Firstly than you to Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for giving me a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. I really wanted to love this one but the stories didn't pull me in as much as I hoped they would. College age books are tough to get right and unfortunately this one didn't for me.

I really enjoyed these college stories, but I wish that I would’ve had one novel surrounding one main character, I really enjoyed the representation in this book as well. Definitely some authors I want to follow along with in the future.

The anthology STUDY BREAK, edited by Aashna Avachat is a smart anthology of short stories. With its college setting and all of the stories taking place at the same school, it offers a broad range of perspectives, both through its characters and the authors os the stories. I especially love the setup--giving writers a common setting and timeframe--so much that I want to do a much smaller project with some of my writing students. This is going to make an excellent mentor text!

5/5 ⭐️

I did not expect to love this as much as I did! All of the stories were amazingly well written and surprisingly made me feel a little less anxious about college. I’m unsure if college is the route I want to go down and if I do decide to go to college this made me feel just a little less anxious. This is an anthology full of friendship, possible romances, exploring who are and who you want to be. It reassures you that, “Sure college students look like they no what they’re doing but they really don’t.”

I think my favorite story in the anthology was January Rani’s Resolutions by Atsushi Avachat. I was so drawn in and it ended on a cliff hanger so I’m just craving more.

This is possibly one of my favorite anthologies that I’ve read so far and I highly recommend. It comes out in March so add it to your TBR and keep an eye for when it comes out!

College is an under-utilized setting in literature. These authors took something that was needed and made it amazing. Each story is unique and wonderful.

I think this story involves a very good insight to the reality of college. Also, I find it interesting that this book specifically focuses on perspectives related to short stories written by Generation Z

As a current college student that has been searching for books set in college that could actually reflect my own weird way of going through college and all that comes with it, I am so thankful that I got a chance to read Study Break in advance. The authors in this anthology are truly amazing at not only weaving their stories and characters through the fictional college, but all have such a strong sense of relatability that is for some reason so hard to find with explicit gen-z characters. The conversations feel honest. The situations are relatable and realistic, some are even ones I have experienced down to a profs name which was weird tbh (shoutout Racquel Marie, it is scary how much I relate to all of your stories). This book doesn't only show the positives of college either. They talk about the sucky parts, about how sometimes it takes a really long time to find your group, ab0ut how lonely it can be, and even about the transfer experience which is also an experience that I share. Overall, I LOVED this anthology with my whole heart. If you are looking for more YA books set in college that is filled with a perfect mix of swoon-worthy moments and emotional talks, Study Break is for you!!

This book would have been exactly what I wanted back when I was starting college, finding myself in a world outside of my siblings, friends, and hometown. It was modern, fun, realistic, and charming. It’s been a few years since I was graduating high school and first thinking of college, but this book totally brings me back and gives me the butterflies of walking through a campus that you know will soon become a new home. Would definitely recommend to anyone in that age range, or just anyone looking to reminisce and get transported back in time through the lens of another!

I thought this was an amazing read! Personally, I'm a big fan of interconnected stories, and this book was so fun to see all of the characters have intersecting plots with one another. This was a great YA book set in college, I'd recommend it for sure!

Thank you to the authors of these stories, NetGalley, the FierceReads team, and the publisher for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I can not believe how much my cheeks hurt from smiling while reading this book. For someone that struggles with enjoying anthologies, I found myself constantly thinking about this and picking it up, I don't think I've read many college stories that weren't mainly a romance and mostly set at a college. As a current college student. I could understand and relate to the each of the characters. There were moments where I was like "SAME!!" or had flashbacks to something similar happening to me. I know how it feels to contemplate whether I should stay on campus to get the "best years of your life college experience" or go home, how I feel like a burden on my friends or like I'm not fitting in with them as we're finding ourselves, questioning my identity and sexuality, panic attacks and bawling uncontrollably thinking my whole life would blow up over one exam... I've felt it all. I loved the diversity and representation (LGBTQ+, race and ethnicity) included in the stories, it was refreshing and exciting to read. Also, the representation felt naturally included and not forced.

