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A review by badhoneybun
Boys, Book Clubs, and Other Bad Ideas by Shay Lynam, Maria Berejan, Stephen Folkins, Jennifer Lee Swagert, Sunny Everson, Katrina Hamilton, Kristina Horner
5.0
Kristina Horner's story is everything I could have hoped for my first taste of her writing. After waiting 10+ years for her to publish something.. *ahem* ...As I encroach my 30s I still love reading about high school girls and their crushes, especially when demon hunting is involved. I want to consume all of the YA Kristina creates, and one day hope to access the vaults of her NANOWRIMO writings.
Stephen Folkin's humor is spot on and Boys Book Clubs, and Other Bad Ideas is likely my favorite story in the book. I honestly don't know how he managed to cram so many characters and plot lines into such a short story but he did it (almost) seamlessly, sometimes I had a hard time deciphering which book club boy was who, which just made me wish this story was longer. BUT it somehow included two of my favorite genres I never thought would go together, high fantasy and sci-fi. I'm SO sad he has nothing else for me to read right now, and can't wait to read his contribution to The Mistletoe Paradox. I will be over here reading his Instagram captions in the meantime. Seriously, I can't put my finger on it, but I love Folkin's brain. Just the right amount of dry humor.
Jennifer Lee Swagert wrote a story like I've never read, I absolutely adored it. A VR game as a setting is primo and genius. I kept picturing Soup as Ren in Gun Gale Online. But can we talk about the character development acheived in this short story? Soup and Jimmy stole my heart in 39 pages. Also, I totally ship them. This story is the right amount of funny, heartfelt and delivered a familiar message "don't judge a book by its cover".
Katrina Hamilton's story was written in second person perspective, I have somehow never read a story in this form! It caught me off guard and I love it for that, I had to pay attention and think about what I was reading and who I am (you are). I think the love story was glossed over a bit and kind of just crammed in there because it was part of the prompt, but please don't let that deflect from how great the plot is. We love a crafty scheme.
Shay Lynam...this might be a runner up for my second fave because I felt EMOTIONS reading this, the TEEN LUST. Just ugh. Also, alternate dimensions, dragons doling out riddles and the ending had me shook-eth. More please.
Sunny Everson...I'm going to be completely honest, I could not stop comparing this to Harry Potter and it absolutely ruined it for me. It felt like there were far too many world structure similarities with just the names changed. I DNF'd this one, I'd be interested in knowing if someone read this and really loved it. Maybe I'm missing something? For now I just had to put it down. I may come back to it again.
Maria Berejan, the premise on the back cover had me hooked right away. "Death's secretary trues to save her favorite human from dying." I love the lil footnotes, it gave the "breaking the fourth wall" illusion without being extremely direct about it. The details of the job descriptions were *chefs kiss*, and I was hooked on every page this story is a very clever theory for what happens when we die.
Stephen Folkin's humor is spot on and Boys Book Clubs, and Other Bad Ideas is likely my favorite story in the book. I honestly don't know how he managed to cram so many characters and plot lines into such a short story but he did it (almost) seamlessly, sometimes I had a hard time deciphering which book club boy was who, which just made me wish this story was longer. BUT it somehow included two of my favorite genres I never thought would go together, high fantasy and sci-fi. I'm SO sad he has nothing else for me to read right now, and can't wait to read his contribution to The Mistletoe Paradox. I will be over here reading his Instagram captions in the meantime. Seriously, I can't put my finger on it, but I love Folkin's brain. Just the right amount of dry humor.
Jennifer Lee Swagert wrote a story like I've never read, I absolutely adored it. A VR game as a setting is primo and genius. I kept picturing Soup as Ren in Gun Gale Online. But can we talk about the character development acheived in this short story? Soup and Jimmy stole my heart in 39 pages. Also, I totally ship them. This story is the right amount of funny, heartfelt and delivered a familiar message "don't judge a book by its cover".
Katrina Hamilton's story was written in second person perspective, I have somehow never read a story in this form! It caught me off guard and I love it for that, I had to pay attention and think about what I was reading and who I am (you are). I think the love story was glossed over a bit and kind of just crammed in there because it was part of the prompt, but please don't let that deflect from how great the plot is. We love a crafty scheme.
Shay Lynam...this might be a runner up for my second fave because I felt EMOTIONS reading this, the TEEN LUST. Just ugh. Also, alternate dimensions, dragons doling out riddles and the ending had me shook-eth. More please.
Sunny Everson...I'm going to be completely honest, I could not stop comparing this to Harry Potter and it absolutely ruined it for me. It felt like there were far too many world structure similarities with just the names changed. I DNF'd this one, I'd be interested in knowing if someone read this and really loved it. Maybe I'm missing something? For now I just had to put it down. I may come back to it again.
Maria Berejan, the premise on the back cover had me hooked right away. "Death's secretary trues to save her favorite human from dying." I love the lil footnotes, it gave the "breaking the fourth wall" illusion without being extremely direct about it. The details of the job descriptions were *chefs kiss*, and I was hooked on every page this story is a very clever theory for what happens when we die.