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Carmen's Reviews > Meet Cute: Some People Are Destined to Meet
Meet Cute: Some People Are Destined to Meet
by more…
by more…
Carmen's review
bookshelves: american-author, jamaican-author, haitian-author, fiction, published2018, read-around-the-world-2018, she-says, short-stories, traditionally-published, ya
Mar 11, 2018
bookshelves: american-author, jamaican-author, haitian-author, fiction, published2018, read-around-the-world-2018, she-says, short-stories, traditionally-published, ya
Let's just get into this.
STORY ONE: SIEGE ETIQUETTE by Katie Cotugno
Your heart is a siren wailing deep inside your chest.
Hailey hides out with farmboy Wolf when police come to bust up her friend's party.
Some things really annoyed me about this story.
For one thing, Cotugno lets us know that there is a darkness in Hailey's life. What is it? How can we possibly be in her head and not know? I hate when authors pull this shit. The narrator has some deep, dark secret. In this case it is a secret from no one but the reader. Not sure what Cotugno is trying to accomplish with this. It's deeply annoying. And no one cares when the 'secret' is revealed near the end. Honestly, I don't give a fuck.
Secondly, this is told in second-person narration. This is going to really bother some people.
Thirdly, Hailey and Wolf don't “meet cute” exactly, they have known each other since childhood. They've gone to the same school since kindergarten. Hailey only takes an interest in Wolf when she accidentally ends up camped out with him in a bathroom during a raid.
I'd also like to point out that Hailey is not a pleasant person. This story involves cheating, Hailey has a boyfriend but has kissing with Wolf.
He's not a great kisser, unpracticed and a little spitty, but you actually don't care about that at all: there are tiny explosions going off all over your body, like sparks flying up out of a campfire. Wolf puts both hands on your face. You want to stay like this forever even even though you know it's impossible, that it's just a weird stopover, like how during the Revolutionary War the two armies took breaks and had Christmas together, then went back to shooting each other with muskets after the roasts were gone. You aren't sure where you got that fact, actually – you didn't read it in any of your dad's old books – and you don't know if it's true or just something someone made up to make the world seem less brutal. Here in this bathroom with Wolf Goshen, it feels like maybe it could possibly be real.
“I'm not breaking up with Jay,” you blurt finally, your face on fire, your whole body buzzing like a burned-out neon sign.
GREAT. Just kiss the guy, mindfuck him, and then be like, “Oh, btw, I'm not serious about any of this. Don't think I'm breaking up with my boyfriend.”
Her whole 'queen bee' schtick is pretty gross, actually.
You're already thinking about how you're going to make her life a living hell come Monday. There are some benefits to being the queen bee.
She even says some cruel things to him.
"You didn't seem to have a problem with them when you were tracking your dirty boots all over their houses and drinking their beer," you say snottily - and that's good, you think with some nasty satisfaction. That's exactly the kind of thing the old you would have said. "Back when you were doing that, they were all just fine."
So, to recap: she ends up in a dark bathroom with a boy she's never really taken any interest in, and decides to fuck around with him because
a.) (view spoiler)
Which I guess means cheating on your boyfriend in the bathroom with some rando.
b.) Her boyfriend “doesn't really listen to her.”
Still, every once in a while while you're talking you can see that he might as well be on planet Mars for everything he's actually hearing. There is something wonderful about Wolf Goshen that makes you think he'd listen for real.
Oh, yeah, great justification for cheating there. /s
c.) She's the queen bee and she enjoys having control over and fucking with other people.
”It was your dream a little bit, through, right?” you ask him, smiling a little. “To be in here with me?”
Wolf laughs at that. “Are you serious right now?” he asks, but he's BLUSHING, and you know you've won.
This girl is just very strange.
You're about to tell him he's right - that you ARE something else, and that something can be his for one night only - when you hear a familiar voice trilling out across the driveway.
o.O Okay. So... (view spoiler) have just turned you into a loose cannon that fucks random boys in dark bathrooms with reckless abandon. Which you consider “living your fucking life.” But... not wild enough to actually ditch your useless boyfriend or deal with the consequences of your actions or anything. I mean, let's not get too crazy here. o.O
I'm willing to believe having (view spoiler) would affect someone and screw them up, so perhaps Hailey's bizarre behaviors are understandable in a certain light. Not in any light I'm shining, though.
Cotugno has a strange writing style, she loves the words “scrum” and “nasty,” and she uses some strange turns of phrase.
The combination of noise and sound sets something off in you, a cold animal panic. Suddenly it feels very important to hide.
Can animal panic be cold? Sounds rather warm to me, but oh well.
You don't know if you've ever actually bothered to look at him before, like in your head he was a walking, sentient wheat stalk. That's not the impression you get now at all. His clothes are clean, if a little bit trashy: light-wash jeans and a faded T-shirt with the Ghostbusters logo on it, plus a pair of knockoff Timberland boots. His eyes are bright and intelligent and sharp. He could do okay, you think, in a place like New York City or California, where the past doesn't cling like the smell of dirty laundry.
Walking, sentient wheat stalk. Okay.
He's got his hands folded in his lap, like he's praying; he's got long fingers and round, knobby knuckles, the nails bitten way far down. You imagine them tending an animal or fixing some kind of complicated machinery, which immediately makes you feel like an idiot. God, you must be further gone than you thought.
I don't know what this means. Does this mean she's sexually / romantically fantasizing about him? Or... that she's naïve about farm work or... what?
You remember something else then, pulled from the depths of your brain like a slimy scrum of seaweed...
I like some things about this story, in theory.
You have never been the aggressor in a situation like this in your life, and you find you do not hate it.
I'd love a story where a female is the sexually assertive one. Unfortunately, this cannot be enjoyed by me since she's a.) cheating on her boyfriend and b.) using this boy like a piece of meat. So, nice try, Cotugno, but as a romance this just isn't selling me.
I also kind of liked Wolf, despite his unlikely name. Farmboy, straight-shooter, too good for Hailey's little games. He gets sucked into them anyway because... she's hot? I guess? o.O
TL;DR – Abrupt ending. No real resolution or point. Not bad writing, but not spectacular either. If you are coming at this from a ROMANCE angle, I am going to have to say this is a failure. She's cheating on this mark because she's fucked-up in the head, basically. She treats him like trash. There's no hope for a future between these two, and even Cotugno points that out. So. If you are coming at this from a FICTION angle, and not as a romance, Cotugno does marginally better. Yes, Hailey is unlikable and cruel, but it's popular to make your heroines 'flawed' nowadays. And it's not hard to believe that the event she experienced made her a little fucked-up psychologically. *shrug* I kind of like Wolf, and the part where Hailey describes what her name sounds like in his mouth is accurate, when a man (well, in this case he is a boy) says your name deliberately and it's really sexual and you get that little shiver... I know exactly what she's talking about. But, overall, 3 out of 5 stars. M/F
STORY TWO: PRINT SHOP by Nina Lacour
I chose this shop because it was the only one I could find that didn't work digitally. They didn't even have a website. Everyone is always telling my generation that we aren't going to know how to engage with people. We're all going to end up with computer chips implanted in our brains and screens stuck in our eyes like contact lenses. But no one gives us any solutions, so I decided to find my own. Plus, I wanted to learn how to make that kind of magic. Ink and metal and screens and paper. I wanted to do something with my hands.
Really boring story about a woman (this is not about teens, it's about adults) who somehow develops a crush on a woman who is blasting MC's new workplace on Twitter. Who knows why. Sounds ridiculous and unbelievable to me.
So boring. Mindcrushingly boring. 1 out of 5 stars. F/F
STORY THREE: HOURGLASS by Ibi Zoboi
In my head, I'm texting Stacy about this new boy in town who goes to Shaw County and looks like an African superhero. And he makes dresses. Stacy, he makes dresses!
This story was also pretty boring and pointless. Cherish is a 6'5” black girl who lives in a white town. She wants to go to prom, but has no one to go with. She finds out her best friend is still dating the asshole who made memes of all the black students at the school by pasting their headshots onto gorilla bodies. Yeah, real racist scumbag, right? Our love interest doesn't come in until the second-to-last page. Am I supposed to be excited by this? Zoboi doesn't give me any time to be excited or even interested.
