Meet Cute by Jennifer L. Armentrout is a sweet, feel-good collection of short stories about the magical moments people meet. From funny to heartfelt, each story captures that special spark of new connections. It's perfect for readers who enjoy romantic, lighthearted reads with a touch of serendipity and charm.

Apologies for the late notes, cleaning up my notebook! Thank you for the opportunity to review - I loved this compilation and ended up finishing it in the actual print version - it has a permanent spot in our library now!

I love a good "meet cute"! While I'm not normally a fan of short story anthologies, this is a wonderful collection of well-known YA authors and sweet stories full of the promise of love.

Like every collection of short stories I read, this one included one or two good stories, but most of them did not work for me. Sadly, I had to DNF towards the end of the book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Clarion Books for providing me with an ARC of this book! All opinions are my own.

This one was a DNF for me unfortunately, something about it just didn't really work. I'm normally a fan of a short story anthology, but this just wasn't right for me,

This was a wonderful collection of stories centered around the theme of love. It was a fun read, and purchased for my library.

I genuinely cannot believe that some of these stories are THAT cute. I loved these and was super excited to see these short, sweet stories that don't feel like they drag on for too long. Some of these are better than others (ie. Somewhere That’s Green) and makes the entire book worth it.

MEET CUTE is a fun, romantic anthology featuring stories about people first meeting. Ranging from cute to funny to dark to weird (in the best way), these stories demonstrate how people can meet and maybe fall in like in the strangest of circumstances. While every story had something special, these three blew me away:

1.) "Siege Etiquette" by Kate Cotugno- Having read Cotungo's works before, I was excited to see that they put a story from her first. Her couples are rarely full of sunshine, and the couple in "Siege Etiquette" is not an exception. It immediately lets the reader know that this anthology will likely have a wide range of emotion, and that while something may be a meet cute, it might not be a meet *cute.* This story has more of a meet sarcastic and shows that you can meet someone (or start to get to know them) in surprising and and unexpected ways.

2.) "The Way We Love Here" by Dhonielle Clayton- While most of the stories in MEET CUTE are contemporary, a few have speculative elements to them. In Dhonielle Clayton's "The Way We Love Here," everyone has a string around their finger. When the string reaches it's last loop, it's said they will find their soul mate. This piece asks about the meaning and influence of destiny and how many different futures we can have for each decision we make or don't make.

3.) "The Department of Dead Love" by Nicola Yoon- What a story to end the anthology on! When you have a broken heart, it feels like you may never have another 'meet cute.' You may never understand why your previous meet cute didn't work out. "The Department of Dead Love" weaves a journey of a boy who had his heart broken unexpectedly and is trying to find answers. It's about learning to let go, learning to accept that somethings don't have a neat and tidy explanation, and that even when things seem dark, you just might find another person who wants to know you as much as you want to know them.

MEET CUTE is a fun, romantic anthology featuring stories about people first meeting. Ranging from cute to funny to dark to weird (in the best way), these stories demonstrate how people can meet and maybe fall in like in the strangest of circumstances. While every story had something special, these three blew me away:

1.) "Siege Etiquette" by Kate Cotugno- Having read Cotungo's works before, I was excited to see that they put a story from her first. Her couples are rarely full of sunshine, and the couple in "Siege Etiquette" is not an exception. It immediately lets the reader know that this anthology will likely have a wide range of emotion, and that while something may be a meet cute, it might not be a meet *cute.* This story has more of a meet sarcastic and shows that you can meet someone (or start to get to know them) in surprising and and unexpected ways.

2.) "The Way We Love Here" by Dhonielle Clayton- While most of the stories in MEET CUTE are contemporary, a few have speculative elements to them. In Dhonielle Clayton's "The Way We Love Here," everyone has a string around their finger. When the string reaches it's last loop, it's said they will find their soul mate. This piece asks about the meaning and influence of destiny and how many different futures we can have for each decision we make or don't make.

3.) "The Department of Dead Love" by Nicola Yoon- What a story to end the anthology on! When you have a broken heart, it feels like you may never have another 'meet cute.' You may never understand why your previous meet cute didn't work out. "The Department of Dead Love" weaves a journey of a boy who had his heart broken unexpectedly and is trying to find answers. It's about learning to let go, learning to accept that somethings don't have a neat and tidy explanation, and that even when things seem dark, you just might find another person who wants to know you as much as you want to know them.

Unfortunately I no longer wish to review this book as the first few chapters did not reel me in. Thank you for the opportunity.

