I won’t even lie, I’m 100% guilty of judging a book by it’s cover, and when I saw this book in my local QBD, I just had to have it. Instantly, I could picture this book sitting on my bookshelf, looking picture perfect. I’m a total sucker for pretty hardbacks, and the combination of baby blue and sunshine yellow on the cover, tied in with yellow-edged pages and a baby pink ribbon bookmark drew me in. It was love at first site.
Summer Days & Summer Nights is a collection of 12 short stories written by a combination of popular YA (young adult) authors. Every story in the book has the same theme: Summer love. What each author chose to do with that theme was completely up to them. All stories were then edited by the lovely Stephanie Perkins.
Each of the 12 short stories tell completely different perspectives of Summer love, with some going down the typical happily-ever-after route, some explored heartbreak, and others ended their short-stories with completely unexpected twists.
As a whole, the book was an extremely enjoyable and easy read, with each short-story taking you on a new journey and making you experience different emotions. Some of the stories where more light-hearted than others, with some making me smile and laugh to myself, while others tugged at my heart strings, causing me to shed a few tears (but only a few, I swear!). Almost every story made my heart pang and long for the love story to have a perfect ending, which is exactly what I want to experience when reading a summer love story! I was impressed with the way that the stories were not exclusive to any group of individuals, with stories either written from the perspective of, or including characters of a variety of skin tones, races, sexualities and socio-economic status.
Obviously, as each short-story is written by a different author, different themes and writing styles will appeal more to certain people, while others may not connect to some. And of course, I am no literary scholar, I simply enjoy to read in my spare time.
Anyhow, here are my personal book ratings:
Overall:
Cover: 9/10
How I rate the enjoyability of the book as a whole: 8/10
Ease of read: 10/10
Short-story breakdown:
Head, Scale, Tongue, Tail by Leigh Bardugo: 7/10
The End of Love by Nina LaCour: 8.5/10
Last Stand at the Cinegore by Libba Bray: 6/10
Sick Pleasure by Francesca Lia Block: 9/10
In Ninety Minutes, Turn North by Stephanie Perkins: 9/10
Souvenirs by Tim Federle: 8/10
Inertia by Veronica Roth: 9.5/10
Love is the Last Resort by Jon Skovron: 5/10
Good Luck and Farewell by Brandy Colbert: 8/10
Brand New Attraction by Cassandra Clare: 8/10
A Thousand Ways This Could All Go Wrong by Jennifer E. Smith: 8/10
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things by Lev Grossman: 9/10
Would I recommend? YES!
Ruby Lila 
Lovely review! The last short story collection that I read was by Kafka, so it was quite ‘heavy’. Hence, lighter reads like this is certainly on my list! Now then, I can only hope it is available in the bookstore…
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Thank you so much!
This was a very very easy read and considering there are 12 different stories, I think you’ll be able to find at least one that you enjoy (though I rate almost all of them as extremely enjoyable reads) 🙂
Ah yes, hopefully it will be! Stephanie Perkins has also edited another collection of 12 short-stories that goes together with this one, but with each stories based on Winter/holiday love stories. It is called “My True Love Gave to Me” and also has a really pretty cover to match. I haven’t actually read it yet though, but it is on my list!
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Yes, I believe I will find them enjoyable, too, hopefully all of them!
Ooh! yes, if I enjoyed this one (provided that I managed to find it first), I’ll look for the other one! Thank you for the information 😀
Again, thank you so much for the response!
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