Boring story. No point. Mediocre writing. 1 out of 5 stars. M/F
STORY FOUR: CLICK by Katharine McGee
All the "dates" Alexa had ever been on (she used the term loosely) had involved the computer lab or peanut M&M's or sex; or on a good night, all three.
This is another story about adults over the age of 18. Alexa joins “Click,” a new dating site.
The moment Alexa joined the service, it swept the Web with surgical precision, finding every last trace of her digital presence: her Facebook posts, the scans of her high school yearbooks, every item she'd purchased or commented on or "liked." Click compiled it all, a web of lingering digital fingerprints...
When the man she's supposed to meet approaches her at the restaurant, she's intimidated. Could this smooth, confident guy really be interested in her!? Raden has his doubts as well.
Except he knew he wouldn't have talked to Alexa if it weren't for Click. She was nothing like the girls he normally went for, with their dangly earrings and loud voices, wearing short dresses in primary colors.
That's... oddly specific. o.O
Even though this isn't an amazing story, IMO, at least it is mildly interesting. 3 out of 5 stars. M/F
STORY FIVE: THE INTERN by Sara Shepard
Lame story about a 17-year-old who meets a rock star who INSTANTLY falls for her. Yeah, if you are rolling your eyes already, we are on the same page. They just “have a connection” and “understand each other” and he “sees her as a volcanic goddess.”
”You are Pele. You just don't know it.”
And he stops mid-song to run offstage after her when she leaves a concert in tears. YOU KNOW. This kind of story.
Shepard's writing isn't terrible, but it isn't particularly amazing, either.
A tall guy had materialized in front of me. He had a yellow-and-maroon scarf wrapped around his neck - very Harry Potter. His wild, thick, blue-black hair was cut in choppy peaks that ended at his pointy chin, and his wide-set brown eyes were framed with the longest lashes I'd ever seen. His expression - an appealing mix of awkwardness, cleverness, and kindness.
2 out of 5 stars. M/F
STORY SIX: SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN by Meredith Russo
Lexie didn't actually care about fashion. She wore nothing but hoodies, cardigans, and T-shirts from church. Lexie DID like girls, though, and this was the only safe way to look at them without her parents catching on immediately, though she doubted they would believe she had any interest in haute couture. Still, the women in these photos, with their high chins and their dark eyes and their movements like hunting cats, seemed more like drawings than real people, like something out of a story come to life. They felt like the guardians of a life she wanted but could never have, a dream she would bottle and hang from the rafters of her heart with bits of twine as she grew up and found a husband and started a family. Looking at them made her soul sing and groan all at once, and she couldn't stop.
This story is about a transgirl named Nia who is fighting to use the girl's bathroom in her school. The love interest here is a born-again blonde with strict fundamental parents who is secretly a lesbian (Lexie).
This story was too far-fetched and dramatic for me. Might be perfect for teenagers, but as an adult reading it I was rolling my eyes a lot. Russo sure lays on the Dawson's Creek-type drama here. I mean... could things be any more extreme? And seventeen-year-olds... I'm supposed to believe, in this story, that Lexie – in one single day – is fine with (view spoiler)I'm sorry, no. Just... no. If maybe we had a whole book to show a slow transitioning of Lexie from someone who is a closeted lesbian, resigned to the horrible fate of being forced to marry a man, have kids, and pretend to be straight for her entire life to someone who is (view spoiler) then I could maybe wrap my head around it, but the way it is presented, NO.
I understand what Russo is trying to do here. The juxtaposition of a blonde, shy, private, fundamentalist, born-again Christian who is a secret lesbian getting together romantically and sexually with a transgender POC girl who is very loud and outspoken is tempting. I can understand the appeal of these two very different people getting together, but it is SO UNREALISTIC that I can't tolerate it. I'm supposed to believe Lexie is just suddenly, after ONE DAY, perfectly fine with (view spoiler)
I mean, no. I don't believe that. I don't believe any of that shit. It's completely unrealistic, and why I can except some unrealism in my romance, this is too crazy. The short story format also really limits Russo here. She just throws in a few lines about how Nia thinks Lexie has a cute face (even though Lexie is going on TV denouncing Nia's right to use the girls' bathroom!) and a line about how Lexie thinks Nia's skin is soft and she smells good. I'm like, WHAT?! o.O Sorry, this is all way to rushed and sudden for me.
Also, this writing was annoying me.
Lexie balled her fists and looked down at her shoes, alarm bells ringing everywhere as anxiety inscribed itself into her flesh.
Or look at this:
(view spoiler)
Ugh.
I'm also supposed to reconcile that the male (the straight, confident, popular 17-year-old) says stuff like, “Can you blame him? [Nia's] hot.” is the same guy who refers to Nia in the story as “the transgender.” Not “the transgender girl” or “the transwoman” or “the transgirl” but as “the transgender” like she's a dog or an animal or a weird creature. o.O What...? So, he's respectful enough to refer to Nia as “she,” not to mention confident enough at 17 to declare a transgender woman “hot” out loud in public... but then also just demeans her by casually referring to her as “the transgender” in conversation?! IDK, this seems weird to me. That the same person in the same conversation would have such a disconnect is bizarre to me.
Well, anyway. I had a lot of problems with this story, some that might have been solved by making it into a full-length novel but some I think even a full novel wouldn't solve. 2 out of 5 stars. F/F (transwoman) (only story with transgendered protagonist)
REVIEW CONTINUED IN COMMENTS
STORY ONE: SIEGE ETIQUETTE by Katie Cotugno
Your heart is a siren wailing deep inside your chest.
Hailey hides out with farmboy Wolf when police come to bust up her friend's party.
Some things really annoyed me about this story.
For one thing, Cotugno lets us know that there is a darkness in Hailey's life. What is it? How can we possibly be in her head and not know? I hate when authors pull this shit. The narrator has some deep, dark secret. In this case it is a secret from no one but the reader. Not sure what Cotugno is trying to accomplish with this. It's deeply annoying. And no one cares when the 'secret' is revealed near the end. Honestly, I don't give a fuck.
Secondly, this is told in second-person narration. This is going to really bother some people.
Thirdly, Hailey and Wolf don't “meet cute” exactly, they have known each other since childhood. They've gone to the same school since kindergarten. Hailey only takes an interest in Wolf when she accidentally ends up camped out with him in a bathroom during a raid.
I'd also like to point out that Hailey is not a pleasant person. This story involves cheating, Hailey has a boyfriend but has kissing with Wolf.
He's not a great kisser, unpracticed and a little spitty, but you actually don't care about that at all: there are tiny explosions going off all over your body, like sparks flying up out of a campfire. Wolf puts both hands on your face. You want to stay like this forever even even though you know it's impossible, that it's just a weird stopover, like how during the Revolutionary War the two armies took breaks and had Christmas together, then went back to shooting each other with muskets after the roasts were gone. You aren't sure where you got that fact, actually – you didn't read it in any of your dad's old books – and you don't know if it's true or just something someone made up to make the world seem less brutal. Here in this bathroom with Wolf Goshen, it feels like maybe it could possibly be real.
“I'm not breaking up with Jay,” you blurt finally, your face on fire, your whole body buzzing like a burned-out neon sign.
GREAT. Just kiss the guy, mindfuck him, and then be like, “Oh, btw, I'm not serious about any of this. Don't think I'm breaking up with my boyfriend.”
Her whole 'queen bee' schtick is pretty gross, actually.
You're already thinking about how you're going to make her life a living hell come Monday. There are some benefits to being the queen bee.
She even says some cruel things to him.
"You didn't seem to have a problem with them when you were tracking your dirty boots all over their houses and drinking their beer," you say snottily - and that's good, you think with some nasty satisfaction. That's exactly the kind of thing the old you would have said. "Back when you were doing that, they were all just fine."
So, to recap: she ends up in a dark bathroom with a boy she's never really taken any interest in, and decides to fuck around with him because
a.) (view spoiler)
Which I guess means cheating on your boyfriend in the bathroom with some rando.
b.) Her boyfriend “doesn't really listen to her.”
