Summer Days & Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories by Stephanie Perkins, Leigh Bardugo, Francesca Lia Block, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Brandy Colbert, Tim Federle, Lev Grossman, Nina LaCour, Veronica Roth, Jon Skovron, Jennifer E. Smith Pages: 400
Published by St. Martin's Griffin on May 17th 2016
Genres: Young Adult, contemporary, Romance
Source: eARC from Publisher
Maybe it's the long, lazy days, or maybe it's the heat making everyone a little bit crazy. Whatever the reason, summer is the perfect time for love to bloom. Summer Days & Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories, written by twelve bestselling young adult writers and edited by the international bestselling author Stephanie Perkins, will have you dreaming of sunset strolls by the lake. So set out your beach chair and grab your sunglasses. You have twelve reasons this summer to soak up the sun and fall in love.
Featuring twelve brand new short stories from:
• Stephanie Perkins (Anna and the French Kiss, My True Love Gave To Me)
• Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows, The Grisha Trilogy)
• Francesca Lia Block (Love in the Time of Global Warming)
• Veronica Roth (The Divergent Trilogy)
• Lev Grossman (The Magicians Trilogy)
• Cassandra Clare (The Mortal Instruments Series)
• Jennifer E. Smith (The Statistical Probability of Falling in Love, The Geography of You and Me)
• Libba Bray (A Great and Terrible Beauty)
• Tim Federle (The Great American Whatever)
• Nina LaCour (Everything Leads to You, You Know Me Well)
• Jon Skovron (Misfits, Man Made Boy)
• Brandy Colbert (Pointe)SUMMER DAY AND SUMMER NIGHTS, written by twelve bestselling young adult writers and edited by the international bestselling Stephanie Perkins, will have you dreaming of sunset strolls by the lake. So set out your beach chair and grab your sunglasses. You have twelve reasons this summer to soak up the sun and fall in love.
I love a good anthology. There is just something so satisfying about seeing a bunch of wonderful authors sitting down to all write stories centering around a similar theme. It is instant gratification. As soon as you get done with one story, you know you have more great stories after. And with an editor like Stephanie Perkins and authors like Leigh Bardugo, Francesca Lia Block, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Brandy Colbert, Tim Federle, Lev Grossman, Nina LaCour, Veronica Roth, Jon Skovron, and Jennifer E. Smith, how can you go wrong? Not to mention the theme is summer love. One of my very favorites for feel good romances. If you haven’t guessed it by now, I really, really enjoyed Summer Days & Summer Nights.
Summer Days & Summer Nights features 12 short stories. The book on a whole is about 400 pages, which seems long, but when you divide that into 12, you get about 33-34 pages per story, so you can breeze through each of them really quickly. I devoured this book, and what I found myself doing was reading a story or two here and there in between my full length novels, to spread out my fun and enjoyment.
What I liked most about Summer Days & Summer Nights is that it is a “small but thoughtfully curated” selection of stories that worked really well together. (and for anyone that has read the book, that is one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite short stories in the anthology. I think I laughed for 3 straight minutes after reading it. I am still chuckling about it now…) The stories all worked well together, but at the same time, they were all very different. It was just a very fun book.I will say, that there were a surprising number of books on the more somber side, and even though most of them ended on a hopeful note it was certainly unexpected. I thought most, if not all, of the stories would be happy go lucky lighter reads. But I suppose that love is not always happy go lucky in real life. Still, I gravitated towards the lighter, happier stories in this one. (No surprise there.)
I still have not read the Christmas anthology, but after reading Summer Days & Summer Nights, I can’t wait. I have heard a few people say that the Christmas one is still their favorite, and that makes me even more excited because I thought this was a very strong anthology. That one must be kick ass!
Bottom line: Fans of anthologies, as well as fans of reading about all the sides and faces of love, should check out Summer Days & Summer Nights. I think there is a little something for everyone in these stories. I really enjoyed it.
#SummerDaysandSummerNights by @naturallysteph @Lbardugo @francescablock @libbabray @cassieclare @JenESmith Click To Tweet
#SummerDaysandSummerNights by @nina_lacour @VeronicaRoth @jonnyskov @TimFederle @leverus @brandycolbert Click To Tweet
About Leigh Bardugo
Leigh Bardugo is the #1 New York Times bestselling and USA Today bestselling author of the Six of Crows Duology and the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, as well as the upcoming Wonder Woman: Warbringer (Aug 2017) and The Language of Thorns (Sept 2017).
She was born in Jerusalem, grew up in Los Angeles, and graduated from Yale University. These days, she lives and writes in Hollywood where she can occasionally be heard singing with her band.
Eva @ All Books Considered
Great review! I didn’t love this one but I’m so glad you liked it! I agree with you re: surprise that so many of them were on the somber side but the mix of genres was well done
my review
danielle hammelef
I’ve been looking forward to this book because I love anthologies. Thanks for the great review!
Penny Olson
I’ve had my eye on this anthology. Helpful to know it’s a good read.
Jana Leah
I like anthologies. I like when the stories are similar enough that they work well together, but are still different.
Chelsea Hunter
I really like anthologies, and this sounds like a cute collection
Fay Tannerr
Really nice review. Summer Days & Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories sounds like something I would enjoy reading!
Mina
Hm, reading your review made me really curious about this now. I’ve never read an anthology before so I’ve been hesitant to pick it up, but it sounds lovely. I think I’ll take up your strategy and read a couple in between longer books. 🙂 Plus, I adore a lot of the authors involved in this anthology so I’m sure to love at least some of the stories!