My two complaints (but not really complaints?) is I wasn't a fan of how some of the stories seemed to have ended or "resolved" with a romance and the pop culture references. I don't recall this book being marketed as romance or heavily featuring romance so I was surprised to read many stories with it. Even though getting into a relationship in college is likely, I felt that some of the stories would have been fine without it. For example, "Ruby" could have ended with Ruby sending that email because that seemed like the best resolution for the conflict she was experiencing. The romance felt like it was just added on and unnecessary. If I had known in advance that the romance would be heavy, I don't think I would have been as surprised or bored with romance continuously popping up in the stories. I don't usually mind pop culture references however, sometimes they can feel heavy-handed or old depending on the story. In Study Break, I enjoyed the pop culture references however, some stories included many and I can see how quickly this may age the book if someone were to read it 5-10 years down the road. Despite these two things, I would absolutely read another book set in college written like this.

Overall Rating: 3.75

Individual Story Ratings:
Catch You on the Quad 3*
The Ultimate Guide to Orientation 4* As someone that constantly makes plans and checklists, I FELT that.
Shofar, So Good 4*
Fall Once More 5* LOOOOOVED
Powder 3*
Sophomore Slump 4*
The Final Countdown 4*
Rani's Resolutions 3*
Heavy Rotation 3*
Ruby 5* without the romance. Not me currently contemplating changing my major in my junior year...
Momo's Epic Rescue 3*
Begin Again 4*

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of "Study Break" in exchange for an honest review. This was great - and I will recommend it to others. This collection is wonderful and the different perspectives and voices that it is comprised of is important.

Study Break is the perfect read for literally anyone who has graduated from college recently or is currently in college. With several different stories from several different authors, you really get to see what it’s like to be on a college campus in the 2020’s, something that is very sorely missing from fiction novels these days. Each story follows a different character but all of them are connected via the University, and some are connected by friends of friends of the characters. This is a phenomenal anthology that covers everything from parties, to belonging, to heartbreak, and dating in college.

Side note: I met my partner on Hinge during my junior year of college and there’s a storyline revolving around two people meeting on Hinge and I just couldn’t stop smiling during that story.

This was a wonderful anthology. I do not see many stories about college, let alone many within that age group that have any diversity whatsoever.

However, a lot of the stories concerned the same issues and for almost all of them the solution was the protagonist starting to date someone, which isn't a real solution in bigger life altering situations. A lot of the stories ended up feeling a little shallow because of this. As it frequently happens with short stories, they at times felt rushed or unfinished -- one of the stories ended on an ellipses.

Overall, this was a necessary, fun read, even if it felt a little under baked at times.

Now for a little overview stats of the stories individually:

Catch You On The Quad [All three acts of the poem] - ⭐⭐⭐
The Ultimate Guide To Orientation - ⭐⭐⭐.5
Shofar, So Good - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Fall Once More - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Powder - ⭐⭐⭐
Sophomore Slump - ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
The Final Countdown - ⭐⭐⭐.5
Rani's Resolutions - ⭐⭐ (this is the one that ends with the ellipses)
Heavy Rotation - ⭐⭐⭐
Ruby - ⭐⭐⭐ (was going great until the solution was to find a date)
Momo's Epic Rescue - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Begin Again - ⭐⭐⭐

Reading this as someone who works in Higher Education, I really enjoyed the different view points of the college experience. The authors hit various different stages of being a new student to joining clubs to losing some of the first friends one meets at campus and ends with graduation. I would definitely recommend this to many of my students. I love how diverse the students were and how they connected throughout the various stories. I will be purchasing a hard copy to have in my office and put one in our Little Free Library!

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan for the ARC.

I LOVE THIS ANTHOLOGY SO MUCH!!!! This is the best YA anthology I've read in a while. I would read any of these stories as full length novels. I am so excited to promote Study Break on all of my social media platforms and my blog. I highly recommend Study Break - I am a college student and this is my first year and this book made me feel a little less alone and afraid.

This was probably one of the most unique anthologies I've ever read! I'm in awe of how talented this group of young writers is. Each story is encapsulates the college experience perfectly, and as a senior in college, this made me reflect on my university experience and even made me wish I could go back to freshman year and do it all over again.

Out of all the stories included, Racquel Marie and Laila Sabreen's stories probably hit home for me the most. As a member of the class of 2023, my college experience was interrupted due to COVID pretty early on, and I never felt like I got that perfect, life-changing college experience that everyone talks about. However, these authors' characters were definitely the most relatable as a reader.