Still, every once in a while while you're talking you can see that he might as well be on planet Mars for everything he's actually hearing. There is something wonderful about Wolf Goshen that makes you think he'd listen for real.
Oh, yeah, great justification for cheating there. /s
c.) She's the queen bee and she enjoys having control over and fucking with other people.
”It was your dream a little bit, through, right?” you ask him, smiling a little. “To be in here with me?”
Wolf laughs at that. “Are you serious right now?” he asks, but he's BLUSHING, and you know you've won.
This girl is just very strange.
You're about to tell him he's right - that you ARE something else, and that something can be his for one night only - when you hear a familiar voice trilling out across the driveway.
o.O Okay. So... (view spoiler) have just turned you into a loose cannon that fucks random boys in dark bathrooms with reckless abandon. Which you consider “living your fucking life.” But... not wild enough to actually ditch your useless boyfriend or deal with the consequences of your actions or anything. I mean, let's not get too crazy here. o.O
I'm willing to believe having (view spoiler) would affect someone and screw them up, so perhaps Hailey's bizarre behaviors are understandable in a certain light. Not in any light I'm shining, though.
Cotugno has a strange writing style, she loves the words “scrum” and “nasty,” and she uses some strange turns of phrase.
The combination of noise and sound sets something off in you, a cold animal panic. Suddenly it feels very important to hide.
Can animal panic be cold? Sounds rather warm to me, but oh well.
You don't know if you've ever actually bothered to look at him before, like in your head he was a walking, sentient wheat stalk. That's not the impression you get now at all. His clothes are clean, if a little bit trashy: light-wash jeans and a faded T-shirt with the Ghostbusters logo on it, plus a pair of knockoff Timberland boots. His eyes are bright and intelligent and sharp. He could do okay, you think, in a place like New York City or California, where the past doesn't cling like the smell of dirty laundry.
Walking, sentient wheat stalk. Okay.
He's got his hands folded in his lap, like he's praying; he's got long fingers and round, knobby knuckles, the nails bitten way far down. You imagine them tending an animal or fixing some kind of complicated machinery, which immediately makes you feel like an idiot. God, you must be further gone than you thought.
I don't know what this means. Does this mean she's sexually / romantically fantasizing about him? Or... that she's naïve about farm work or... what?
You remember something else then, pulled from the depths of your brain like a slimy scrum of seaweed...
I like some things about this story, in theory.
You have never been the aggressor in a situation like this in your life, and you find you do not hate it.
I'd love a story where a female is the sexually assertive one. Unfortunately, this cannot be enjoyed by me since she's a.) cheating on her boyfriend and b.) using this boy like a piece of meat. So, nice try, Cotugno, but as a romance this just isn't selling me.
I also kind of liked Wolf, despite his unlikely name. Farmboy, straight-shooter, too good for Hailey's little games. He gets sucked into them anyway because... she's hot? I guess? o.O
TL;DR – Abrupt ending. No real resolution or point. Not bad writing, but not spectacular either. If you are coming at this from a ROMANCE angle, I am going to have to say this is a failure. She's cheating on this mark because she's fucked-up in the head, basically. She treats him like trash. There's no hope for a future between these two, and even Cotugno points that out. So. If you are coming at this from a FICTION angle, and not as a romance, Cotugno does marginally better. Yes, Hailey is unlikable and cruel, but it's popular to make your heroines 'flawed' nowadays. And it's not hard to believe that the event she experienced made her a little fucked-up psychologically. *shrug* I kind of like Wolf, and the part where Hailey describes what her name sounds like in his mouth is accurate, when a man (well, in this case he is a boy) says your name deliberately and it's really sexual and you get that little shiver... I know exactly what she's talking about. But, overall, 3 out of 5 stars. M/F
STORY TWO: PRINT SHOP by Nina Lacour
I chose this shop because it was the only one I could find that didn't work digitally. They didn't even have a website. Everyone is always telling my generation that we aren't going to know how to engage with people. We're all going to end up with computer chips implanted in our brains and screens stuck in our eyes like contact lenses. But no one gives us any solutions, so I decided to find my own. Plus, I wanted to learn how to make that kind of magic. Ink and metal and screens and paper. I wanted to do something with my hands.
Really boring story about a woman (this is not about teens, it's about adults) who somehow develops a crush on a woman who is blasting MC's new workplace on Twitter. Who knows why. Sounds ridiculous and unbelievable to me.
So boring. Mindcrushingly boring. 1 out of 5 stars. F/F
STORY THREE: HOURGLASS by Ibi Zoboi
In my head, I'm texting Stacy about this new boy in town who goes to Shaw County and looks like an African superhero. And he makes dresses. Stacy, he makes dresses!
This story was also pretty boring and pointless. Cherish is a 6'5” black girl who lives in a white town. She wants to go to prom, but has no one to go with. She finds out her best friend is still dating the asshole who made memes of all the black students at the school by pasting their headshots onto gorilla bodies. Yeah, real racist scumbag, right? Our love interest doesn't come in until the second-to-last page. Am I supposed to be excited by this? Zoboi doesn't give me any time to be excited or even interested.
Boring story. No point. Mediocre writing. 1 out of 5 stars. M/F
STORY FOUR: CLICK by Katharine McGee
All the "dates" Alexa had ever been on (she used the term loosely) had involved the computer lab or peanut M&M's or sex; or on a good night, all three.
This is another story about adults over the age of 18. Alexa joins “Click,” a new dating site.
The moment Alexa joined the service, it swept the Web with surgical precision, finding every last trace of her digital presence: her Facebook posts, the scans of her high school yearbooks, every item she'd purchased or commented on or "liked." Click compiled it all, a web of lingering digital fingerprints...
When the man she's supposed to meet approaches her at the restaurant, she's intimidated. Could this smooth, confident guy really be interested in her!? Raden has his doubts as well.
Except he knew he wouldn't have talked to Alexa if it weren't for Click. She was nothing like the girls he normally went for, with their dangly earrings and loud voices, wearing short dresses in primary colors.
That's... oddly specific. o.O
Even though this isn't an amazing story, IMO, at least it is mildly interesting. 3 out of 5 stars. M/F
STORY FIVE: THE INTERN by Sara Shepard
Lame story about a 17-year-old who meets a rock star who INSTANTLY falls for her. Yeah, if you are rolling your eyes already, we are on the same page. They just “have a connection” and “understand each other” and he “sees her as a volcanic goddess.”
”You are Pele. You just don't know it.”
And he stops mid-song to run offstage after her when she leaves a concert in tears. YOU KNOW. This kind of story.
Shepard's writing isn't terrible, but it isn't particularly amazing, either.
A tall guy had materialized in front of me. He had a yellow-and-maroon scarf wrapped around his neck - very Harry Potter. His wild, thick, blue-black hair was cut in choppy peaks that ended at his pointy chin, and his wide-set brown eyes were framed with the longest lashes I'd ever seen. His expression - an appealing mix of awkwardness, cleverness, and kindness.
2 out of 5 stars. M/F
STORY SIX: SOMEWHERE THAT'S GREEN by Meredith Russo
Lexie didn't actually care about fashion. She wore nothing but hoodies, cardigans, and T-shirts from church. Lexie DID like girls, though, and this was the only safe way to look at them without her parents catching on immediately, though she doubted they would believe she had any interest in haute couture. Still, the women in these photos, with their high chins and their dark eyes and their movements like hunting cats, seemed more like drawings than real people, like something out of a story come to life. They felt like the guardians of a life she wanted but could never have, a dream she would bottle and hang from the rafters of her heart with bits of twine as she grew up and found a husband and started a family. Looking at them made her soul sing and groan all at once, and she couldn't stop.
This story is about a transgirl named Nia who is fighting to use the girl's bathroom in her school. The love interest here is a born-again blonde with strict fundamental parents who is secretly a lesbian (Lexie).
This story was too far-fetched and dramatic for me. Might be perfect for teenagers, but as an adult reading it I was rolling my eyes a lot. Russo sure lays on the Dawson's Creek-type drama here. I mean... could things be any more extreme? And seventeen-year-olds... I'm supposed to believe, in this story, that Lexie – in one single day – is fine with (view spoiler)I'm sorry, no. Just... no. If maybe we had a whole book to show a slow transitioning of Lexie from someone who is a closeted lesbian, resigned to the horrible fate of being forced to marry a man, have kids, and pretend to be straight for her entire life to someone who is (view spoiler) then I could maybe wrap my head around it, but the way it is presented, NO.
