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readingrobyn 's review for:
Meet Cute
by Meredith Russo, Dhonielle Clayton, Julie Murphy, Nicola Yoon, Ibi Zoboi, Katie Cotugno, Jocelyn Davies, Kass Morgan, Katharine McGee, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Nina LaCour, Emery Lord, Sara Shepard
Throughout this whole book I kept thinking of that scene from the movie the Holiday: "It’s how two characters meet in a movie…say a man and a woman both need something to sleep in…and they both go to the same men’s pajama department. And the man says to the salesman, “I just need bottoms…” The woman says, “I just need a top.” They look at eachother…and that’s the meet-cute."
I started reading this anthology last year when I was craving something romcom-light and didn't have the patience to dive into a full length novel. That I think is the perfect circumstance to pick up this book with, but even then I was surprised with how much this anthology just didn't click.
As with all anthologies, this one was a mixed bag. There were some genuinely interesting stories with fun concepts, but also some clunkers. With previous anthologies I've read I've tried the route of reviewing each individual story on its own merits to give each author a fair shot, but let's be honest, you don't care. If you are planning on picking up an anthology, I doubt you are only going to read the stories that one random reviewer said were kind of good. Overall, the book as a whole is not worth the time it took to read it.
Now, I will admit that had I been 16 years old I probably would have loved this more. I did enjoy the diversity represented in the stories, when I was first reading YA romance these sort of couples were not mainstream. The number of wlw stories in this made me happy. I also liked how many of the stories tried for the sci-fi angle, some of those ideas were almost nearly something.
Giving it some thought there are two reasons why this just didn't work for me, editing and concept.
For a lot of the stories they could have used another pass when it came to editing. There needed to be someone who was there to go: "Good idea, but it needs more polish" rather than what felt like a big-old "Good enough! It's a story, I guess"
However, this is minor compared to my biggest issue. The concept itself sets up the author's to fail. People meeting is not the most interesting part of a story. The meet-cute is the initial event, not the whole thing. It's the rest of the relationship that is generally the interesting bit. First meetings can be cute, but they cannot sustain a complete short story in a way that is satisfying to read.
Many of the author's in the book struggled with coming up with a way to stretch out a first meeting into also a middle and end for their stories. Often it resulted in stories that were forced and full to the brim with filler and drawn-out ideas that just didn't work. This resulted in the book feeling a lot like a collection of first drafts of things that could be full stories, if they weren't limited by the concept.
Also, this anthology should have been called Love at First Sight. It fits better.
I started reading this anthology last year when I was craving something romcom-light and didn't have the patience to dive into a full length novel. That I think is the perfect circumstance to pick up this book with, but even then I was surprised with how much this anthology just didn't click.
As with all anthologies, this one was a mixed bag. There were some genuinely interesting stories with fun concepts, but also some clunkers. With previous anthologies I've read I've tried the route of reviewing each individual story on its own merits to give each author a fair shot, but let's be honest, you don't care. If you are planning on picking up an anthology, I doubt you are only going to read the stories that one random reviewer said were kind of good. Overall, the book as a whole is not worth the time it took to read it.
Now, I will admit that had I been 16 years old I probably would have loved this more. I did enjoy the diversity represented in the stories, when I was first reading YA romance these sort of couples were not mainstream. The number of wlw stories in this made me happy. I also liked how many of the stories tried for the sci-fi angle, some of those ideas were almost nearly something.
Giving it some thought there are two reasons why this just didn't work for me, editing and concept.
For a lot of the stories they could have used another pass when it came to editing. There needed to be someone who was there to go: "Good idea, but it needs more polish" rather than what felt like a big-old "Good enough! It's a story, I guess"
However, this is minor compared to my biggest issue. The concept itself sets up the author's to fail. People meeting is not the most interesting part of a story. The meet-cute is the initial event, not the whole thing. It's the rest of the relationship that is generally the interesting bit. First meetings can be cute, but they cannot sustain a complete short story in a way that is satisfying to read.
Many of the author's in the book struggled with coming up with a way to stretch out a first meeting into also a middle and end for their stories. Often it resulted in stories that were forced and full to the brim with filler and drawn-out ideas that just didn't work. This resulted in the book feeling a lot like a collection of first drafts of things that could be full stories, if they weren't limited by the concept.
Also, this anthology should have been called Love at First Sight. It fits better.