My only two critiques is that some of the stories ended so abruptly, which was such a bummer, because they seemed really interesting! In my opinion, these abrupt endings unfortunately also interrupted the character development that was occurring in the story. There were also a couple of short stories that had slightly cringey, overly formal dialogue to the point where in my head I couldn't even distinguish that these characters were supposed to be Gen Z.

Otherwise, if you're a college student, prospective student, or recent grad looking for a short and sweet story that dives into a variety of college experiences, definitely check Study Break out!

Study Break is the second YA anthology I have read this year (Fools in Love being the other) that nearly entirely features stories about LGBTQIA and gender-fluid characters. If you are looking for fiction that includes a diverse cast of characters in which the majority of them are not heterosexual and cisgender, then you may find much to love about Study Break, which includes 11 stories set on a fictional college campus taking place over the course of a school year. Unfortunately, I personally do not generally enjoy LGBTQIA fiction, and am finding that YA anthologies are now leaning more often toward entirely featuring diverse relationships and non-binary characters. which is not for me, although I can recommend them to those who they are. Content aside, I know that this anthology features burgeoning authors, but it unfortunately also reads that way. These stories felt one-track and underdeveloped, not to mention underwhelming.

This review will be published on The Wellesley News website in the coming weeks! I'll update my review with a link when it's up.

It is always incredibly cool seeing how a book actually comes to be, but the story of “Study Break” is one that could only have happened with a book like this: it all started on Twitter.
Over a year ago, Camryn Garrett tweeted that she wanted more YA books set in college. Ananya Devarajan quote tweeted it with a concept: an anthology of intertwining college-set stories. It got … a lot of likes.
And then it became real, an actual collection of stories written by current or recently-graduated college students and edited by Aashna Avachat. To me, watching from the sidelines, it was like magic. I nearly screamed when Ananya sneakily told me about it before it was announced officially. I screamed more when I finally read it.
“Study Break” follows a bunch of students at the fictional University of Milbridge, a college of indeterminate size at an indeterminate place in the US. The stories are arranged in chronological order, one happening in every month (except two in December), bookended with poetry by Oyin (the pen name for acquiring editor Foyinsi Adegbonmire). Characters sometimes make recurring appearances in various stories, which all have heartwarming coming-of-age themes.
I loved every story in this collection, which is extremely rare for a short story anthology; there are usually at least a few that aren’t for me. Maybe that’s just because I know almost every author who contributed a story to this, or maybe it’s also because it was acquired by my editor, and I know that makes me incredibly biased, but at this point, I don’t think anyone expects my book reviews to be unbiased.
It’s hard for me to even point to my favorite stories. I feel like by shouting out any story in this anthology, it would do a disservice to the others because they all exist in tandem with one another, often even involving the same groups of friends. But what I will say is there’s something in here for everyone: successful (and less successful) love stories, complicated family relationships, academic crises and more. Swifties will love this book — I counted at least three Taylor Swift references.
What I think is most striking about “Study Break” is that it almost has to be as diverse as it is. Teens and young adults of marginalized identities often don’t have their big coming-of-age moments until after high school, only once they leave home for the first time, because of a variety of factors that I really do not have the space to get into. College has certainly been a big point of self-discovery for me in a much different way from my white allocishet peers, and the stories in “Study Break” reflect that experience immensely well.
Anyway, this is my public plea to the creative team behind this book: please, please let there be a second University of Milbridge book. I cannot express enough how important this book is to me.
“Study Break” comes out on March 7, 2023. Yes, I did neglect many review copies I have that are coming out much sooner in order to review this. Many thanks to the publisher (my publisher!), Feiwel & Friends, for the early copy.

As with the typical anthology, I definitely enjoyed some stories more than others. The stand-out to me, and the reason why I requested this book, was Racquel Marie's story, which I thought was so authentic and well done. I will definitely be recommending this anthology to my audience :)

This was such an amazing anthology! With lots of diversity included in terms of representation and experiences, it was so interesting to read all the stories. I also just loved the college setting and as someone who’s about to go to college, it made me a bit emotional even!

STUDY BREAK has lots of amazing messages hidden between the lines. This is probably gonna be a book I’ll reread throughout college to bring me some comfort!