I understand what Russo is trying to do here. The juxtaposition of a blonde, shy, private, fundamentalist, born-again Christian who is a secret lesbian getting together romantically and sexually with a transgender POC girl who is very loud and outspoken is tempting. I can understand the appeal of these two very different people getting together, but it is SO UNREALISTIC that I can't tolerate it. I'm supposed to believe Lexie is just suddenly, after ONE DAY, perfectly fine with (view spoiler)
I mean, no. I don't believe that. I don't believe any of that shit. It's completely unrealistic, and why I can except some unrealism in my romance, this is too crazy. The short story format also really limits Russo here. She just throws in a few lines about how Nia thinks Lexie has a cute face (even though Lexie is going on TV denouncing Nia's right to use the girls' bathroom!) and a line about how Lexie thinks Nia's skin is soft and she smells good. I'm like, WHAT?! o.O Sorry, this is all way to rushed and sudden for me.
Also, this writing was annoying me.
Lexie balled her fists and looked down at her shoes, alarm bells ringing everywhere as anxiety inscribed itself into her flesh.
Or look at this:
(view spoiler)
Ugh.
I'm also supposed to reconcile that the male (the straight, confident, popular 17-year-old) says stuff like, “Can you blame him? [Nia's] hot.” is the same guy who refers to Nia in the story as “the transgender.” Not “the transgender girl” or “the transwoman” or “the transgirl” but as “the transgender” like she's a dog or an animal or a weird creature. o.O What...? So, he's respectful enough to refer to Nia as “she,” not to mention confident enough at 17 to declare a transgender woman “hot” out loud in public... but then also just demeans her by casually referring to her as “the transgender” in conversation?! IDK, this seems weird to me. That the same person in the same conversation would have such a disconnect is bizarre to me.
Well, anyway. I had a lot of problems with this story, some that might have been solved by making it into a full-length novel but some I think even a full novel wouldn't solve. 2 out of 5 stars. F/F (transwoman) (only story with transgendered protagonist)
REVIEW CONTINUED IN COMMENTS
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Reading Progress
January 2, 2018
– Shelved
March 7, 2018
–
Started Reading
March 7, 2018
–
0.32%
"You follow his gaze through the living room window where, sure enough, two cruisers are gliding to the curb with their lights flashing, silent as sharks. "Friends are here.""
page
1
March 7, 2018
–
0.64%
"Never, NEVER open up the door to the police unless they have a warrant, you've heard them say over a number of bagel breakfasts at Nicole's kitchen table, same as other parents would remind you to make sure to be home by curfew.
...
The combination of noise and sound sets something off in you, a cold animal panic. Suddenly it feels very important to hide.
Can animal panic be cold?"
page
2
...
The combination of noise and sound sets something off in you, a cold animal panic. Suddenly it feels very important to hide.
Can animal panic be cold?"
March 7, 2018
–
0.96%
"You exhale, heart pounding with a savage ferocity wholly disproportionate to the seriousness of this situation. That happens to you sometimes, now.
...
Every autumn you forget about him and every January he shows up at school again, blinking and dazed, like he's spent the last six months wandering dumbly through a cornfield."
page
3
...
Every autumn you forget about him and every January he shows up at school again, blinking and dazed, like he's spent the last six months wandering dumbly through a cornfield."
March 7, 2018
–
1.27%
"When you were little kids he was notorious for falling asleep at his desk every day during free read. His fingernails were always too long.
On a farm kid? Yeah, right."
page
4
On a farm kid? Yeah, right."
March 7, 2018
–
1.59%
"Wolf is glancing at you across the bathroom, seemingly unconcerned about the scrum of law enforcement out on the front lawn."
page
5
March 7, 2018
–
1.91%
"You kind of liked listening to him, actually. Nobody has talked to you about something as stupid as Atomic FireBalls in months."
page
6
March 7, 2018
–
1.91%
"You don't know if you've ever actually bothered to look at him before, like in your head he was a walking, sentient wheat stalk. That's not the impression you get now at all. His clothes are clean, if a little bit trashy: light-wash jeans and a faded T-shirt with the Ghostbusters logo on it, plus a pair of knockoff Timberland boots. His eyes are bright and intelligent and sharp. He could do okay, you think, in a"
page
6
March 7, 2018
–
2.23%
""Good," you chirp like a reflex, which is of course a giant lie, and not even a good one, and you're thinking that of course Wolf knows that, until the moment that it suddenly occurs to you that he might not. After all, who can say what the hell news makes its way out to the Goshen Family Farm during harvest season? It might as well be medieval times over there. The idea of him not knowing makes him oddly"
page
7
March 7, 2018
–
2.55%
"You didn't expect Wolf Goshen to be funny, like maybe he's from someplace where laughter is verboten, and then you realize what a stupid thing that is to think.
...
You remember, suddenly, a morning in the spring of third grade when he came into school with a hole in the collar of his T-shirt and a bruise the size of a new potato on his cheek. You remember how afraid it made you - not for Wolf but of him, like"
page
8
...
You remember, suddenly, a morning in the spring of third grade when he came into school with a hole in the collar of his T-shirt and a bruise the size of a new potato on his cheek. You remember how afraid it made you - not for Wolf but of him, like"
March 7, 2018
–
2.87%
"You smile, although it isn't actually funny. The Siege of Bastogne lasted for seven days.
...
He's got his hands folded in his lap, like he's praying; he's got long fingers and round, knobby knuckles, the nails bitten way far down. You imagine them tending an animal or fixing some kind of complicated machinery, which immediately makes you feel like an idiot. God, you must be further gone than you thought."
page
9
...
He's got his hands folded in his lap, like he's praying; he's got long fingers and round, knobby knuckles, the nails bitten way far down. You imagine them tending an animal or fixing some kind of complicated machinery, which immediately makes you feel like an idiot. God, you must be further gone than you thought."
March 7, 2018
–
3.18%
"Suddenly you're spoiling for a fight - craving it, even. Lately everyone is so fucking nice to you; there's a certain dark pleasure in this sudden nastiness. It feels good. It feels NORMAL.
Sick."
page
10
Sick."
March 7, 2018
–
3.5%
"In one of your dad's books about the Civil War you read that the only real advantage the North had was industry: that the round-the-clock shoveling of coal into giant roaring furnaces was the only reason the Union didn't fall. You think of that sometimes now, when the alarm goes off in the morning and you feel like you can't get out from under the covers: You imagine that you are a munitions factory. You imagine"
page
11
March 7, 2018
–
3.5%
""You didn't seem to have a problem with them when you were tracking your dirty boots all over their houses and drinking their beer," you say snottily - and that's good, you think with some nasty satisfaction. That's exactly the kind of thing the old you would have said. "Back when you were doing that, they were all just fine."
Wow."
page
11
Wow."
March 7, 2018
–
3.82%
"You remember something else then, pulled from the depths of your brain like a slimy scrum of seaweed...
Words Cotugno really likes: scrum, nasty,"
page
12
Words Cotugno really likes: scrum, nasty,"
March 7, 2018
–
4.14%
"He smells like soap and grass and leaves, nothing like you remember from when you were a kid.
...
...the skin of his throat pale and exposed.
...
Actually it sound terrifyingTYPO, but to be fair, these days you're not exactly a good gauge of what's scary and what's not. You imagine it, staring up at the sky with nobody else around, like if you weren't careful you could fly right off the face of the earth"
page
13
...
...the skin of his throat pale and exposed.
...
Actually it sound terrifyingTYPO, but to be fair, these days you're not exactly a good gauge of what's scary and what's not. You imagine it, staring up at the sky with nobody else around, like if you weren't careful you could fly right off the face of the earth"
March 7, 2018
–
4.46%
"The truth is that your favorite thing about being popular is being able to control when and how people look at you and what they see when they do, like you're the curator of a fancy museum and your only exhibit is yourself. The problem is that lately you haven't been able to do it. You've lost control of your own story, somehow, since everything happened. You can't figure out how to get it back."
page
14
March 7, 2018
–
4.46%
"Still, every once in a while while you're talking you can see that he might as well be on planet Mars for everything he's actually hearing. There is something wonderful about Wolf Goshen that makes you think he'd listen for real."
page
14
March 7, 2018
–
5.1%
"If they were ----- ----- you'd like to think they would want you to go out and live your fucking life.
