My True Love Gave To Me
By: Stephanie Perkins, et al.
Published: October 14, 2014
If you love holiday stories, holiday movies, made-for-TV-holiday specials, holiday episodes of your favorite sitcoms and, especially, if you love holiday anthologies, you're going to fall in love with My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories by twelve bestselling young adult writers (Holly Black, Ally Carter, Matt de La Peña, Gayle Forman, Jenny Han, David Levithan, Kelly Link, Myra McEntire, Rainbow Rowell, Stephanie Perkins, Laini Tayler and Kiersten White), edited by the international bestselling Stephanie Perkins. Whether you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah, Winter Solstice or Kwanzaa, there's something here for everyone. So curl up by the fireplace and get cozy. You have twelve reasons this season to stay indoors and fall in love.
My review:
This anthology really does offer something for everyone. There are stories of contemporary romance, paranormal romance and even some slightly darker tales. I think my favorite stories are the Midnights by Rainbow Rowell (a young woman and the friend she is romantically interested in and how every New Year's Eve she hopes he will kiss her at midnight), Angels in the Snow by Matt de la Pena (a struggling young college student is cat sitting over Christmas break during a blizzard when he meets a girl who lives upstairs) and The Girl Who Woke the Dreamer by Laini Taylor (a beautifully written and unique story with a paranormal twist). I also particularly enjoyed the stories by Stephanie Perkins, Kiersten White and Myra McEntire.
Really all of the stories are excellent with maybe one or two exceptions. I admit that I was a little disappointed by Jenny Han's short story about a human teen living at the North Pole (was too juvenile for my taste) and Ally Carter's story which I just expected more from as a big fan of her novels. Holly Black's Krampuslauf was a weird story but I'd never heard of the Krampus before so I learned something new :)
Overall though this is a great collection and a perfect reading choice for the holiday season and a good introduction to a variety of popular YA authors. I only wish the stories were longer!
Note: I received an ARC for review courtesy of the publisher and Netgalley
Nice review. I liked this too for the most part- the darker stories not so much cause I was looking for something light and Christmas-y, but that's just me. I liked Midnights and Matt de la Pena's as well, and Christmas, CA by Kiersten was one of my faves.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like a really cute book for the holiday season. I love so many of these authors, so I should really check it out. It's a bummer Jenny Han's story wasn't so great though.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this book. I thought it was cute, and I loved that popular authors all contributed here. For some reason, that just makes everything even more festive!
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