Scan barcode
annepw's review
3.0
Man, these illustrations are really cool, although some are clearly more ripe for writing than others. I kept imagining some authors being jealous of the ones with better drawings.
The premise of this collection is great. It reminds me of exercises I always did in creative writing classes when I was a kid. The stories themselves are a mixed bag. For some stories it felt like the author was trying to write past their illustration, like they had to jam their picture in there somehow but it wasn't the story they wanted to write (looking at you, John Green). The better ones used the picture instead of writing around it.
Half of these are worth the read:
Sarah Dessen's "Sha-La-La" is very characteristic of the author, in theme and tone, in a good way.
Coville's "Saying No to Nick" is slightly cliché but combines sex, death, and religion in an interesting way.
Koertge's "Just A Couple of Girls Talking Haiku" and Marino's "What I Did Last Summer" are both charming and funny.
John Green managed to squeeze out a modern teenage love story from a picture of a lone adult woman in a sixties diner, which is a little annoying but ultimately charming (as is the rest of his work) and the title, "The Approximate Cost of Loving Caroline," is quintessentially Green-ian.
The standout pair of "Angel Food" by M.T. Anderson and William Sleator's "Chocolate Almond Torte" are thematically similar but work well together; the former is the best story in the collection by a mile, an absurd and creepy riff on "becoming a man" that nails every beat.
Margaret Peterson Haddix's "Essie and Clem" is sweet but not saccharine, a refreshing, mature romance.
The closer, Lubar's "Habitat for Humanity," is a concise punchline that relies more on the illustration than any of the others, demonstrating the point of such an exercise.
Of the ones that don't land, few are actually bad—they're mostly dull or cliché. Worth noting are Flinn's "Bunny Boy," which was actually the story that made me hunt down this collection again after reading it when I was a kid. It made an enormous impression on me at the time, but now I just found it pointlessly depressing. Werlin's "Rebecca," a play on an incident from Daphne du Maurier's novel of the same name, Is nicely done but rather pointless—why write it again, since du Maurier has already written it? And perhaps a YA anthology is not the place for an allusion to an 80-year-old novel. The only truly awful story is Adoff's "The God of St. James and Vine," an embarrassing free-form narrative poem about ~the streets~. A cringe in the form of a poem.
I wish someone would redo this experiment for an adult audience. The YA perspective is unnecessarily limiting, and I'd love to see what writers would come up with if they didn't feel pressured to fit every story into the mouth of a spunky teenager.
The premise of this collection is great. It reminds me of exercises I always did in creative writing classes when I was a kid. The stories themselves are a mixed bag. For some stories it felt like the author was trying to write past their illustration, like they had to jam their picture in there somehow but it wasn't the story they wanted to write (looking at you, John Green). The better ones used the picture instead of writing around it.
Half of these are worth the read:
Sarah Dessen's "Sha-La-La" is very characteristic of the author, in theme and tone, in a good way.
Coville's "Saying No to Nick" is slightly cliché but combines sex, death, and religion in an interesting way.
Koertge's "Just A Couple of Girls Talking Haiku" and Marino's "What I Did Last Summer" are both charming and funny.
John Green managed to squeeze out a modern teenage love story from a picture of a lone adult woman in a sixties diner, which is a little annoying but ultimately charming (as is the rest of his work) and the title, "The Approximate Cost of Loving Caroline," is quintessentially Green-ian.
The standout pair of "Angel Food" by M.T. Anderson and William Sleator's "Chocolate Almond Torte" are thematically similar but work well together; the former is the best story in the collection by a mile, an absurd and creepy riff on "becoming a man" that nails every beat.
Margaret Peterson Haddix's "Essie and Clem" is sweet but not saccharine, a refreshing, mature romance.
The closer, Lubar's "Habitat for Humanity," is a concise punchline that relies more on the illustration than any of the others, demonstrating the point of such an exercise.
Of the ones that don't land, few are actually bad—they're mostly dull or cliché. Worth noting are Flinn's "Bunny Boy," which was actually the story that made me hunt down this collection again after reading it when I was a kid. It made an enormous impression on me at the time, but now I just found it pointlessly depressing. Werlin's "Rebecca," a play on an incident from Daphne du Maurier's novel of the same name, Is nicely done but rather pointless—why write it again, since du Maurier has already written it? And perhaps a YA anthology is not the place for an allusion to an 80-year-old novel. The only truly awful story is Adoff's "The God of St. James and Vine," an embarrassing free-form narrative poem about ~the streets~. A cringe in the form of a poem.
I wish someone would redo this experiment for an adult audience. The YA perspective is unnecessarily limiting, and I'd love to see what writers would come up with if they didn't feel pressured to fit every story into the mouth of a spunky teenager.
gabieowleyess's review
5.0
Guys, this is a little treasure. It's beautiful. I did not think that every story was AMAZING but every story fit perfectly. I loved it. It is a must read. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful <3
Click Here For Full Review
Click Here For Full Review
stenaros's review
3.0
A book of short stories written by YA authors inspired by drawings made by Scott Hunt. Each drawing had two different stories and it was interesting to see what inspired the authors. In the back, each author talks a little about their process.
ksparks's review
3.0
I enjoyed many of these stories. The concept was interesting--stories in pairs, each told about a work of art. The art seemed kind of cheesy and old-fashioned to me and I could tell that many of these authors didn't really want to tell the kind of story that would fit with the work of art, so they fit it in in creative ways. Some of the stories were really a perfect fit with the art.
spaceyfaerie's review
4.0
A collection of short stories based on original artwork - very neat idea, and I was happily surprised that I didn't really not like any of the stories. Some were creepy, some were cute, but all fantastically written.
More...