I think I’ve decided the perfect thing to read during the month of November—when I’m busier working on Nanowrimo—is short stories. When I was approved to read the advance copy of this collection, I knew I wanted to read it now, as opposed to closer to the publishing date in January. Not only is it a collection of convenient short stories, each one features a story inspired by a romantic trope. And I love tropes. Some of my favorites are included here.

I loved that this one was so diverse, that it took most of the tropes and twisted them, making them new, and it even included a graphic novel short story, which was an unexpected bonus! The only author from this collection that I’ve previously read is Marissa Meyer, although I have Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy and When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon waiting on my bookshelf. But I also discovered some new authors to check out, as well. Which is another reason I like to pick up anthologies.

As with most short story collections, I enjoyed some stories more than others. I’ll be sharing my star rating and a few thoughts I jotted down as I read each story. I think a collection of short stories based on tropes is such a fun idea. Now I’d like one for the adult romance genre, as well. Maybe holiday-themed?? Come on publishers!

“Bye, Bye, Piper Perry” (The Fake Relationship) by Julie Murphy

This was a cute fake-dating story. The characters were solid, but the plot was a bit too predictable. I gave this one 3.25 stars!

“Anyone Else But You” (Stranded Together) by Leah Johnson

Cute stranded-together story! Who hasn’t fantasized about spending a night locked in a store? With someone, of course. Not alone. I enjoyed watching Perry grow past her assumptions about Jada, and letting down her guard. 3.25 stars!

“The Idiom Algorithm” (Class Warfare) by Abigail Hing Wen

Sweet story, I liked Tan and Winter a lot, but I wish we’d had more time to get to know them. I enjoyed the algorithm aspect! This one is set at Christmas, which was fun. 3.25 stars!

“Auld Acquaintance” (The Best Friend Love Epiphany) by Caleb Roehrig

Super cute and funny! Finally, two characters I was really rooting for. Set at a lock-in on New Year’s Eve, Ollie and Garrett are determined to find boys to kiss at midnight. I gave this one 4 stars!

“Shooting Star” (One Bed) by Marissa Meyer

I was pretty curious how Meyer would handle the One Bed trope for YA, but she made it work! And even managed to make this short story feel like a slow-burn. I gave this one 4.25 stars!

“Keagan’s Heaven on Earth” (The Secret Admirer) by Sarah Winifred Searle

This is the graphic novel short story set at Valentine’s. It’s very cute with great illustrations, but it’s super short. I gave this one 3.5 stars!

“Zora in the Spotlight” (The Grand Romantic Gesture) by Elise Bryant

I liked how the grand romantic gesture wasn’t what I expected or with the expected outcome. It also had a cute ending! 3.5 stars!

“In a Blink of the Eye” (Trapped in a Confined Space) by Elizabeth Eulberg

Cute twist on the trope. I thought it was well-done, creative, and sweet. AND it’s set in London. 4 stars!

“Liberty” (The Makeover) by Anna-Marie Mclemore

I fully expected to not like this one when I started it. I don’t typically care too much for The Makeover Trope OR stories about cheerleaders, but this one was creative and fresh. I liked that at its heart it was about being your true self. Very inspiring. I liked how the author utilized the definitions for the cheer moves throughout the story. 4 stars!

“The Surprise Match” (The Matchmaker) by Sandhya Menon

This one was fun! Probably the one that made me smile and chuckle the most. Sweet twist on the matchmaker trope. 4.25 stars!

Thank you to the publisher, Feiwel & Friends, and Netgalley for providing me with an advance copy.

So, I was nervous about this at first. I don’t normally do short story collections. Usually too many of the stories don’t vibe with me.
That wasn’t the case this time. All the stories were well written and interesting.. but maybe I’m biased because I’m a sucker for all the romance tropes. Anyway, it’s a good little book to take with you when you need a quick read.

Review will be up on my bookstagram account, @meetcuteromancebooks closer to pub date. This anthology has so many of my favorite authors and it was a fun, quick read!!

A more in-depth review will be on my blog soon but I wanted to leave a quick short one here first. When I saw Marissa Meyer’s name and just knew I had to get my hands on this book before even knowing what it was about. She’s a top 3 author for me so when I received this I squealed! I want to thank Morgan Rath from Macmillan for sending me an e-ARC for this book. Normally, I’m not one for anthologies, but hearing about this book when I attended Marissa’s Gilded Zoom tour had me super excited and interested in checking it out. I’m not going to lie while I so wanted to read this because of Marissa, this group of stories honestly surprised me! The premise of it being on ten different romance tropes enamored me! There was a story based around the fake relationship, best friend love epiphany, one bed, etc. The authors were chosen for the project delivered well-written light, fluffy, and fun stories. It was a super cute fast read overall. There was only one story I didn’t fall in love with that had me practically skip halfway in and that was Anyone Else But You. Other than that I loved them all so for me to love 9/10 is really something! I’d definitely rate this 4.5 stars and recommend it for anyone who is super into fluffy YA romance!

This was super cute! I liked pretty much all of the stories, which is rare for an anthology. Definitely recommend this to anyone who likes fluffy YA reads.

