Rainbow Rowell lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with her family. She's also the author of Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Attachments, Landline, Pumpkinheads, and the Simon Snow trilogy. You can visit her website at www.rainbowrowell.com. You can find more of my reviews of her works here.
Rainbow Rowell has won fans all over the world by writing about love and life in a way that feels true. In her first collection, she gives us nine beautifully crafted love stories. Girl meets boy camping outside a movie theater. Best friends debate the merits of high school dances. A prince romances a troll. A girl romances an imaginary boy. And Simon Snow himself returns for a holiday adventure. It's a feast of irresistible characters, hilarious dialogue, and masterful storytelling—in short, everything you'd expect from a Rainbow Rowell book.
I was lucky enough to attend a reading that Rainbow Rowell hosted with Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City, IA, on November 13th. There, Rainbow spoke a lot about her journey as a writer, and she mentioned a bit specifically on her short story process. After hearing her speak about all of that, I was instantly intrigued about how this collection would fall together. Hearing her challenges of knowing when to stop paired with her triumph of writing really good dialogue, I wanted to know how these short stories reflected all of that. Indeed, I would say that these short stories are incredible, and the most shining part of them is the dialogue between these characters. Both old and new, the way the characters interacts makes them shine off the page, giving them a larger-than-life feel. I very much felt like I could have run into Benji and Summer at my college campus, or that Beth and Jennifer were my best friends, too. I couldn't put this book down largely because I got so invested in the characters' stories, and all because of how they interacted and how they defined their stakes.
We get some previously published short stories in this collection, including Midnights, published in the My True Love Gave to Me anthology edited by Stephanie Perkins; If the Fates Allow, a short story about Reagan during the COVID-19 pandemic; Kindred Spirits; and The Prince and the Troll. Of those, I had only ever interacted with Midnights, so I was so excited to finally read the stories I had heard so much about. I was definitely not disappointed. Not only does the collection include previously published short stories, but also have characters from Rainbow's previous books. If the Fates Allow is about Reagan from Fangirl; Mixed Messages is about Beth and Jennifer and Lincoln from Attachments; and Snow for Christmas is the Simon Snow story. I felt like Rainbow did justice to her previous characters and their arcs, while also leaving plenty of space in the anthology for new characters that were just meant for short stories. The ability to capture long-time fans by including short stories of their favorite characters while also spending a lot of time with new characters is why this anthology works so well. We are intrigued by the new characters, while also excited by the ones we recognize, making for such a fun and exciting reading experience.
My favorite short stories were—well, it's so hard to choose! That's another reason the anthology is so strong: not one story stands out as being the absolute best, or absolutely better than the others. Each of the short stories stands strongly on its own. I love each of them for completely different reasons. Midnights (as I had already read it before) reminded me of my huge YA reading phase. Kindred Spirits was so lighthearted, and the ending was hilarious and hopeful. Winter Songs for Summer was also hopeful, and I truly rooted for Summer and Benji the whole time, while also knowing and understanding Summer's need for music through grief. The Snow Ball was just a riot, and it was so much fun to read two characters almost completely through dialogue as they worked to understand one another. If the Fates Allow had the reference to Cath and Levi that had me screaming (Fangirl is my favorite of Rainbow's books), and Reagan deserves a happy ending and I loved to see that in her short story. The Prince and the Troll made me sad, and thoughtful. Mixed Messages was also a riot, and so funny to read despite the heavy topic that it goes over. Snow for Christmas was everything you'd want in a Simon Snow short story. And In Waiting was the very meta short story that I wanted more of—the ending made me greedy for more from Rainbow Rowell.
In all these stories, there is love and hope—Rainbow expertly writes about all types of love, and just again makes me so excited for where she'd going to go next. Until then, you can find her online at www.rainbowrowell.com. You can find more of my reviews of her works here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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