Scan barcode
A review by hsinjulit
Up All Night: 13 Stories Between Sunset and Sunrise by Laura Silverman
3.0
2.5 stars rounded up.
Short stories are always really tricky since the limited word count doesn’t allow a lot of space for an elaborate plot line. In Up All Night, I’d say about half of the stories were cute and well written and the other half of them were too random for me to care.
But I appreciate the range of representations; the editor has definitely made an effort to balance the stories. There is one with a disabled m-spec MC and another with a gay boy, a few with Black MCs, non-binary SCs, sapphic SCs, Asian SCs, etc. The book reflects the world teens want and need to see.
Some of the stories are romance, and others are about new or long-lost friendship and family. While I don’t want to individually rate each story, I’m highlighting a few I enjoyed, most of them toward the end of the book:
– “Old Rifts and Snowdrifts” by Kayla Whaley: a disabled m-spec MC snowed in with a (presumably) Japanese LI and ex-friend
– “What About Your Friends” by Brandy Colbert: two Black girls reconciling their best-friendship during a 24h dancing marathon
– “Under Our Masks” by Julian Winters: a gay, Black teen with metahuman abilities and a (presumably) Indian LI
Though Up All Night was overall a slight letdown, it was still worth reading for the several well-done and sweet stories.
content warnings: underage drinking, trespassing, accidental murder, rape (pedophilia, incest), HP references (2 stories), gore, body horror, loss of parent, racism, sexism
I received a digital review copy from Algonquin Young Readers via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.
Short stories are always really tricky since the limited word count doesn’t allow a lot of space for an elaborate plot line. In Up All Night, I’d say about half of the stories were cute and well written and the other half of them were too random for me to care.
But I appreciate the range of representations; the editor has definitely made an effort to balance the stories. There is one with a disabled m-spec MC and another with a gay boy, a few with Black MCs, non-binary SCs, sapphic SCs, Asian SCs, etc. The book reflects the world teens want and need to see.
Some of the stories are romance, and others are about new or long-lost friendship and family. While I don’t want to individually rate each story, I’m highlighting a few I enjoyed, most of them toward the end of the book:
– “Old Rifts and Snowdrifts” by Kayla Whaley: a disabled m-spec MC snowed in with a (presumably) Japanese LI and ex-friend
– “What About Your Friends” by Brandy Colbert: two Black girls reconciling their best-friendship during a 24h dancing marathon
– “Under Our Masks” by Julian Winters: a gay, Black teen with metahuman abilities and a (presumably) Indian LI
Though Up All Night was overall a slight letdown, it was still worth reading for the several well-done and sweet stories.
content warnings: underage drinking, trespassing, accidental murder, rape (pedophilia, incest), HP references (2 stories), gore, body horror, loss of parent, racism, sexism
I received a digital review copy from Algonquin Young Readers via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.