something about Link's writing style in a few of these that soothes me after I get upset yet again at the lack of explanation, resolution, etc. You can't stay mad when someone gives us a t-shirt that says, "I'm so goth I shit tiny vampires."

Her voice is so conversational, so confident. She's omnipotent in her tales, and boy, does she know it. She can maintain a sense of humor that keeps me laughing out loud. ["...as if the couch had just escaped from a maximum security prison for criminally insane furniture."] In stories such as "Some Zombie Contingecy Plans" and "Magic for Beginners," she is the girl who just gets everything weird about the world, and is artfully summing up whole novels or universes to you right before class starts.

That being said, I really liked "Magic for Beginners." I think. There are normal troubles within a suburban family going on through the story (Jeremy is a misfit, loves his not-perfect family, etc.), which is a bit unsettling after reading her other works. I thought Link's tales focused on enigmatic people or the state of relationships that are doomed to never be normal (by human standards, I mean)? But this was a pretty normal story. Except as we move toward the end. The drop-off ending still gives me a little bit of an upset stomach, though, even after our class disscussion. Like, I fell asleep while reading a normal teen-angst novel, and had a kooky dream about it. But I woke up waaaaay too early, and now I just want Link to let me go back to sleep and see more. Link is all about secrets, and some part of me feels this short story was a let-in on a secret, somehow. "Want to see exactly how your hero from a television show I created was saved from certain doom, since the plot holes never told? Well, it's an interesting story, actually. It involves that kid, Jeremy Mars. I think you have English class with him..."