A review by caterina_1212
Love Hurts: A Speculative Fiction Anthology by Jeff VanderMeer, Hugh Howey

4.0

I really enjoyed all of the stories. I was reading Summer Days and Summer Nights at the same time, another collection of short stories about love, and I found this one vastly better. For one thing, these stories average just under 10 pages, while the other collection was closer to 30. I don't read much steampunk or horror books, but it was easy to give these writers the benefit of the doubt for another 10 minutes and finish the stories I didn't like at first. Some stories are very dark and it felt cathartic to delve into these, all the while knowing a full length novel would be unbearable. The other collection I was more inclined to discard one story for another if I couldn't tell where it was going, or didn't where the character was headed. This is probably the best book I've read all summer.