I really should know better than to read anthologies....I always walk into them with an open mind and then end up disappointed. The stories that I like tend to be too short but most of them tend to be just ok. This was a definate case of its not you its me and I just didn't really enjoy this one.

I really wanted to love this book. It has such an impressive collection of my favourite YA authors ... and yet, every time I sat down to read another story, I just didn't feel that excitement to carry on. It's a shame but I'm definitely putting it down to wrong book at the wrong time for me.

So many powerhouse authors in this collection, which already made me sit up and take notice. Plus, a book all about meet cutes? I loved so many stories in this collection, and there is something here for everyone!

Meet Cute was a fun and romantic collection of short stories featuring fateful encounters between teens. Each story had a unique premise, and I found myself enjoying the dynamics and chemistry between the characters in pretty much all of them. I'm the kind of person who loves the beginnings and potential of romance, so these stories that offer snapshots of the start of something were perfect for me. It was easy to move from one story to the next because of the general open and optimistic ending notes of each story.

Siege Etiquette by Katie Cotugno: ★★★★☆ definitely cute, but also sad in many ways. About how we don't really know the people we see in our daily lives, and how things might be easier if we were able to not judge.

Print Shop by Nina LaCour: ★★★★☆ also cute, and pretty deep, too. A print shop didn't seem like the perfect place for a meet cute, but the actual meeting didn't happen there - only the online meet.

Hourglass by Ibi Zoboi: ★★★★☆ feeling like we're at the outside looking in is definitely something most of us have felt. And I felt like Cherish really felt this very deeply. All the while telling her she deserved to fit in - all she really wanted was to leave everything behind.

Click by Katharine McGee: ★★★★☆ I really enjoyed this one, because we are all looking for love in unlikely places. And an algorithm that can find the perfect person for us is just what some wish could exist for them. However, there's a nice little twist here.

The Intern by Sara Shepard: ★★★★½ grief can be dealt with in many different ways! And sometimes, it's not dealt with at all - until it comes back with full force to make sure it gets its place. There's also music.

Somewhere That's Green by Meredith Russo: ★★★★★ this one is about courage just as much as it's about a first meeting. And the courage Lexie and Nia show is outstanding!

The Way We Love Here by Dhonielle Clayton: ★★★★½ this could be a fantastic fantasy story! I want to now more about this place and these characters.

Oomph by Emery Lord: ★★★★★ definitely cute. So very cute! A chance meeting at an airport - where two girls make up stories about other people's lives - while giving each other hope at the same time.

The Dictionary of You and Me by Jennifer L. Armentrout: ★★★★★ JLA always makes me swoon, and that's exactly what she did with this short! So very cute :)

The Unlikely Likelihood of Falling in Love by Jocelyn Davies: ★★★★★ Both very humorous and very sweet :)

259 Million Miles by Kass Morgan: ★★★½ Cute, for sure, and with an important theme as well. Don't read the comments!!

Something Real by Julie Murphy: ★★★★★ Ha! Very nice and cute twist with this one - behind the scenes of a reality TV show.

Say Everything by Huntley Fitzpatrick: ★★★☆☆ Cute enough, a little nostalgic.

The Department of Dead Love by Nicola Yoon: ★★★½ Futuristic cute, with a way to find the cause of death for love and relationships.

I don't read much of a book with multiple stories but I could say this one is worth reading for! I love every short stories and they're inspirational.

A lot of anthologies are a hit or miss for me, and that was still the case for this one. I think the concept just didn't work for me. As soon as every story got interesting, they ended. I wanted to see what happened next every time and was just left disappointed.

<i>Meet Cute</i> has a few stand-out stories, and I'm glad I didn't miss out on those (Zoboi, Lord, Murphy), but the bulk of the anthology is not great, at least if you came here looking for cute romances. A few of the stories I would have liked more had the collection been themed differently, but the title and description led me to expect certain things that I largely didn't receive.

<b>"Siege Etiquette" by Katie Cotugno</b>
This, right here, is why I find anthologies so incredibly frustrating. An anthology called <i>Meet Cute</i> with the subtitle "Some People Are Destined to Meet" should be full of adorable romances with meet cutes. That's what I was promised. Instead, it opens with this story about a queen bee who called the cops on the part she's attending and hides in the bathroom with Wolf, a boy who lives on a farm and is thus not cool. They do not bond but they make out some, and it's the least cute thing ever. To top it all off, it's in SECOND PERSON. ½

<b>"Print Shop" by Nina LaCour</b>
LaCour's offering is actually a cute start to a romance, which is good. A girl with a new job running a Twitter account for a print shop discovers that the disgruntled customer flaming them on Twitter is a cute girl in high school. There's not enough to really explain the bond between them and it ends before anything happens, but the writing is good. Minus the first and last sections which refer to Lauren as "you" though the rest does not, which I loathe. ★★★

