How They Met and other stories-- David Levithan

I am pretty picky when it comes to short stories... so many of them read like novels that didn't really work, so the author turned the piece into a short story. I was very pleased to find that David Levithan's collection was quite good. Levithan really seems to get what makes a short story appealing to readers. Even though some were more captivating than others, each story in How They Met had a unique tone and good character development. (My personal favorite was Starbucks Boy).

Levithan says at the beginning of this book that these are stories about love, not love stories. I would have to agree... love stories makes me think about romance, while stories about love makes me think of relationships. And, in each of his stories, relationships between friends, lovers, family, etc are the key element.

Although I am not a huge fan of his other work, with the notable exception of the two books he cowrote with Rachel Cohn (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Naomi and Eli's No Kiss List), I can easily recommend this book with few reservations. Levithan is known for writing novels with gay characters, but this book talks about all types of relationships, including hetero and homosexual, and many things in-between. Because of this, I believe this short story collection will reach a wider variety of readers than some other collections I have read in the past.

Teens who liked Julie Anne Peters' Girl to Girl, Francesca Lia Block's Blood Roses, 21 Proms and This is Push: stories from the edge (both edited by Levithan), or Meg Cabot's Prom Nights from Hell should enjoy this book. I would also recommend How They Met to fans of Cohn and Levithan's cowriten novels, readers of romance in general, and readers who appreciate not-so-mainstream lovestories.

Blood Roses- Francesca Lia Block

Blood Roses is a collection of very short stories by the renowned author Francesca Lia Block. Block is best known for her Weetzie Bat books, and has received all kinds of awards, including the Margret A. Edwards lifetime achievement award. The Weetzie books were published in the 90's and are full of real-life fairy tale, post-punk rock L.A., loving life goodness.

Blood Roses, however, just doesn't move you the way the Weetzie books could. Possibly Block's sensual, honest, impressionistic fairy tale writing style just isn't as original as it once was? Maybe YA literature has matured over the years and her work just isn't as stand-out unique? For me, I think, Blood Roses was a little underdeveloped. It was like Block had all these ideas for books that she just couldn't work out, so she turned them into short stories. It's not that they were poorly written or no good... it's just that I expect more from Block after all these years of incredible books. Teens who enjoy Weetzie Bat and nontraditional, creative writing styles might still go for this book, but otherwise, I think it might be a hard sell.