Up all Night (ANTHOLOGY BOOK REVIEW) || Definitely an all-night read

I keep wanting to do double reviews – Two books by the same author, two anthology reviews (like this one originally was) but then I’m always mindful of the length. What are your thoughts about length of book reviews? Please tell me!

Disclaimer: I received this e-arc through Edelweiss and the publisher in exchange for a free and honest review. The featured image is my own. The summary is taken from Goodreads. All opinions expressed are my own.

📚🚀📚

Title: Up All Night
Author: Edited by Laura Silverman. Contributors: Brandy Colbert, Kathleen Glasgow, Maurene Goo, Tiffany D. Jackson Amanda Joy, Nina LaCour, Karen M. McManus, Anna Meriano, Marieke Nijkamp, Kayla Whaley, Julian Winters, Francesca Zappia, and Laura Silverman.
Year Published: 2021
Audio Hours/Number of Pages: 10h51m/352pg
Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
Cover Art/Designer: Carla Weise
Genre: Young Adult ~ Anthology ~ Contemporary ~ Romance ~ LGBT+ characters

Stars:
Links: Goodreads || The Storygraph
Copy: E-Arc (Edelweiss)
CW/TW: (Taken from The Storygraph) Biphobia, Racism, others (as I can’t always pick up everything).

When everyone else goes to bed, the ones who stay up feel like they’re the only people in the world. As the hours tick by deeper into the night, the familiar drops away and the unfamiliar beckons. Adults are asleep, and a hush falls over the hum of daily life. Anything is possible.

It’s a time for romance and adventure. For prom night and ghost hunts. It’s a time for breaking up, for falling in love—for finding yourself.

Stay up all night with these thirteen short stories from bestselling and award-winning YA authors like Karen McManus, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nina LaCour, and Brandy Colbert, as they take readers deep into these rarely seen, magical hours.

Full contributor list: Brandy Colbert, Kathleen Glasgow, Maurene Goo, Tiffany D. Jackson, Amanda Joy, Nina LaCour, Karen M. McManus, Anna Meriano, Marieke Nijkamp, Laura Silverman, Kayla Whaley, Julian Winters, Francesca Zappia

📚🚀📚

It’ll be a short review of all the stories – a quick line or two and what star rating I’d give it. I’ll say which ones were my favourite by marking them with a *(as I undoubtedly have more than one).

📚🚀📚

Never Have I Ever by Karen McManus – Barely 2 stars. Is she just known for plot twists? I liked this but it didn’t grip me and it’s a short story! It should quickly grab my attention. It didn’t give me enough of the characters for me to like/dislike anyone.

Like Before by Maurene Goo – 2 stars. It started off moderately okay and didn’t improve. I didn’t like the characters and found the writing and dialogue to be a bit wooden. It had a cute concept.

*Old Rifts and Snowdrifts by Kayla Whaley – 5 stars. This was so super cute! I loved Owen and Eleanor and the story setting as well. Loved seeing the disability rep and the very casualness about it too, you know?

*Con Nights, Parallel Hearts by Marieke Nijkamp – 5 stars. Absolutely amazing. Definitely want to read Nijkamp’s other books! I loved the whole time loop of the story and how it was the same some loops and others it changed just enough to change so much of the story. And also fandoms!

Kiss the Boy by Amanda Joy – 4 stars. This was cute! I don’t know which school would allow boys and girls to sleep next to each other 😅. I’m not really a fan of bets about kissing especially when there seems to be a time limit on the kissing. Not everyone kisses another person in high school –hi! Me for one! So I don’t know, the whole idea of putting pressure on a kiss is a miss for me. But I liked the story enough to go for a 4 star rating.

*Creature Capture by Laura Silverman – 5 stars! I really loved it! So cute and the and the Pokemon Go type app – and I want it now! I really love that there wasn’t a focus on love and relationships.

Shark Bait by Tiffany D. Jackson – 3 stars. It was all over the place. I liked the open ending but that was about it.

A Place to Start by Nina LaCour – 4 stars. This was cute. It was confusing at first because it felt like I was being thrown into the middle with nothing.

When You Bring a Dog to Prom by Anna Meriano – 2 stars. I didn’t like the main character. But then again I also don’t like the trope of ‘in love with best friend’s sibling’. I would’ve actually preferred to read this from a different character’s pov. Probably Dodge, they were my favourite.

Missing by Kathleen Glasgow – 1 star. Between the absolute awful person and friend Dorsey and Kate, the really bad sister – it wasn’t good. I also didn’t like how Kate seemed to act like the grief didn’t affect her sister too, when it totally did. Dorsey wasn’t very kind about the grief either. And also – can we not anymore with the horror stories and abandoned mental hospitals? It felt like they weren’t taking it seriously enough – like they didn’t care enough that there were actual people as patients.

What About Your Friends by Brandy Colbert – 2 stars. For a good part of the story I was confused as to whether they were in high school or college because it felt extremely high school too. Granted, they were only a year out of high school; so I can’t fault them too much for that. I would have enjoyed a take on “I don’t actually want to go to college, let me to do something else”.

*Under Our Masks by Julian Winters – 5 stars. It’s superheroes! Always enjoy Julian’s books! He’s definitely an auto-read author to me and I’m so excited to see him branch out into fantasy work – I know he does love superheroes and I could see that love in the short story.

The Ghost of Goon Creek by Francesca Zappia – 4 stars. This was really cute! I did, however, feel like there wasn’t enough of the characters’ personality to differentiate between the dialogue. But I really liked the concept and it was very cute.

📚🚀📚

I don’t read anthologies all that often so I’m always happy when I find one I really like! I think Young Adult ones are easier because you often have read from various authors before (does that make sense? 😆) and therefore know their writing style (whether or not you like the author).

Have you read this anthology? What’s your favourite short story? Tell me all!