WTF?!!?!?!"
page
16
WTF?!!?!?!"
March 7, 2018
–
5.41%
"You have never been the aggressor in a situation like this in your life, and you find you do not hate it."
page
17
March 7, 2018
–
4.78%
"You're about to tell him he's right - that you ARE something else, and that something can be his for one night only - when you hear a familiar voice trilling out across the driveway.
What is WITH this girl!?!?!? She's going to have a ONS with some dude she's known from elementary school, cheating on her bf, randomly just because he's trapped in a dark bathroom with her and doesn't know her burden? WHAT?"
page
15
What is WITH this girl!?!?!? She's going to have a ONS with some dude she's known from elementary school, cheating on her bf, randomly just because he's trapped in a dark bathroom with her and doesn't know her burden? WHAT?"
March 7, 2018
–
5.41%
"He's not a great kisser, unpracticed and a little spitty, but you actually don't care about that at all: there are tiny explosions going off all over your body, like sparks flying up out of a campfire. Wolf puts both hands on your face. You want to stay like this forever even even though you know it's impossible, that it's just a weird stopover, like how during the Revolutionary War the two armies took breaks and"
page
17
March 7, 2018
–
5.41%
""I'm not breaking up with Jay," you blurt out finally, your face on fire, your whole body buzzing like a burned-out neon sign.
WTF is with this girl?"
page
17
WTF is with this girl?"
March 7, 2018
–
5.73%
"You're already thinking about how you're going to make her life a living hell come Monday. There are some benefits to being the queen bee.
GROSS."
page
18
GROSS."
March 7, 2018
–
6.37%
"Everyone is always telling my generation that we aren't going to know how to engage with people. We're all going to end up with computer chips implanted in our brains and screens stuck in our eyes like contact lenses. But no one gives us any solutions, so I decided to find my own. Plus, I wanted to learn how to make that kind of magic. Ink and metal and screens and paper. I wanted to do something with my hands."
page
20
March 7, 2018
–
14.33%
"I might start drinking heavily.
Can't anyone write well-written and engaging YA??! No one?"
page
45
Can't anyone write well-written and engaging YA??! No one?"
March 7, 2018
–
22.29%
"The moment Alexa joined the service, it swept the Web with surgical precision, finding every last trace of her digital presence: her Facebook posts, the scans of her high school yearbooks, every item she'd purchased or commented on or "liked." Click compiled it all, a web of lingering digital fingerprints...
Wow, creepy."
page
70
Wow, creepy."
March 7, 2018
–
22.93%
"All the "dates" Alexa had ever been on (she used the term loosely) had involved the computer lab or peanut M&M's or sex; or on a good night, all three.
Another story with adults."
page
72
Another story with adults."
March 7, 2018
–
23.89%
"Except he knew he wouldn't have talked to Alexa if it weren't for Click. She was nothing like the girls he normally went for, with their dangly earrings and loud voices, wearing short dresses in primary colors.
That's... oddly specific. o.O"
page
75
That's... oddly specific. o.O"
March 7, 2018
–
26.11%
"Huh. This isn't great writing, but at least it is a little bit of an interesting story."
page
82
March 7, 2018
–
27.71%
""Alexa. We DID click. We don't need permission from an algorithm for that."
Aw, I adore stable and calm males."
page
87
Aw, I adore stable and calm males."
March 7, 2018
–
28.34%
"His shirt had little dancing skeletons on it - not Grateful Dead skeletons, all top hats and joy, but bony, ugly things that I could picture doing hostile business takeovers and voting unanimously to test their products on animals. These were skeletons with whom my father commingled."
page
89
March 7, 2018
–
28.98%
"Phineas Cleary was eighteen years old, only a year older than I was...
...
A tall guy had materialized in front of me. He had a yellow-and-maroon scarf wrapped around his neck - very Harry Potter. His wild, thick, blue-black hair was cut in choppy peaks that ended at his pointy chin, and his wide-set brown eyes were framed with the longest lashes I'd ever seen. His expression - an appealing mix of awkwardness,"
page
91
...
A tall guy had materialized in front of me. He had a yellow-and-maroon scarf wrapped around his neck - very Harry Potter. His wild, thick, blue-black hair was cut in choppy peaks that ended at his pointy chin, and his wide-set brown eyes were framed with the longest lashes I'd ever seen. His expression - an appealing mix of awkwardness,"
March 7, 2018
–
29.3%
"What else did people do in college? My cousin, who went to NYU, took a lot of pictures of his privates and posted them on Snapchat. My other cousin went to UVA and got arrested for jumping out a window onto the hood of a police car."
page
92
March 7, 2018
–
34.39%
""Lull them into a false sense of security with show tunes, malapropisms, and European board games, then broadside them with Lucian, World's Greatest Lover."
"World's Greatest...?" Nia's dad said, looking at Lucian like he'd just started speaking in tongues. "Boy, you are SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD! 'World's Greatest Lover' my ass.""
page
108
"World's Greatest...?" Nia's dad said, looking at Lucian like he'd just started speaking in tongues. "Boy, you are SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD! 'World's Greatest Lover' my ass.""
March 7, 2018
–
34.39%
"I'm supposed to believe she finds the "fundamentalist transphobe" "cute," I guess."
page
108
March 7, 2018
–
35.35%
"It hadn't even occurred to her that a transgender would WANT to be in a musical, though now that she thought about it she felt a little reflexive wave of embarrassment because obviously they were people, right? With the same ambitions as everyone else?"
page
111
March 7, 2018
–
35.67%
"She was almost certain she had some kind of anxiety disorder, which would probably explain the constant jitters, the jumpiness, the nauseous panic attacks, but her parents didn't believe in psychiatry or secular therapy, so she couldn't do much about it except try to breathe."
page
112
March 7, 2018
–
35.67%
""There won't be drinking or anything, right?" Lexie asked. She hoped the answer was yes, there would, not because she wanted to drink (she didn't, because underage drinking was a CRIME and she wasn't a CRIMINAL) but because it would be an excuse to bow out without seeming rude or stuck up."
page
112
March 7, 2018
–
35.99%
"Her mother's insistence on moral outrage at every opportunity had dominated Lexie's life for the past seventeen years, but now, when she actually needed it, it was gone."
page
113
March 7, 2018
–
36.31%
"But she could no sooner tell a lie than a walrus could tap-dance, and she knew it...
...
"No, Mom. You know I'm not like that." Her mom actually didn't know the extent to which Lexie was "not like that," and she hoped she never found out.
This is just so weird."
page
114
...
"No, Mom. You know I'm not like that." Her mom actually didn't know the extent to which Lexie was "not like that," and she hoped she never found out.
This is just so weird."
March 7, 2018
–
37.26%
"OMGosh. I don't think he should be just outting a lesbian like that. WOW. Not cool. Especially given her family and background."
page
117
March 7, 2018
–
37.58%
"Lexie didn't actually care about fashion. She wore nothing but hoodies, cardigans, and T-shirts from church. Lexie DID like girls, though, and this was the only safe way to look at them without her parents catching on immediately, though she doubted they would believe she had any interest in haute couture. Still, the women in these photos, with their high chins and their dark eyes and their movements like hunting"
page
118
March 7, 2018
–
38.22%
""Yeah," he said. "The transgender."
How transgender people are talked about in this story is so weird, as if they are a bizarre creature or something. There are gay and lesbian people in the story, too, but no one goes around saying, "Have you talked to the gay today?" 'the gay' meaning 'the gay man.' But they say, "The transgender" all the time, like "the turtle" or "the creature." I know she's born-again"
page
120
How transgender people are talked about in this story is so weird, as if they are a bizarre creature or something. There are gay and lesbian people in the story, too, but no one goes around saying, "Have you talked to the gay today?" 'the gay' meaning 'the gay man.' But they say, "The transgender" all the time, like "the turtle" or "the creature." I know she's born-again"
March 7, 2018
–
38.54%
"Vaughn just shrugged. "Can you blame him? She's hot. But you know, not my TYPE. Come on, let's take this back."
