Some stories I loved some stories I wasn’t a big fan of. Overall was a fun read full of unique stories.

I received a copy of this audiobook from Netgalley and Macmillan audio. All opinions are my own!

If you are a fan of romance, you are going to want to check this collection of short stories out! With stories based on some of the best tropes in romance, by some of the best authors in the game, there are stories in this collection for every type of reader!

I think my favorite thing about this collection was how diverse these stories were! I am almost certain that any reader will be able to find themselves within the pages of this collection and will find a story that resonates with them and their experiences. There is so much depth in these stories, despite how short they each are. They really get to the heart of humanity and not just the romance aspect.

This is the kind of collection that will speak to all kinds of readers, and I would greatly encourage everyone to pick it up!

Pros: I’m generally not a reader of romance novels because they are (purposefully) predictable. However, this collection of romance short stories is a fun read! I appreciated that each story featured a different romance trope, including a fake relationship, stranded together, best friends to lovers, one bed (this one of my favorite stories!), grand romantic gesture, trapped in a confined space (this was my other favorite story!), makeover, and matchmaker.

My favorite part of this collection is that it features a group diverse of authors, which leads to a diverse collection of stories. It feels very inclusive, featuring different races, genders, and sexual orientations. I think this is wonderful for a collection aimed at young adult readers who will be able to see characters they relate to in these stories.

Readers of romance novels often ask if a book is open or closed door, but this question doesn’t really apply to these stories. The stories in this book are very chaste—think Hallmark movies that end in a kiss.

Also, this was great on audio with different narrators for the stories.

Cons: None really. I’m not a big YA fan, so this book wasn’t really for me, but that’s not a negative. I think it means that it does well what it set out to do and that people who love YA will have a great reading experience.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio, Macmillan Young Listeners for the opportunity to listen to this book.

I’ve shared this review on Goodreads and StoryGraph.
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/e676088c-54b1-47ce-8b3b-c12a11ba5b4b
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4395792660

This was an adorable collection of YA short stories. It's full of fun tropes, and I think most YA lovers should find at least one story in this collection that they love. Though I liked some more than others, each of the stories was able to make me smile at some point.

My top two favorites were Marissa Meyer and Elizabeth Eulberg which both had very fun takes on some common tropes.

I listened to the audiobook, which had nice variety in narrators across the stories. From looking through other reviews, I realized this meant by Sarah Winifred Searle's graphic short story wasn't included in the audiobook. That probably would have been difficult to translate to audio, but I may try to track down a ebook copy at some point to read that story too.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

I got this off of Netgalley, these opinions are my own. I’ve only recently started getting into anthologies because usually short stories always leave me wanting more! But lately I’ve been finding that even in so little pages they pack a beginning, middle, and ending! This was also a different experience because I got the book in audio and I’m not the biggest audio fan, I get too distracted. But I am a huge fan of romance and I pretty much love all the tropes, secret admirer, fake relationship, matchmaker, all of it! There were so many good stories in this book but my favorites were Auld Acquaintance by Caleb Roehrig and Zora In The Spotlight by Elise Bryant! Auld Acquaintance was to be honest the main reason I wanted to read this, I love Caleb Roehrig’s work! Garret and Ollie are friends who’ve made a pact that if they don’t have boyfriends by midnight on New Years Eve they will kiss each other. But then Ollie overhears someone else saying they want to kiss Ollie, he can’t let that happen! But why is that? I loved this friends to lovers trope! I enjoyed both Garret and Ollie and the story gave me all the feels! Zora In The Spotlight, Zora goes to the dance to help her friend with her ex, whether it’s get back at or get back together with Zora doesn’t know. In the meantime she sees a handsome guy, a guy who ends up doing a grand gesture for her… only it’s not actually meant for her… she looks very similar to a classmate that night… of course disaster happens! I enjoyed Zora, her friends, “Call Me Maybe Asshole” as Zora refers to him! Who doesn’t love grand gestures?! This book was filled with so many great tropes I loved it! Can’t wait to read it again, if you like romance you’ll want to check this out!

5 stars

We have suffered in a space with too few pieces of short fiction in YA, and those days are coming to a close thanks to collections like this one!

This is an outstanding anthology filled with heavy hitters in the genre, and those big names are what drew me to reading this. They all come through. Each story begins with an identified trope, and there's a solid flow of diverse perspectives and experiences running through the group. If you're drawn in by the authors, you'll be pleased. If you're drawn in by the genre, you will also be pleased.

*Readers who are able to access the audiobook SHOULD. I started reading the e-arc, and it's obviously great, but when I was approved for the audio arc, I switched over to that version. Since the authors voice their own pieces, listening to this one is pretty magical.

Folks who enjoy YA, romance, short fiction, and/or one or more of these authors will be quite fulfilled by this one. Recommended.

This is an alright book. If you are a fan of YA contemporary romance tropes then you should find this one to be exactly what you are looking for.
I’m not going to give you a breakdown of each and every story in this short story collection because, quite frankly, I really can’t recall each one perfectly. There are definitely stories of secret admirers, first love, fake relationships, friends to love, matchmaking schemes, dislike to love, that sort of thing. The usual tropes and they are well written stories by some very well known authors particularly known for this genre. Thing is, this book promises to turn these tropes on their heads! Though I didn’t really catch a lot of that going on. Maybe it was just me but these stories seemed to be told pretty much in the usual way these tropes would be told and played out. You could see what was coming, how it was coming, and how it would all end up but with stories that really were well written and a lot of fun to just let yourself fall under the spell for a little while.
I’m not sure if what was being considered as them being turned on their heads was the LGBTQ+ angles or the biracial storylines? I don’t know because they just felt so natural in both regards that I can’t imagine that would be it? I don’t know. Maybe I missed something spectacular and these stories really are all romantic tropes turned on their heads? See if you see it when you read it. I might just be an old oblivious oaf, who knows? However it works out, this is a good enough book with well written stories and worth giving a look at.
The audio, which I was generally granted an ARC to via Netgalley, was really good and made this an even more enjoyable experience. The stories have different narrators so you can go from one story to the next easily knowing when one ends and the other begins without any doubts. The voices are terrific and really bring the characters, angst, and young-ness to life as you go along.

Thank you so much to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for the ARC of this audiobook!