In general I like these short story YA collections but they don’t circulate well at our library and there are other collections I’ve liked better.

I've got to say, this is my favorite collection of short stories I've ever read. I like short stories, but I always feel like whenever I read a collection, there's usually a pretty even split of stories I really like and stories that I find "meh" (and sometimes ones I straight up don't like). This is the first YA short story collection that I've read where I have thoroughly enjoyed every single story in it. They were so fun to read and easy to breeze through, definitely perfect for YA romance fans.

Romance stories are notorious for the myriad of tropes often sprinkled throughout them. They can be cheesy sometimes, but if you're like me, they're also a guilty pleasure that you enjoy reading. Each story in this collection is based off of a specific trope, from the fake relationship to the one bed trope to being trapped in a confined space. What's cool is these stories take these tropes and use them in imaginative and unexpected ways, making them even more fun. This collection is full of amazing diverse love stories, many written by some of my favorite authors, like Marissa Meyer, Elise Bryant, and Sandhya Menon.

It's definitely difficult to pick favorite stories because so many of them were so good. If I had to pick a top favorite, it would probably be "In A Blink Of The Eye" by Elizabeth Eulberg, featuring the trapped in a confined space trope. The way she used this trope was just so unexpected to me, but also so well done. This story features a lot of sass, some secret pining, and geeking out over popular British monuments. Eulberg is a new author to me, and now I can't wait to see what else she's written. Marissa Meyer is definitely one of my favorite authors ever, and I loved her story "Shooting Stars," a take on the one bed trope. Another creative an unexpected take, this story features embarrassing one's self in front of a crush, camping adventures, and a senior class trip these characters sure won't forget. My final favorite to spotlight has to be by the lovely Elise Bryant. "Zora in the Spotlight" features the grand romantic gesture trope. This story features failing to save a best friend from herself, a flash mob, and crying in the parking lot. We also have multiple grand gestures, both of which take interesting turns. Definitely fun to read about.

As honorable mentions, there's also "Keagan's Heaven on Earth," which is the first I've seen of a graphic novel styles short (which is super cool), "Auld Acquaintance" with two guys who are the absolute cutest best friends to lovers, and "The Surprise Match" which features a 10 Things I Hate About You style rendition of "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You." Like I said, I loved every story in this book.

I definitely recommend it for any fans of YA romance. Whether you want to embrace your love of tropes or see if these twists can get you into them, each of these stories are adorable, funny, and will make you excited about love!

I'm unsure how to write a review about each and every short story without taking up ten pages, so I'll just make general comments and critiques:
As promised, all of the shorts displayed unique takes on popular tropes such as fake dating and best-friend love epiphany. A significant amount of the stories are queer, as well. Several of the love interests had me swooning while some had me cringing; there's definitely something to appeal to everyone's different tastes, which is a plus! Anyone can find a short story they like in the SERENDIPITY collection.
However, most of these had the amateur-contemporary-writer feel to them, and I know you know what I mean by that. Telling rather than showing, not-like-other-girls protagonists, etc. The stories themselves were enjoyable, but several of the stories' writing left something to be desired, which kept me from being as absorbed as I could have been. It is hard to develop characters in shorter segments, so there is some leeway, but the other stories managed to pull it off while keeping their writing rich and professional--proof that it can be done. It could just be a trait of writing style, but it came across to me as a lack of effort, which did take away from my experience as a reader.
Overall I really enjoyed this, though. For those who take frequent breaks reading or have a short attention span, you have the opportunity here to simply read a short story instead of a chapter without having to worry about storing information in your head in between. The stories are heartwarming and adorable, and I can't wait for you all to get a taste of them.

This contemplation of short stories utilizes various romance tropes which offer a bit of romance for everyone. There were a few stories that I would even have hoped to be expanded. The comic strip style was difficult to view on the e-book but I feel it would translate well in a print copy. Overall, the short stories were all easy to read, enjoyable, and kept my attention. I would suggest this for teen girls who might be more reluctant to read as the stories are brief while also providing an entertaining plot.

When I first read the synopsis for this and saw that it was an anthology of short stories each based on a different romance trope, I was immediately interested. I love a good trope, I think they’re so fun!
There was really great diversity represented throughout the collection in the stories, characters and authors. This ranged from many different sexual orientations, races and religions.
I’ve had the pleasure of reading a few amazing YA anthologies this year and this book now gets to join that group! I love that these were spins on “traditional” tropes with diverse couples, allowing more readers to see themselves represented in literature.
There were so many authors included in this collection that I already loved and I'm looking forward to checking out more works by the authors I wasn't familiar with previously!
Thank you to NetGalley, the authors and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

So I definitely should not have started this because the moment I did I just didn't want to put it down. I was also procrastinating my own short story writing assignment for school as I just happily finished this instead. I really enjoyed these stories and would love to end up getting my own finished copy of the book when it comes out. All the stories were so sweet and made me really happy, which was something I needed right now. I can't wait to check out more from some of these authors in the future.