Okay, so... the boy who easily says, "She's hot" about the transgender girl is supposed to be the same person who refers to her as "the transgender?" As in, "Did you talk to the transgender today?" Like, what? What the fuck is going on in this book. I'm seriously so confused."
page
121
Okay, so... the boy who easily says, "She's hot" about the transgender girl is supposed to be the same person who refers to her as "the transgender?" As in, "Did you talk to the transgender today?" Like, what? What the fuck is going on in this book. I'm seriously so confused."
March 7, 2018
–
39.81%
"Lexie wrapped her arms around herself, feeling suddenly dirty and small. "Oh."
"Yeah. So thanks for offering to help, but it's too little, too late. At least I know you're not completely evil. That's SOMETHING."
Great. This is going great. /s Am I supposed to think these two END UP TOGETHER!?!?!?!?"
page
125
"Yeah. So thanks for offering to help, but it's too little, too late. At least I know you're not completely evil. That's SOMETHING."
Great. This is going great. /s Am I supposed to think these two END UP TOGETHER!?!?!?!?"
March 7, 2018
–
40.45%
"...Nia's neck, her nose filled with lavender and bergamot hiding just under a blanket of woodsmoke..."
page
127
March 7, 2018
–
40.76%
"WTF is going on in this story?!!?!? Can you stop being all dramatic and JUST TELL ME?!!??!?!"
page
128
March 8, 2018
–
42.04%
"The people who live on the Isle of Meridien are born with red strings coiled like copper wire around their fingers.
I shouldn't call it a string. Or red, even. It's more like a tattoo that mixes with your skin tone, and turns all shades of brown and black and white and everything in between. The coils look a little like wedding rings stacked one on top of the other."
page
132
I shouldn't call it a string. Or red, even. It's more like a tattoo that mixes with your skin tone, and turns all shades of brown and black and white and everything in between. The coils look a little like wedding rings stacked one on top of the other."
March 8, 2018
–
42.36%
"I cover my face with my hand, then let my fingers open slowly to invite the rising moonlight to creep between them. Sometimes when the light hits just right, the red coils scatter across my finger like a constellation of stars. "A love blueprint," Papa used to always say."
page
133
March 8, 2018
–
42.99%
"The thought of having to lose myself in another, shape myself around the form of something else makes my heart beat too fast, and not the good, excited way. We love so early here. And it feels like there isn't enough time to do all the things I want to do before I have to do the things I'm supposed to do."
page
135
March 8, 2018
–
42.99%
"They say there's nothing beyond our island, but I have to believe there's more. That there's a world where coils don't exist, where I get to choose my own love - or not to love at all."
page
135
March 8, 2018
–
44.59%
"Watching the two of them felt like the gods had made a mistake. How had the strings linked two people so wrong for each other?"
page
140
March 8, 2018
–
44.59%
"I've never held hands with anyone outside of Momma, my sister, and Papa. The elders of Meridien say that this type of intimacy is reserved for blood relatives and beloveds. They warn us about the dangers that could happen: falling in love with the wrong person, ending up alone, altering the will of the gods, confusing the senses, and losing our fingers. The newspapers print cautionary tales about young teens who"
page
140
March 8, 2018
–
46.5%
"My eyes wander to his mouth. The pink of his lips reminds me of the insides of the conch shells Papa would bring back from the sea for my sister and me. If I were to paint them, I'd use sunset peach and a little ruby red and cream white."
page
146
March 8, 2018
–
51.91%
"After you've seen enough Katharine Hepburn movies, whatever is currently in fashion just seems fleeting.
CARMEN: *rolls eyes*"
page
163
CARMEN: *rolls eyes*"
March 8, 2018
–
52.55%
"Meryl Streep honestly has nothing on an eleven-year-old who feels very cozy in the closet. Back then, I didn't have the right words for the way I felt anyway."
page
165
March 8, 2018
–
53.18%
"It can be so freaking hard to tell if a girl is into you or if she thinks she just found a new best friend. I mean, sure, I do have SOME sense of it. But I've been wrong before. Like, a lifetime of crushes on girls who later announce their straightness. Some of the time, I want to side-eye them like, You sure about that? But hey. Whatever.
*headdesk*"
page
167
*headdesk*"
March 9, 2018
–
55.73%
"STORY NINE: THE DICTIONARY OF YOU AND ME by Jennifer L. Armentrout"
page
175
March 9, 2018
–
61.46%
"Did I just read a cute, good, funny story in here?!!?!?!?!? *shock* *disbelief*"
page
193
March 9, 2018
–
61.78%
"STORY TEN: THE UNLIKELY LIKELIHOOD OF FALLING IN LOVE by Jocelyn Davies"
page
194
March 9, 2018
–
63.06%
""You've been working hard all year, and this is your chance to show me what you've got."
"I'll show you what I've got," Alex Coffey said under his breath, and everyone laughed.
I'm honestly baffled. That makes no sense."
page
198
"I'll show you what I've got," Alex Coffey said under his breath, and everyone laughed.
I'm honestly baffled. That makes no sense."
March 9, 2018
–
66.88%
"I didn't understand what was happening. I was doing everything right. My hypothesis was airtight. My math was on point.
Booyah!"
page
210
Booyah!"
March 9, 2018
–
66.88%
"But maybe it was for the best.
If we did ever meet IRL, then he would become real. And all this perfect stuff I sort of knew about him would be all mixed up with imperfect stuff, the real stuff, the stuff no one wants to know. The stuff that would take him out of the early morning haze of my dreams and into the cold hard daylight of reality."
page
210
If we did ever meet IRL, then he would become real. And all this perfect stuff I sort of knew about him would be all mixed up with imperfect stuff, the real stuff, the stuff no one wants to know. The stuff that would take him out of the early morning haze of my dreams and into the cold hard daylight of reality."
March 9, 2018
–
69.11%
"Wow, that story was actually delightful. Points to Jocelyn Davies. :)"
page
217
March 9, 2018
–
71.66%
"He's a cheerful youngish guy with dreadlocks, wearing a tie and the kind of immaculately pressed shirt I'm pretty sure you only get from having a team of house elves dress you every morning."
page
225
March 9, 2018
–
73.25%
""I guess I assumed you listened to cool indie stuff."
"Like the Starfish Amputees?"
"Maybe. I've never heard of them."
"Yes!" she reaches out to give me a high-five.
Confused, I tap my palm against hers. "What did I do?"
"The Starfish Amputees are a made-up band. It's a game I play to see whether people are poseurs or not."
"Isn't that kind of mean?" I ask hesitantly.
"I don't think so. I never call them ou"
page
230
"Like the Starfish Amputees?"
"Maybe. I've never heard of them."
"Yes!" she reaches out to give me a high-five.
Confused, I tap my palm against hers. "What did I do?"
"The Starfish Amputees are a made-up band. It's a game I play to see whether people are poseurs or not."
"Isn't that kind of mean?" I ask hesitantly.
"I don't think so. I never call them ou"
March 9, 2018
–
75.16%
"Steps up like a man, comment on iGen life? Accurate teen representation of wanting to escape, run from problems."
page
236
March 11, 2018
–
78.98%
"If I close my eyes, her voice feels like warm water being poured on my head, like when you're getting your hair cut and the stylist presses the nozzle of the shampoo bowl right against your scalp."
page
248
March 11, 2018
–
93.31%
"When relationships end, a negligible percentage of them get to have a Do Over. No one knows what the rules for getting one are, but if you are granted one, you get to have your memories reset and do your relationship over.
WHAT....?!?!!?!? I have so many questions."
page
293
WHAT....?!?!!?!? I have so many questions."
March 11, 2018
–
99.36%
"What? You can't just erase ten months of someone's life! WTF is this shit?!"
page
312
March 11, 2018
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-19 of 19 (19 new)
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STORY EIGHT: OOMPH by Emery LordMeryl Streep honestly has nothing on an eleven-year-old who feels very cozy in the closet. Back then, I didn't have the right words for the way I felt anyway.
