A Universe of Wishes eARC Review

       

GoodReads:

From We Need Diverse Books, the organization behind Flying Lessons & Other Stories, comes a young adult fantasy short story collection featuring some of the best own-voices children’s authors, including New York Timesbestselling authors Libba Bray (The Diviners), Victoria Schwab (A Darker Shade of Magic), Natalie C. Parker (Seafire), and many more. Edited by Dhonielle Clayton (The Belles).

In the fourth collaboration with We Need Diverse Books, fifteen award-winning and celebrated diverse authors deliver stories about a princess without need of a prince, a monster long misunderstood, memories that vanish with a spell, and voices that refuse to stay silent in the face of injustice. This powerful and inclusive collection contains a universe of wishes for a braver and more beautiful world.

AUTHORS INCLUDE: Samira Ahmed, Libba Bray, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova, Tessa Gratton, Kwame Mbalia, Anna-Marie McLemore, Tochi Onyebuchi, Mark Oshiro, Natalie C. Parker, Rebecca Roanhorse, Victoria Schwab, Tara Sim, Nic Stone, and a to-be-announced debut author/short-story contest winner.

My Review

Anthologies are so much fun, you get so many stories in one book and so many different worlds in this case.

I was curious seeing the title and who doesn’t love a book to promote diversity (especially an anthology), it was too tempting to pass up.

The line up of authors was phenomenal and so many of them I’ve come to love their works so this was starting well before I even turned the page.

I loved the stories for the most part, like, 99.9% of them.

There were love stories, fantasies, scifi, distant worlds and others that are just as close to home as you can get.

I won’t lie, I actually screeched like true pterodactyl noises when I saw the Libbra Bray story was a Gemma Doyle one, and I was so eager to get to Nic Stone and Rebecca Roanhorse and see what stories they wrote.

Each story was a glimpse of possibilities, love, heartache, discovery, and sometimes tragedy too.

The scifi stories stood out to me, but that’s because I’m a space junkie…saying that…

I do wish there had been a few more scifi, but, that’s me being greedy, each story brought a beacon of diversity that we so sorely need in the bookish/publishing world.

I loved the different characters and seeing more diversity in the pages. It’s always great when authors come together to champion characters that look more like ALL of their readers instead of just some. After all, it’s not just characters that look like Harry Potter that’s able to save the day.

We’re so close and yet so far to having bookstores filled with books to match every reader inside and outside on its covers and in its pages, and I think that’s a pretty magical feeling that adds to the joy of reading this book.

There’s not too much I can say, I don’t want to spoil the discovery of what each story brings whether it’s a character is non-binary, that humanity has travelled further than we hoped, a revolution on the horizon, or that maybe there’s a dragon to save or slay, so, just know there’s a realm of possibilities in each story.

4.5/5 cups of coffee from me! A great anthology, thanks so much to the publisher and NetGalley for an eARC of this.