BLOGMAS DAY NINE.
Title: My True Love Gave To Me
Author: Various authors.
Genre: Young Adult
Length: 320 pages
Published: 1st October 2014
I had to include a Christmassy book review somewhere in Blogmas didn't I?! And what an adorable book it is. I'm sure we all know by now that I'm a particularly disloyal reader, and am always dropping books from my reading routine in favour of new ones. One of the most recent additions into my rotation has been My True Love Gave To Me, which is a collection of festive short stories written by a bunch of different authors. It's been nice to flit between this and the two other books I've been reading. Some of the authors featured include Rainbow Rowell, David Levithan, Matt De La Pena, Gayle Forman and Stephanie Perkins, who also acted as editor.
There are twelve stories in this book, and each one of them is on a different step of the 'cringy romance' scale. I didn't really think that any of them were too disgustingly sweet, although I couldn't make it through Jenny Han's piece. I read To All The Boys I've Loved Before back in the summer and found that her writing style doesn't really suit my taste, and I found the same thing with her story in this book. That aside, I did love almost all of the stories included in this collection, and feel like there would be a story for everyone. All of the authors have very different writing styles and all had a different take on Christmas romance, which I really enjoyed reading. I also found that whilst most of the stories fall into the 'contemporary romance' category, a few of them included magical realism, which I really liked as it helped break everything up. Also, Laini Taylor's piece was very dark and completely on the other end of the scale to most of the others! It kind of reminded me of Only Ever Yours in a way.
My favourite stories were those by Rainbow Rowell and David Levithan. They were both very character driven, and I flew through them. A few pieces took me a few pages until I really got into them, but I feel I would enjoy reading a lot of them if they were ever fully expanded novels. I wasn't particularly taken by Stephanie Perkins' piece, which disappointed me as it seems to be everyone else's favourite! It was very sweet though, and I liked the premise of it.
Overall, if you're looking for something Christmassy to read but don't have the time/inclination to dedicate to a fully blown novel, this short story collection is for you! I really do feel like there's something for everyone, despite what kind of Young Adult sub-genre you usually lean towards. I've decided to award this book 4/5 stars.
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There are twelve stories in this book, and each one of them is on a different step of the 'cringy romance' scale. I didn't really think that any of them were too disgustingly sweet, although I couldn't make it through Jenny Han's piece. I read To All The Boys I've Loved Before back in the summer and found that her writing style doesn't really suit my taste, and I found the same thing with her story in this book. That aside, I did love almost all of the stories included in this collection, and feel like there would be a story for everyone. All of the authors have very different writing styles and all had a different take on Christmas romance, which I really enjoyed reading. I also found that whilst most of the stories fall into the 'contemporary romance' category, a few of them included magical realism, which I really liked as it helped break everything up. Also, Laini Taylor's piece was very dark and completely on the other end of the scale to most of the others! It kind of reminded me of Only Ever Yours in a way.
My favourite stories were those by Rainbow Rowell and David Levithan. They were both very character driven, and I flew through them. A few pieces took me a few pages until I really got into them, but I feel I would enjoy reading a lot of them if they were ever fully expanded novels. I wasn't particularly taken by Stephanie Perkins' piece, which disappointed me as it seems to be everyone else's favourite! It was very sweet though, and I liked the premise of it.
Overall, if you're looking for something Christmassy to read but don't have the time/inclination to dedicate to a fully blown novel, this short story collection is for you! I really do feel like there's something for everyone, despite what kind of Young Adult sub-genre you usually lean towards. I've decided to award this book 4/5 stars.
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Oh I read this last year and really enjoyed it for the most part - only two I didn't really like. I think my all time favourite one was Rainbow Rowell's, but I had a few favourites. (Including the Stephanie Perkins one!) I'm going to re-read soon though so who knows if my mind changes aha. I think this is definitely a good little collection to have.
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