This story started out really annoying, with a rather pretentious 17-year-old narrator who said stuff like,
After you've seen enough Katharine Hepburn movies, whatever is currently in fashion just seems fleeting.
She's SO ABOVE fashion, you guys. *rolls eyes* And she says problematic things like,
It can be so freaking hard to tell if a girl is into you or if she thinks she just found a new best friend. I mean, sure, I do have SOME sense of it. But I've been wrong before. Like, a lifetime of crushes on girls who later announce their straightness. Some of the time, I want to side-eye them like, You sure about that? But hey. Whatever.
Let's doubt girls who tell me they're straight! Bitter much?
But in the end the story turned out to be rather charming. Miss Pretentious meets a pretty girl at the airport on her way to scope out a college and they hit it off. The hitting-off was supposed to seem really cute, sweet, and fun, I'm sure, but I thought it was lame and try-hard. However, that didn't stop me from cheering when, at the end of the story, (view spoiler) It was a very cute ending.
So, I don't know. Mixed feelings on this one. 3 out of 5 stars. F/F
STORY NINE: THE DICTIONARY OF YOU AND ME by Jennifer L. ArmentroutFighting a grin, I dropped onto the worn stool behind the front desk. He did this every time. Found random words in the dictionary and told me about them. The guy was – I don't know. He was just... interesting.
This was actually a cute, sweet, and romantic story. I wish the whole book had been more like this.
In this story, Moss (a senior in high school) works at a library and has to keep calling one H. Smith because he has an overdue dictionary checked out. Every time she calls him they have a little back-and-forth conversation with joking and flirting. Who is this enticing stranger? Will he ever return the library and give Moss a chance to meet him face-to-face?
This was just a cute and charming story. Not very realistic on the front of 17-year-olds, but overall enjoyable. 4 out of 5 stars. M/F
STORY TEN: THE UNLIKELY LIKELIHOOD OF FALLING IN LOVE by Jocelyn DaviesThe line at Brooklyn Bagels wasn't too long. My bagel was crisp on the outside, doughy on the inside, the cream cheese was evenly and sparingly applied (no messy gobs that get all over your face and hands), and my peach Snapple was cold and sweet. I glided down the stairs at the Newkirk Plaza subway station. No one was walking slowly in heels in front of me, or eking out some last texts before going underground, or trying to carry a stroller by themselves. My path was clear, my aim was true. The B train rolled into the station right as I swiped my MetroCard.
As the train barreled over the Manhattan Bridge, I took a sip of Snapple and watched the sun come up over the Lower Manhattan skyline. I was going to be on time for school, and things were okay.
And then, something happened that changed my life.
Something that never would have happened if the constellation of minuscule events in my life hadn't aligned perfectly to deliver me to this exact moment.
There I was, taking a perfect sip of iced tea as the perfect sun rose over my perfect city, a city that I love, a city that, for once, had conspired to get me to school on time, and I was leaning against the door (I refuse to sit on the subway ever since the incident with the old man who wasn't wearing any pants), looking out the window toward the Statue of Liberty, experiencing the first glimmer of that end-of-the-school-year feeling, that spring lightness in the air, like fresh laundry. I could feel the rumbling of the bridge rails under the train car, and then a train was passing across from us, going in the opposite direction toward Brooklyn.
And I saw him.
Well, this was a delightful and charming story about a high school junior who loves math and sees a boy on the train going opposite hers in the morning on the way to school. She turns the likelihood of seeing him again into her final statistics project.
Not only is this well-written (such a rarity in YA!) but it is charming, sweet, cute, and not stupid. Davies has not only written a bright and radiant NYC but she's managed to give us a teenage girl protagonist who is smart and funny without being overconfident.
5 out of 5. M/F
STORY ELEVEN: 259 MILLION MILES by Kass Morgan"I guess I assumed you listened to cool indie stuff."
"Like the Starfish Amputees?"
"Maybe. I've never heard of them."
"Yes!" she reaches out to give me a high-five.
Confused, I tap my palm against hers. "What did I do?"
"The Starfish Amputees are a made-up band. It's a game I play to see whether people are poseurs or not."
"Isn't that kind of mean?" I ask hesitantly.
"I don't think so. I never call them ou t on it or anything. I'm not trying to embarrass anyone. I just like to know, for myself.”
This story was surprisingly good. It takes place in the near future. Philip is trying to get a place on the one-way mission to Mars. At trials he meets Blythe, another candidate. When they are put in an isolation chamber together for 24 hours in order to test their dynamics, both of their pasts come into play.
Morgan is playing around with how the Internet and social media are shaping iGen. Philip is humiliated when an embarrassing attempt to ask a girl out is recorded and uploaded to the Internet. Faced with intense social consequences, not to mention thousands of comments stating that he is a loser who will die a virgin, Philip is looking for escape. Escaping by leaving the entire planet seems ideal. Needless to say, he's joining this mission for all the wrong reasons, and Blythe can see that. She has her own demons.
The story doesn't have a HEA or even HFN ending, but I thought the way Morgan wraps this up was sweet and poignant. 4 out of 5. M/F
STORY TWELVE: SOMETHING REAL by Julie MurphyIf I close my eyes, her voice feels like warm water being poured on my head, like when you're getting your hair cut and the stylist presses the nozzle of the shampoo bowl right against your scalp.
A rather lame story about June, a chubby half-Irish half-Mexican girl who goes on a reality show to try and score a date with a dickbag singer. While there, she surprisingly hits it off with another female contestant instead of the musician she's supposed to be aiming for.
While the basic concept of someone falling in love with a fellow contestant on a dating show instead of the man they're supposed to be after is interesting, this story doesn't cut it. June is low-key mean to herself, and I don't like being in her head. Also, it's hard for me to respect or like people who end up on reality TV. I hate reality TV and certainly don't want to read about it.
The whole thing was rather far-fetched, too, but I guess that's the whole point of these meet-cute stories. 3 out of 5. F/F
STORY THIRTEEN: SAY EVERYTHING by Huntley FitzpatrickWow, I actually enjoyed this. Am I losing my fucking mind? Do I actually like YA now?
This story is about Emma, who is seventeen and waiting tables. She used to be rich but her family lost everything four years ago. Now a hot, rich lacrosse player is asking her on a date. What are his real motives? Can she trust him?
I think Fitzpatrick's writing style is why I liked this story. It's very weird but also soothing. Take a look:
”This is the first time I've gotten a sixty-dollar tip on a two-dollar glass of iced tea.”
Leaning back against the fake red leather of the booth, he gestures to the spaces where his friends had sat. A hasty scan shows they'd barely covered their tabs, with a bonus scatter of extra coins.
“You gave me too much,” I say.
“I'm good at math. You deserve more.”
“It's your job to compensate?”
“It's my choice to even the score.” His husky voice is even, practical.
“No way.” You push most of the money back across the table, curl your fingers down, ashamed of your bitten nails.
“Waitress! Hell-ooo! I asked for honey mustard on this omelet. This is Dijon!”
You look over to see Maeve, your boss, make a guillotine-style chop against her neck – no fraternizing with the customers – then jerk her head toward table five with their burning need for honey mustard. On an omelet. Dear God.
He's made no move to take the cash, no concentrating on smoothing out the wrapper from his straw, giving that job more attention than it deserves. “Look... I won't overtip again. I won't tip at all, if that bothers you. But whenever I come here, you never sit down. I'd like to see you at a movie or a restaurant. Having fun.”
“Are you asking me on a date?”
“Would that be your idea of fun?”
“I don't know. I don't date.”
4 out of 5 stars. M/F
STORY FOURTEEN: THE DEPARTMENT OF DEAD LOVE by Nicola YoonThe Department of Dead Love looks nothing at all like I expected. For instance, Cupid is not hanging by his entrails out front, bow and quiver lying cracked in a pool of viscous, semisweet pink fluids. The building is not a drab and windowless gray monstrosity designed to cow yo into submission the moment you enter it like so many government buildings are. The DODL is not even just one building. It's a campus of them, and they are quite beautiful, actually. The committee of architects who designed the campus believed that aesthetic beauty could stave off despair.