I would read absolutely anything with Marissa Meyer’s name on it, so when I saw that she was editing a collection of short stories, I was stoked! Serendipity is a collection of 10 short stories that each play on a different romance trope. The authors who contributed include Marissa Meyer herself, Julie Murphy, Leah Johnson, Abigail Hing Wen, Caleb Roehrig, Sarah Winifred Searle, Elise Bryant, Elizabeth Eulberg, Anna-Marie McLemore, and Sandhya Menon. With a line-up like that, I knew I would find at least a few great stories!

It can be difficult to review a collection of short stories because each story can be rated individually, but also collectively. As a whole, I would say the book fell a little short of my expectations. The subtitle of the novel claims that the romantic tropes are transformed, but most of the stories didn’t add anything new or unexpected to these common tropes.

On the other hand, I felt like there was quite a bit of diversity within the stories, which I greatly appreciated! Many of the stories were queer, and I certainly think we need more stories that represent queer people.

My average rating for all the stories was 3 stars, but I had a few 2 star and some 4 star stories also. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel like any of the stories were 5 stars because most of them didn’t put a twist on the romantic trope in their story, and some were also forgettable.

I would say my top two short stories in the novel were “Shooting Stars” by Marissa Meyer and “Liberty” by A.M. McLemore. I’m not sure what I can divulge in my review, but Marissa Meyer’s trope is one of my all-time favorites, and it was written in a surprising and fun way. Similarly, A.M. McLemore’s story was so endearing and I like the way they incorporated cheerleading into the story. Both Marissa and Anna-Marie embraced the “twist” on their romance tropes more than any of the other authors in my opinion.

“In the Blink of the Eye” by Elizabeth Eulberg was also great, but I didn’t particularly care for the ending. Essentially, the MC didn’t end up with who I wanted her to end up with, and it was strange that feelings she had felt for years literally switched to the opposite feelings within minutes.

On the flipside, my bottom two stories were “The Idiom Algorithm” by Abigail Hing Wen and “Auld Acquaintances” by Caleb Roherig. I felt like “The Idiom Algorithm” didn’t really make a lot of sense. Maybe with a longer story, the author could have changed that, but it felt rushed and random. I also didn’t really connect with the MCs in “Auld Acquaintances” and didn’t particularly care for the plot. Admittedly, that trope is not one of my favorites.

Overall, most of the stories were pretty good, and I definitely think this novel is worth reading! It was a quick read that literally put a smile on my face. I’m all here for the sappy love stories!

I really loved this! The short story format is USUALLY not my favorite but with each new story I was drawn in and really engaged. I think Elise Bryant had my favorite story in the bunch, no big surprise. I loved the use of tropes and twisting things around that was done and all-in-all every story was cute, fun, and a delight to read. I would highly recommend this book for all ages but it could definitely be a great example in a Romance Lit class or YA Lit class, especially with the tropes. I could see it being a great basis for an assignment or short story encouraging writers to creatively use these tropes.

This was a sweet little anthology. I think it would be great to give to young romance readers - a taste of common tropes to help them expand as readers. Great representation of LQBTQIA, cultures, social classes.

I look forward to adding it to my classroom library.

*ARC through Netgalley

Soooo my bias is strong with this book. A young adult anthology based entirely on romantic tropes? Edited by Marissa Meyer? It's everything I could ever want and more.

Bias aside, this book is a perfect, fluffy, heartwarming read. Each story takes its own spin on a popular romantic trope and gives it new life in a contemporary setting (Is it a surprise that my favorite was Meyer's take on the One Bed trope?). There were stories featuring authors and characters of different racial/cultural backgrounds, sexualities, and gender identities, creating an organically diverse and beautiful anthology. It's the kind of book that makes you smile on an otherwise really bad day.

Five Stars may be a tad bit excessive, but this book was that splendid king of soul-restoring read I needed. A perfect collection of stories for anyone who needs a little more romantic joy in their life.

This is a fun read. Which romantic trope is your favorite? There is a great variety here for everyone, and they’re written by some of your fave YA writers. I’m definitely handing this to teens looking for a good romance.

This is the perfect read if you are looking for something quick, fun, and heartwarming!! I have been looking for a book that would warm my heart and every story in this book did just that! The character development and unique voices given to each individual character in these short stories is so authentic and enjoyable that you cannot help but lose yourself in their stories. Safe to say that now I have a new list of authors to read books from!! Highly recommend!

What a delightful way to spend an afternoon! Filled with our favorite romantic tropes, this anthology collects the classic rom-com situations that we all love and wraps them in a delightful YA bow! Each story has a unique and beautiful message, and of course a happily ever after.

This was a cute YA romance anthology where each story is based on a romance trope. I was hoping for the stories to have more of a twist but aside from updating some of the tropes with LGBTQ+ characters there wasn't. Still a light and enjoyable read.

I don’t usually read anthologies because the changing styles makes it hard for me to stay invested but I love romance and some of my favorite authors were involved in this one. I loved it. Since it is based on tropes it is super cheesy but in the best way. The stories were adorable and the characters were inclusive and likable. I would highly recommend to anyone who likes YA romance.