Review: Summer Days & Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories

Summer Days & Summer Nights: Twelve Love Stories
Edited by: Stephanie Perkins
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: May 17th 2016
My rating: 3 stars 

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 stories by Leigh Bardugo, Francesca Lia Block, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Brandy Colbert, Tim Federle, Lev Grossman, Nina LaCour, Stephanie Perkins, Veronica Roth, Jon Skovron, and Jennifer E. Smith.

This book was a lot more darker than I was expecting it to be, whereas My True Love Gave to Me was the perfect read for the Winter with its cosy make you want to curl up in a duvet with a hot chocolate sort of read, some of the stories in Summer Days and Summer Nights were darn right scary, and didn’t really come across as summery sorts of reads at all. Despite this there were a few stories that shone through for me;

In Ninety Minutes Turn North by Stephanie Perkins.

This is just the cutest story ever. I’m a huge fan of Perkins  work and I’m known to gobble up her books in one sitting, whereas I wasn’t feeling the first few stories in this anthology, this story really ended up being a favourite of mine. I’m a huge fan of second chance romances and the romance in here was done perfectly. It was cute, whimsical and left a big fat goofy smile on my face afterwards.

Good Luck and Farewell by Brandy Colbert.

This was one story I started off assuming I wouldn’t like but my sister told me to push through as it was one of her favourites and once I’d finished I absolutely loved it. The MC sort of reminded me of myself in a lot ways, she’d been through a lot and was now seeing a big piece of her life (her cousin) move away to another state. Because of what she’d been through I could understand why it could be hard letting people in and why she was worrying about her family members. But I was happy with the chance (route) she decided to take because it was so worthwhile in the end. This story really can be an eye opener in many ways as it deals with characters finally opening up about grief they’d had to deal with, but also opening up the chance for someone to enter their lives. 

“I think maybe saying goodbye isn’t all bad. Maybe it means I’m making room for someone new”.

Brand New Attraction by Cassandra Clare.

This story was actually one of the darker ones that ended up working for me; it was set at a carnival, with scary clowns and demons (so not my sort of read). But the unexpected surprises that came along the way in the forms of characters that you could rely on that you didn’t assume that you could and finally discovering what happened to characters who had supposedly run away and the realising who the actual real villain made this book such a fun read. Also the sweet romance set amongst the grim, darker scenes really brightened up the story for me.