They were wrong.
Nevertheless, the buildings are exquisite. Unrequited Love is the color of lavender tea steeped a little too long and shaped like a cresting wave. Breakups is an orange starburst of a building, like a firecracker just exploding. Bereavement is the most sedate of the buildings – a periwinkle blue lily at dusk.
Most people agree that Young Love is the prettiest of all the buildings. It's the tentative green of a new leaf and shaped like a single blade of grass. Separated from the main campus by a wide blue lake and a wooden suspension bridge, it's only intended for anyone eighteen or younger. Before the building was commissioned there was a great debate about whether young people should be excluded from the general populace. After all, they too experienced unrequited love. They agonized through unexplained breakups. They suffered the debilitating loss of death. In the end, it was decided that the intense nature of young love warranted a building all its own.
Strange little story about a time in the future where extensive counseling is given by the government to people with broken hearts. Science-fiction, although science-fiction that doesn't make any sense. But I understand that science-fiction is used to explore things, so perhaps I'm nitpicking. It's comparable to ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND.
Thomas goes to Young Love to try and figure out why his girlfriend of ten months – and lifelong best friend, Samantha – broke up with him. He's aiming to get a do-over – get their memories wiped and have a second chance at the relationship. In order to do that, he has to go through a lot of counseling, and things don't always end up the way he predicts.
Even though this story made no sense from a logical standpoint, it wasn't bad. It was kind of fun and interesting to imagine a world in which heartbreak is dealt with and handled by the government. 3 out of 5 stars. M/F
TL;DR - 14 Stories10 M/F
3 F/F
1 F/F with a transwoman protagonist.
This book was very back-heavy. I liked the last 7 stories in the book a lot more than the first 7.
Average story rating 2.86.
I can't say I really like YA. "YA is not a genre!" a librarian I used to know would repeatedly, exasperatedly tell me. But I can't help but find most YA written nowadays tepid and mediocre.
I was surprised that I actually liked some of these stories. Maybe I will check out some of these authors' other works.
The MCs of these short stories were also very diverse.
Short stories are hard to write well. I don't think the short-story format helped any of these authors. YA combined with short story is probably going to be extra difficult to get me to enjoy.
Great review, Carmen. I’m sorry the stories in the first half of the book weren’t as good as those in the second half. I think you’re right about YA stories needing more room to develop than what can be done in short story form.
Donna wrote: "Great review, Carmen. I’m sorry the stories in the first half of the book weren’t as good as those in the second half. I think you’re right about YA stories needing more room to develop than what can be done in short story form..."Donna, thank you.
To be clear, I think any stories... YA or adult... are difficult to do in short form. It's just a difficult place to work in. Some people can do it well, but it's rare.
So... YA is already something I'm usually not interested in, and then we combine it with short-form and the chances of losing me are very high. :( But I did give it a three! It could have been a lot worse.
Carmen wrote: "Donna wrote: "Great review, Carmen. I’m sorry the stories in the first half of the book weren’t as good as those in the second half. I think you’re right about YA stories needing more room to devel..."Yes, three stars isn’t bad. I also have problems with short stories and it wasn’t until I read Tenth of December by George Saunders that I realized they could be enjoyable and mean something. Every once in a while, I take a chance on other collections, but not often. I hope the next short stories you read will be satisfying for the most part.
Yes, three stars isn’t bad. I also have problems with short stories and it wasn’t until I read Tenth of December by George Saunders that I realized they could be enjoyable and mean something. Every once in a while, I take a chance on other collections, but not often. I hope the next short stories you read will be satisfying for the most part. O. Henry is an example of someone who writes the hell out of short stories. I've also seen some amazing ones featured in THE NEW YORKER. But when I get these anthologies sometimes... o.O
Terrific review, Carmen. My test for this book is whether a non-fiction book about random people's most memorable "meet cute" would be better than these stories. On the basis of your summaries, the answer is YES.
Terrific review, Carmen. My test for this book is whether a non-fiction book about random people's most memorable "meet cute" would be better than these stories. On the basis of your summaries, the answer is YES. LOL Thank you, Joseph. It was not an outstanding book, that's for sure.
Carmen wrote: "STORY ELEVEN: 259 MILLION MILES by Kass Morgan"I guess I assumed you listened to cool indie stuff."
"Like the Starfish Amputees?"
"Maybe. I've never heard of them."
"Yes!" she reaches out to g..."
I ended up crying after i read this story. I love it that they met. But i am sad knowing that they wont get more time together. It really broke me. I was crying badly.
I ended up crying after i read this story. I love it that they met. But i am sad knowing that they wont get more time together. It really broke me. I was crying badly. Aw, I'm sorry, Somya. :(
Thanks for saving me from wasting time on this collection. Story 9 is the only one that sounds appealing. Most of them don't even sound like they fit the title concept. The book sounds like a honey-mustard omelet to me!
Miriam wrote: "Thanks for saving me from wasting time on this collection. Story 9 is the only one that sounds appealing. Most of them don't even sound like they fit the title concept. The book sounds like a honey-mustard omelet to me!"o.O at honey-mustard omelet. LOL You're welcome, Miriam!
My eyes wander to his mouth. The pink of his lips reminds me of the insides of the conch shells Papa would bring back from the sea for my sister and me. If I were to paint them, I'd use sunset peach and a little ruby red and cream white.
I have a problem with fantasy and science-fiction YA. I might as well get that out of the way first. I try to avoid it at all costs. So take this story-review with a grain of salt.
This story is about Viola, who lives on Meridien.
The people who live on the Isle of Meridien are born with red strings coiled like copper wire around their fingers.
I shouldn't call it a string. Or red, even. It's more like a tattoo that mixes with your skin tone, and turns all shades of brown and black and white and everything in between. The coils look a little like wedding rings stacked one on top of the other."
The world-building is weird. Please keep in mind that short stories are hard enough to write without trying to create a mystical world as well. It's obviously difficult and Clayton can't pull it off. Allegedly, there is a world beyond Meridien, but no one on the island has ever been there. o.O And a boy washes up on shore, a boy named Sebastien. He also is from Meridien.
I cover my face with my hand, then let my fingers open slowly to invite the rising moonlight to creep between them. Sometimes when the light hits just right, the red coils scatter across my finger like a constellation of stars. "A love blueprint," Papa used to always say."
So... I guess everyone pairs up with a person (male or female, there's no heterosexual agenda here) who is chosen for them by their 'rings' given to them by 'god' or 'the gods.' No one is allowed to be single. No one is allowed to chose their own spouse. This depresses Viola.
The thought of having to lose myself in another, shape myself around the form of something else makes my heart beat too fast, and not the good, excited way. We love so early here. And it feels like there isn't enough time to do all the things I want to do before I have to do the things I'm supposed to do.
…
They say there's nothing beyond our island, but I have to believe there's more. That there's a world where coils don't exist, where I get to choose my own love - or not to love at all.
Viola and Sebastien decide to (GASP) hold hands, something that is strictly verboten.
I've never held hands with anyone outside of Momma, my sister, and Papa. The elders of Meridien say that this type of intimacy is reserved for blood relatives and beloveds. They warn us about the dangers that could happen: falling in love with the wrong person, ending up alone, altering the will of the gods, confusing the senses, and losing our fingers. The newspapers print cautionary tales about young teens who disregard the warning. They make sure to include their sad pictures. I've never done it. Then again, I've never had a boy with whom to try.
OKAY, stop right there. It's hard if not impossible for me to believe teens everywhere on the island would be hand-holding at every opportunity. Are you fucking kidding me? Especially since hand-holding successfully reveals three possible futures to our young couple.
At the end of the story I had no idea what the fuck I was supposed to take away from this. No idea. ??? Are the two in love or destined to be? Should she get off the island? Why on Earth is there an isolated island? Why the fuck does everyone have these rings on their fingers? Alien technology? Evolution? Are we even ON Earth? I'm going to tell you, it sounds a LOT like Earth. So. What's the dealio? What am I supposed to understand or see or think about here? I have no clue.
Not only is the world that Clayton created confusing, but the reaction I'm supposed to get from this story is also baffling. 2 out of 5 stars. M/F