What a charming short story collection! Lately have been feeling burned out by both YA and story collections, yet this series of interconnected tales kept me interested, amused, and charmed. Usually I put "standouts" in a review, which can mean anything from "these are the only stories I liked" to "these were the best of a good bunch," but the best thing about this collection is that it's so SOLID. Every story is equally as good as the next, whether about love, family, or a singing fish plaque.

Rated 4.75 stars on Storygraph

Wow, what a fantastic , queer, interconnected anthology!

Why on Earth is a series of interconnected short stories, wrapped up in one anthology. The book starts with aliens preparing to land on Earth/Terra with the intent to rescue Captain Iona’s brother Max from the Terrans. Max went on a 3-month mission to the planet 5 years ago, and is obviously being held against his will as he has become a famous boy band member and movie star. But the landing goes wrong, and the young aliens (who definitely shouldn’t have snuck out of their houses to fly to Terra), get scattered across the U.S.

The stories that follow are a series of interconnected events about the aliens’ encounters with humans, and human encounters with the aliens. They’re queer, written by a diverse group of authors, and it was a genuinely fun read! Themes of hope, fitting in, loving yourself, loving others, joy, humanity, and (found) family appear in lots of these stories.

My ONLY hang back from giving this book a full 5 stars is that I wanted one more story: we started with all of the aliens together on the ship, and I would have liked a conclusion to the anthology to be a story of all the aliens coming back together and figuring out what happens next. It would have been such a nice little wrap up to the whole thing!

I highly recommend this anthology, and I need to give a HUGE thank you to the publisher for sending me a physical ARC and an eARC in exchange for an honest review. A thank you to NetGalley for the eARC as well.

DNF at 40%

The premise is the best thing about this. I liked Julian Winter's entry in the anthology but the rest have fallen flat thus far.

I read this aloud to my 14y/o, the rating is an average of the total score they gave each story (44) divided by the number of stories (11).

This is the sort of anthology that can either really work, or really doesn't, where each of the stories really contributes to the theme as a whole. Here we have a group of teen-equivalent aliens on an unsanctioned mission to Earth to rescue one of their own. The landing doesn't go as hoped, escape pods are cast off, and each crew member ends up in a different location.

We kept yelling at them every time they revealed themselves to a new human (bc we suck and why would you take that chance) and also laughed a lot at how many of the stories seemed to revolve around the human kids hoping to get scholarships to escape their hometowns.

While we really did enjoy almost the whole thing (only one story was a dud in our opinion, but the 14y/o wouldn't let me skip it in case it was important later), the following were their favourites:

"Prologue: No Strangers to Love" by Vanya Stoyanova and Rosiee Thor - "This was a lot of fun, a great intro, and I LOVED the use of Rick Astley."

"Username: I'm An Actual Human" by Eric Smith - "I love everything about this story, it was so fun and funny, and I want to be Dexin's online friend."

"Parts of a System" by SJ Whitby - "I knew I was going to love this bc I LOVE SJ Whitby, but I wasn't prepared for how MUCH I loved it. I haven't really come across too many stories featuring enbies who were socialized male, so that was really cool. Find out if anyone has recommendations for that, please?"

We will be checking out a few of the other authors' works, and recommending this as a purchase for our local library.

A wonderful anthology that has plenty of humor, heartfelt moments, and found family. I love that every story feeds into the large story. It's impossible to pick my favorite story. I am thankful for the opportunity to read such a well orchestrated book that explores real human (and alien) emotions. We need more books like this one.

So much fun! I loved this shared story anthology about genderqueer aliens going on a rescue mission to Earth only to be separated from each other when the ship crashes. Various teens are impacted by the crash and share a connection with the aliens. I loved how queer this was, which I definitely wasn't expecting. I recognized a few of the contributor names and am delighted to add more to my TBR based on these stories. My only issue is I wish we would have gotten a glimpse of the reunion of the crew.

This book was such a delightful surprise. I don't think I've ever read an anthology before where each story is part of the larger narrative. All the stories are quick and engaging, the concept is a ton of fun, and the pacing never slows. A great pick for reluctant readers.

Why on Earth is such a cool book. Someone create a movie based on this book! Omg so so good. I rated it 5 stars because I couldn't give it more.

Thank you Page Street and Netgalley for this eARC, these opinions are my own. I love this type of Anthology where all the short stories come together to build a larger story! Iona and her crew are on a mission to rescue her brother. He’s been on Earth for 5 years, she’s worried that he may be being held against his will. Well probably… he is a famous singer/actor on Earth… but still he can’t want to stay there. However, when there ship is going to crash on entry, they have to escape via the pods and the crew is scattered across America. Now they have to safe Max and get back to their ship all before midnight. And for the humans, they now have proof of alien life. Is this the beginning of the invasion? What do they want? Stories told from human and alien perspectives! A wonderfully queer story told from so many fun points of view! I love that the aliens are all genderqueer too! A sci-fi full of romance, adventure, and figuring out who you are! An enjoyable read that you won’t want to put down!