I received this Audiobook from publisher for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Meet Cute by Dhonielle Clayton, Emery Lord, Huntley Fitzpatrick, Ibi Zoboi, Jennifer L. Armentrout, Jocelyn Davies, Julie Murphy, Kass Morgan, Katharine McGee, Katie Cotugno, Meredith Russo, Nicola Yoon, Nina LaCour, Sara Shepard Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on 2018
Pages: 320
Source: Audiobook from publisher
Amazon-Indiebound
Goodreads
Whether or not you believe in fate, or luck, or love at first sight, every romance has to start somewhere. MEET CUTE is an anthology of original short stories featuring tales of "how they first met" from some of today's most popular YA authors.
Readers will experience Nina LaCour's beautifully written piece about two Bay Area girls meeting via a cranky customer service Tweet, Sara Shepard's glossy tale about a magazine intern and a young rock star, Nicola Yoon's imaginative take on break-ups and make-ups, Katie Cotugno's story of two teens hiding out from the police at a house party, and Huntley Fitzpatrick's charming love story that begins over iced teas at a diner. There's futuristic flirting from Kass Morgan and Katharine McGee, a riveting transgender heroine from Meredith Russo, a subway missed connection moment from Jocelyn Davies, and a girl determined to get out of her small town from Ibi Zoboi. Jennifer Armentrout writes a sweet story about finding love from a missing library book, Emery Lord has a heartwarming and funny tale of two girls stuck in an airport, Dhonielle Clayton takes a thoughtful, speculate approach to pre-destined love, and Julie Murphy dreams up a fun twist on reality dating show contestants.
This incredibly talented group of authors brings us a collection of stories that are at turns romantic and witty, epic and everyday, heartbreaking and real.
My Thoughts:
In general, I am not much of a story collection reader. However, when the collection has a list of contributing authors like this one it goes on my TBR pile so fast. But we all know how unmanageable TBR piles can get. Thankfully, I was able to get my hands on an audiobook of this one. That automatically makes it more likely I’ll get to it 🙂
This one was such a great listen. I loved that there were multiple narrators used (Caitlin Davies, Dara Rosenberg, Bahni Turpin, Betsy Struxness, Kyla Garcia, Sullivan Jones.) They really did a good job of fitting the narrator to the story. Also, it made it easier to keep track of the stories! Each one was unique and the narrators did an excellent job of voicing the different characters.
I loved the idea behind this anthology… a collection of stories about people who are “destined to meet.” How cute does that sound?!?! And it was! However, there were two things I didn’t expect:
- Loss: So many of these stories (especially the first ones) deal with a main character who has suffered some sort of great loss. A parent, a sibling, a friend, a friendship… whatever the loss, it was all consuming. This isn’t a complaint. It made for really emotionally intense stories. I just expected the whole anthology to be more lighthearted!
- Unfulfillment: I feel like I kind of should have expected this? Like… it’s a book about people meeting cute. The “meet” part doesn’t last that long! Of course the story ends right when I want to know more. Which actually speaks to how great the stories are. I wanted to know what happened after the meet cute. I wanted them all to be entire books!
Again, neither of these two things is a complaint. I really enjoyed this anthology. I honestly cannot pick a favorite story because I enjoyed them all so much in different ways. I loved that there was such a variety!
Meet Cute is an anthology with a great mix of stories and a fantastic audiobook.
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