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A review by biblisophagist
Fools in Love by Ashley Herring Blake, Rebecca Podos
adventurous
emotional
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
3.5!
I loved this anthology of twists on some of my favorite romance tropes and I adored the amount of LGBTQ+ rep in these pages. It didn't feel thrown in to meet a requirement because more than half the stories had queer MCs! The book also had Fat MCs, Jewish MCs, Black MCs, Latinx MCs, Asian
MCs. There's tons of rep here that I absolutely adored and I loved getting to read them all together here in one book.
When I picked this up, I decided to read it in order of which tropes I enjoy the most but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed some of the stories with tropes I wasn't looking forward to. The love triangle one almost broke me it was so good and I would pay good money for an entire book about those characters.
These stories are also full of magic, space, time travel, monsters, disasters, superheroes and some just plain old contemporary settings for romance. It felt like reading fanfiction in the best way.
Some of these were a little too cheesy or overdone for me to handle but I often reminded myself that they're YA stories and young adults have a lot of big feelings (same tbh I can't imagine outgrowing them lol)! I think the demographic this book is intended for will love it, but I still think older readers will enjoy it as well.
My ratings of each story:
- Silver and Gold by Natasha Ngan: 4/5
- Five Stars by Amy Spalding: 2/5
- Unfortunately, Blobs Do Not Eat Snacks by Rebecca Kim Wells: 4/5
- Edges by Ashley Herring Blake: 3.5/5
- What Makes Us Heroes by Julian Winters: 2/5
- And by Hannah Moskowitz: 5/5
- My Best Friend’s Girl by Sara Farizan: 3/5
- (Fairy)Like Attracts Like by Claire Kann: 3/5
- These Strings by William Rivera: 1/5
- The Passover Date by Laura Silverman: 4/5
- Bloom by Rebecca Barrow: 4/5
- Teed Up by Gloria Chao: 3.5/5
- Boys Noise by Mason Deaver: 2/5
- Girls Just Want to Have Fun by Malinda Lo: 2/5
- Disaster by Rebecca Podos: 3/5
I loved this anthology of twists on some of my favorite romance tropes and I adored the amount of LGBTQ+ rep in these pages. It didn't feel thrown in to meet a requirement because more than half the stories had queer MCs! The book also had Fat MCs, Jewish MCs, Black MCs, Latinx MCs, Asian
MCs. There's tons of rep here that I absolutely adored and I loved getting to read them all together here in one book.
When I picked this up, I decided to read it in order of which tropes I enjoy the most but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed some of the stories with tropes I wasn't looking forward to. The love triangle one almost broke me it was so good and I would pay good money for an entire book about those characters.
These stories are also full of magic, space, time travel, monsters, disasters, superheroes and some just plain old contemporary settings for romance. It felt like reading fanfiction in the best way.
Some of these were a little too cheesy or overdone for me to handle but I often reminded myself that they're YA stories and young adults have a lot of big feelings (same tbh I can't imagine outgrowing them lol)! I think the demographic this book is intended for will love it, but I still think older readers will enjoy it as well.
My ratings of each story:
- Silver and Gold by Natasha Ngan: 4/5
- Five Stars by Amy Spalding: 2/5
- Unfortunately, Blobs Do Not Eat Snacks by Rebecca Kim Wells: 4/5
- Edges by Ashley Herring Blake: 3.5/5
- What Makes Us Heroes by Julian Winters: 2/5
- And by Hannah Moskowitz: 5/5
- My Best Friend’s Girl by Sara Farizan: 3/5
- (Fairy)Like Attracts Like by Claire Kann: 3/5
- These Strings by William Rivera: 1/5
- The Passover Date by Laura Silverman: 4/5
- Bloom by Rebecca Barrow: 4/5
- Teed Up by Gloria Chao: 3.5/5
- Boys Noise by Mason Deaver: 2/5
- Girls Just Want to Have Fun by Malinda Lo: 2/5
- Disaster by Rebecca Podos: 3/5
Content Warnings
Minor: Abandonment, Biphobia, Death of parent, Murder, Racism, Sexism, and Transphobia