Stephanie Perkins is on a roll, having just received the fourth starred review for SUMMER DAYS AND SUMMER NIGHTS, matching the number received for her first anthology. Booklist writes,
As she did with My True Love Gave to Me (2014), Perkins once again collects 12 romances from a bevy of best-selling YA authors. This time, though, she switches seasons. Cozy fireplace tales begone: these stories are all about summer loving. The shared theme might seem limiting, but this is a far cry from formulaic, as the stories range widely in genre and tone, often with surprising depth. From the truly fantastical (Leigh Bardugo’s “Head, Scales, Tongue, Tail”) to sci-fi (Veronica Roth’s “Inertia”) to the requisite summer-camp story (Jennifer E. Smith’s “A Thousand Ways This Could All Go Wrong”), love in its many forms — straight and gay, beginning, rekindled, and ending — is examined here. Other notables include Libba Bray’s “Last Stand at the Cinegore,” where, on the closing night of a movie theater where Kevin works with his crush, a horror movie becomes startlingly real; Tim Federle’s “Souvenirs,” where two boys who met working at an amusement park for the summer approach their previously designated breakup day; and Jon Skovron’s contemporary Regency spoof, “Love Is the Last Resort,” where workers at an upscale resort meddle in their patrons’ love lives. Really, though, there’s not a false note in the whole thing. These big-name authors deliver a collection that scorches as surely as any day in the sun.
Please join me in congratulating all the authors, and pre-order a copy today at Amazon, B&N, the iBookstore, or your favorite local indie!
