Review for Summer Days and Summer Nights by Various Authors!

Quick View Review

Overall Rating: **** (4/5)

Amazon Rating: *** (3.7/5)

One Sentence Review: A blend of stories that I’ll forever remember and stories I’ve already forgotten (I hate to say it, but it’s true), this anthology brings mixed feelings as a whole; however, like I said, there are absolutely must-read tales contained within these pages.

Full Review

Twelve love stories. All different. All set in summer. Simple, right? I mean, how unique can they all really be?

If that was your line of thought (it was certainly mine), then I think the creativity of YA authors will shock you like a jack-in-the-box. I definitely underestimated the number of paths these stories could take (although I really shouldn’t have considering the number of books I’ve read), and so although there were definitely a few recurring themes throughout the book (making it only slightly and rarely annoying and boring), I was pleasantly surprised with just how varied and one-of-a-kind the stories ended up being.

At least, some of them. There were a few stories that I just didn’t connect with; often it was the characters, sometimes I just wasn’t interested in the plot.

What truly made this book worth reading, though, were the gems it possessed. The short tales that expertly drew me in from the first word and somehow managed to make me care about the characters with little to no introduction. In my opinion, writing a short story is even more difficult than writing an entire novel, so seeing some of my favorite authors thrive at writing these small little stories only reinforced my admiration of them.

Call me predictable all you like, but my top 6 favorite stories (in no particular order) were Inertia by Veronica Roth, Brand New Attraction by Cassandra Clare, In 90 Minutes Turn North by Stephanie Perkins, A Thousand Ways This Could All Go Wrong by Jennifer E. Smith, Sick Pleasure by Francesca Lia Block, and Love is the Last Resort by Jon Skovron.

Now, just because these are my favorites doesn’t mean that the other 6 are all terrible. These 6 were just the ones that I felt the most emotional towards, the ones that I won’t forget, either because they made me feel every single feeling of every single character, or simply because they struck some sort of nerve.

I’m not going to go into every story (although, trust me, I really really want to discuss my favorites), because I would bore you to death and would without a doubt spoil something.

So, on that note, here’s an alternative: because I know it would not be helpful to just tell you to get the book and read the stories you think will be good (because we’re all different and shouldn’t make assumptions just based on the fame of the author or what we know about him/her), I’ll give you one or two pairings of full novels for each story, so that you can get the gist of each of them and decide for yourself whether it’s right for you.

In the order of appearance in the book:

Head, Scales, Tongue, Tail by Leigh Bardugo: The Siren by Kiera Cass, Gabriel and the Swallows by Esther Dalseno
The End of Love by Nina Lacour: A Bucket Full of Awesome by Zainab T. Khan, Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid
Last Stand at the Cinegore by Libba Bray: Slasher Girls & Monster Boys by various authors
Sick Pleasure by Francesca Lia Block: Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin, Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
In 90 Minutes, Turn North by Stephanie Perkins: The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson
Souvenirs by Tim Federle: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
Inertia by Veronica Roth: The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson (review here), Anna & the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Love is the Last Resort by Jon Skovron: I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
Good Luck and Farewell by Brandy Colbert: I Was Here by Gayle Forman
Brand New Attraction by Cassandra Clare: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
A Thousand Ways This Could All Go Wrong by Jennifer E. Smith: Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things by Lev Grossman: Paper Towns by John Green