5/5 stars
So back in the beginning of the month, I read this short story collection by the amazing David Levithan. John Green fans will love this guy, in fact Green and Levithan wrote a book together (which is on my extensive list of things to read). Levithan is a YA writer who is great at writing about all types of love. I think he's a gay individual, which will explain the fact that many of his characters in this and other novels are often gay, but he doesn't treat it as much different than being straight, which I love. You love who you love, and in the end that's all it is: love.
Levithan writes in his introduction that these are all short stories that he's written over the years, all around Valentine's Day, because they all deal with some form of love or relationships. However, these are not all cliche, happy ending stories. There are some where the two people end up together, but there's also a wide variety of other kinds of stories. There are 18 total stories, and no two are the same.
There's a few stories about the prom, which are quite different from one another, a story about people who are in a dance company (which, of course, I LOVED!), one about meeting the love of your life on a airplane, one that involves a painful situation of homophobia that is told beautifully, and of course, stories of heartbreak, in different ways. I can't say much about these stories without giving them away, because they're short stories, but they are beautifully crafted. Some I liked better than others, but the collection as a whole was great. Also, if you're like me and super busy, reading a short story collection is great, because you can read just one at a time and be satisfied, and not have to end on a cliffhanger chapter like in a novel! Happy reading!
What I'm reading now...
1. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Leguin (sci fi)
2. Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson (nonfiction)
3. Monster by Walter Dean Myers (YA award winner)
No comments:
Post a Comment