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anna_hepworth's review
2.0
While there are some good stories in this anthology, as a selection it worked poorly. The general order was weird. The opening story I noted as 'perfectly serviceable', the closing one as 'why would you put this last?".I have no idea whether it was supposed to have any thematic elements, but 'half-arsed love stories' is not what I was looking for.
There is a mix of genres, from horror through to good romance. There were a lot of stories about cheating, too many of them from the perspective of a man going through a mid-life crisis, and then hooking up with someone. Of the 42 stories, I found four of them unreadable, to the point of not finishing them, and a handful of others very flat and difficult to engage with.
I rated nine of them four stars, and one 4.5 stars, but even with these, I found it a slog to get through. The stand out was The Beekeeper Falls in Love, which was a time travel romance with an interesting take on how the time travel would work.
The other highly rated were (in book order)
There is a mix of genres, from horror through to good romance. There were a lot of stories about cheating, too many of them from the perspective of a man going through a mid-life crisis, and then hooking up with someone. Of the 42 stories, I found four of them unreadable, to the point of not finishing them, and a handful of others very flat and difficult to engage with.
I rated nine of them four stars, and one 4.5 stars, but even with these, I found it a slog to get through. The stand out was The Beekeeper Falls in Love, which was a time travel romance with an interesting take on how the time travel would work.
The other highly rated were (in book order)
- Something picturesque - Creepy. Jo runs away to the circus. Horror. (content warning: mutilation)
- Ingredients for chocolate biscuits - Sad. 18 yo gets away from controlling family for long enough to fall in love, but doesn't risk staying away.
- Below the Perigee Moon - old couple, he has his consciousness in a box, she is still living. Bittersweet.
- The Menagerie Machine - Wooden animals on a carousel interacting after the people have gone home for the night. Personalities just popped off the page.
- Synasthesia - this is a 'soulmates bring colour to your world, but love is what you bring to it' story, and was a good variation on the trope.
- Under a Ruish Moon - Sad. Selkie end up on land when they lose their coat after going swimming without it during a storm; has to choose between the land and the sea, and their two families.
- Food Rhythm - Queer romance about a shy young chef works at his parent's nightclub, and the patron who teaches him to dance
- The Worst - Cute slices of life through time of two best friends. Some teenage shenanigans (cw: teenage drinking/drug use)
- Honky Tonk Girl - This one managed to take a lone doctor trainee in a temporary morgue testing bodies for plague, and make that not the creepy thing. horror. (content warning: pandemic)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol and Transphobia
Moderate: Transphobia, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Death of parent
A lot of stories involve illicit sexual relationships/cheating
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