Romance Anthology Review: Fools in Love: (Edited by Ashley Herring Blake & Rebecca Podos): https://t.co/6jq4Yk9ec5
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 7, 2021
Short Review: 8.5 out of 10
1/3
Short Review (cont): A very fun anthology of YA romance short stories from a bunch of decently well known authors (Malinda Lo, Lilliam Rivera, Natasha Ngan) with each story taking on a trope.
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 7, 2021
Some really lovely stories here, many of which are queer and feature POC.
2/3
Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on December 7, 2021 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
Fools in Love is an anthology of young adult romance short stories by a number of rising authors, with each story taking a pretty well known romance trope and running with it. For those who come to my blog for SciFi and Fantasy reviews, rest assured that Fools in Love comes with a bunch of Fantasy and SciFi Romance stories, although not every story fits in this category. What they all do have, like any good romance story, is a Happy Ever After ending (HEA), even as they feature a bunch of very different backgrounds for those relationships to emerge.
And this is an absolutely lovely anthology that's a lot of fun and has just the right amount of charm you'd hope for stories like this. The romance stories feature people and relationships of all backgrounds - Straight and Queer, Cis and Trans, different Religions, Races and Cultures, etc. - and they're generally all done well. A few stories are merely good rather than great, but some are real highlights, and even the more basic ones at least are charming and enjoyable, as you'd expect from romance stories.
More specifics and highlights after the jump:
This anthology features the following stories (and the Tropes they supposedly feature):
Silver and Gold (Trope featured: Snowed in Together) by Natasha Ngan
Five Stars (Trope featured: Mistaken Identity) by Amy Spalding
Unfortunately, Blobs Do Not Eat Snacks (Trope featured: Kissing under the Influence) by Rebecca Kim Wells
Edges (Trope featured: The Grumpy One and the Soft One) by Ashley Herring Blake
What Makes Us Heroes (Trope featured: Hero vs Villain) by Julian Winters
And (Trope Featured: Love Triangle) by Hannah Moskowitz
My Best Friend's Girl (Trope Featured: Best Friend's Girlfriend) by Sara Farizan
(Fairy)Like Attracts Like (Trope Featured: Mutual Pining) by Claire Kann
These Strings (Trope Featured: Sibling's Hot Best Friend) by Lilliam Rivera
The Passover Date (Trope Featured: Fake Dating) by Laura Silverman
Bloom (Trope Featured: Love Transcends Space Time) by Rebecca Barlow
Teed Up (Trope Featured: Oblivious to Lovers) by Gloria Chao
Boys Noise (Trope Featured: Only One Bed) by Mason Deaver
Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Trope Featured: Secret Royalty) by Malinda Lo
Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Trope Featured: Secret Royalty) by Malinda Lo
Disaster (Trope Featured: Second Chance Romance) by Rebecca Podos
Again, all are highly enjoyable and feature relationships of multiple varieties, but a few are clear highlights, at least for me.
Unfortunately Blobs do not Eat Snacks is an adorable fantasy romance, featuring two teen girl magic students on their practical final exam, with one girl being essentially the personification of Order and the other being basically chaotic, and them falling in love as the test winds up more and more awry.
What Makes Us Heroes features a black teen superhero regretting the end of his M-M relationship with a more popular white superhero, and then realizing that despite his parents pushing him towards that hero for popularity sake, what he really loves is the boy he grew up with who turned into a "Villain" - whose villainous acts are well intentioned and taking shots at the system (in case you missed the subtlety, Malcolm X is explicitly referenced in the dialogue).
Bloom by Rebecca Barlow is really great, as it takes a classic trope of a young woman going back in time and falling in love with someone from the past, but the person turns out to be the daughter of the man she was sent back to kill....and then seemingly she's separated from that person by time - or is she? Well, it's a romance so obviously there's a happy ending and it's very very sweet.
Teed Up by Gloria Chao is really cute as it portrays an Asian teen girl golfer competing in the US Junior Boy's Amateur, a girl who was pushed to do golf by her Asian parents and who has so much doubts about whether she really wants to do this, and trauma from a prior boy who dated her just to exploit her popularity, only to find a boy who doesn't really care about success who actually wants to cheer her on. It's some really great stuff.
Really the best of these stories are typically ones that mix the romance with other concepts and thoughts, like Teed Up and What Makes Us Heroes, which deal also with the intersection of race and parental pressure. The Passover Date for example also deals with why parents pressure their kids to date at all and how that's not fair, Disaster features a misunderstanding in an F-F relationship due to one girl being Bi and the other being Lesbian, as well as one girl essentially being closeted to her parents, Boys Noise features a secretly trans boy in a boy band on a surprise trip with the fellow band member he crushes on - but their contract prevents them from daring to be gay openly and he feels so chafed by it all, etc.
And again even the other stories are fine and enjoyable, even if they aren't anything you've probably read before or might have read better (the polyamorous "And" suffers for me from the fact that I read a similar story, ALSO in second person, in a different anthology just a week before, for example). The result is an anthology that is just a ton of fun, and if you enjoy romance, this will be really up your alley.
Again, all are highly enjoyable and feature relationships of multiple varieties, but a few are clear highlights, at least for me.
Unfortunately Blobs do not Eat Snacks is an adorable fantasy romance, featuring two teen girl magic students on their practical final exam, with one girl being essentially the personification of Order and the other being basically chaotic, and them falling in love as the test winds up more and more awry.
What Makes Us Heroes features a black teen superhero regretting the end of his M-M relationship with a more popular white superhero, and then realizing that despite his parents pushing him towards that hero for popularity sake, what he really loves is the boy he grew up with who turned into a "Villain" - whose villainous acts are well intentioned and taking shots at the system (in case you missed the subtlety, Malcolm X is explicitly referenced in the dialogue).
Bloom by Rebecca Barlow is really great, as it takes a classic trope of a young woman going back in time and falling in love with someone from the past, but the person turns out to be the daughter of the man she was sent back to kill....and then seemingly she's separated from that person by time - or is she? Well, it's a romance so obviously there's a happy ending and it's very very sweet.
Teed Up by Gloria Chao is really cute as it portrays an Asian teen girl golfer competing in the US Junior Boy's Amateur, a girl who was pushed to do golf by her Asian parents and who has so much doubts about whether she really wants to do this, and trauma from a prior boy who dated her just to exploit her popularity, only to find a boy who doesn't really care about success who actually wants to cheer her on. It's some really great stuff.
Really the best of these stories are typically ones that mix the romance with other concepts and thoughts, like Teed Up and What Makes Us Heroes, which deal also with the intersection of race and parental pressure. The Passover Date for example also deals with why parents pressure their kids to date at all and how that's not fair, Disaster features a misunderstanding in an F-F relationship due to one girl being Bi and the other being Lesbian, as well as one girl essentially being closeted to her parents, Boys Noise features a secretly trans boy in a boy band on a surprise trip with the fellow band member he crushes on - but their contract prevents them from daring to be gay openly and he feels so chafed by it all, etc.
And again even the other stories are fine and enjoyable, even if they aren't anything you've probably read before or might have read better (the polyamorous "And" suffers for me from the fact that I read a similar story, ALSO in second person, in a different anthology just a week before, for example). The result is an anthology that is just a ton of fun, and if you enjoy romance, this will be really up your alley.
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