<b>"Hourglass" by Ibi Zoboi</b>
Finally a story I firmly like! "Hourglass" is about a 6'5" black girl in a small white town right at the end of the year. There are tensions with her best friend, her family, and her college plans. (Aside: always apply to a safety school if you possibly can.) The writing and voice are amazing, and I think this would have been an easy five star if there'd been more of it. However, the story ends immediately after the meet cute with no resolution to anything. I was stunned when I turned the page only to get the next story. :'( ★★★★

<b>"Click" by Katharine McGee</b>
"Click" is the first story that fits my expectations of what the stories in meet cute would be like: a meet cute to start off a potential ship and a little bit after that. The story is sci-fi, set in a future US with a massively accurate dating app called Click, which mines all our data on the internet to identify compatible matches. However, the story also attempts a grief component which feels like too much for a short story, and none of the emotions really had time to build. ★★★


<b>"The Intern" by Sara Shepard</b>
I've never read Sara Shepard before, always having assumed her books would not be for me, but this story makes me think her fiction might be worth a try. "The Intern" is a celebrity romance between the daughter of the owner of the record label and a cute musician. Once again, it's a story about overcoming grief. I didn't really get shippy feels, and once again it leaves off a bit earlier than I'd like. ★★★

<b>"Somewhere That's Green" by Meredith Russo</b>
A transgender girl in the midst of a battle to use the girl's bathrooms at school discovers that there's more to the story of the girl who spoke out against her at the <i>Little Shop of Horrors</i> cast party. Much as I want to love this, I did feel like it was more about the message than the actual characters. It's a great message, but in such a short format it does feel a bit forced and clunky. I'm also not sure whether I think saying transphobic things about a classmate really constitutes a meet cute either. ★★★

<b>"The Way We Love Here" by Dhonielle Clayton</b>
A bit strange. In a magical realism/fantasy world where people know when they'll find their love because of marks on their fingers, a girl saves a boy from drowning. They then proceed to view possible futures in a <i>Sliding Doors</i> fashion. And I think if you fall in love you can leave this magical island? Or something? TBH, I was confused by this. It wasn't bad but also what? ★★½

<b>"Oomph" by Emery Lord</b>
I am so grateful that Emery Lord, aka one of my fave authors, brings to the table the first story that really completely embodied what I wanted. Well, okay, almost, since there wasn't kissing. But! Two girls have a meet cute in the security line at the airport and proceed to banter adorably. The whole thing was precious, and it had just enough back story to round things out but not so much that the story felt incomplete when it ended. ★★★★½

<b>"The Dictionary of You and Me" by Jennifer L. Armentrout</b>
Fluffy and cute, Armentrout's contribution is about a girl who works part time at the local library and her months of phone calls to a delinquent patron. They began as an attempt to get him to return an overdue dictionary but turned into flirting with unusual words. Slightly unbelievable (he's the only one who answers the home phone ever?) but exactly in the spirit I expected; I feel vindicated, since she's the editor of the anthology. ★★★½

<b>"The Unlikely Likelihood of Falling in Love" by Jocelyn Davies</b>
Davies is a new-to-me author, and I was surprised by how good this was (but probably I shouldn't hold people's paranormal novels from the early aughts against them). The narration's a bit distancing, as it's written (loosely) like a "report" for the heroine's statistics class. She does a project about the odds of seeing the boy she fell in love with at first sight again on the subway. I really liked it, though I have major suspension of disbelief issues about the enthusiasm her teacher and all-male class have for this project. ★★★½

<b>"259 Million Miles" by Kass Morgan</b>
As expected from Morgan (and the title), this story is science fiction, about teens competing for seats on a one-way mission to Mars. As part of the testing, the male MC and a girl are put into an isolation chamber for 24 hours where they flirt and dance and have a heart-to-heart. More about the MC's character arc than the romance. ★★★

<b>"Something Real" by Julie Murphy</b>
OMG, Julie Murphy, you queen. "Something Real" delivers a classic meet cute (reality TV dating show!), humor, characterization, and an adorable ending. Even better, it's all with a major dose of fighting against the media attempts to pit women against one another; I love when stories can deliver a great message without it being ALL message. This is a perfect example of how to short story. ★★★★★

<b>"Say Everything" by Huntley Fitzpatrick</b>
What a disappointment! I loved Fitzpatrick's first two books, and I was excited to see there would be something new from her in this anthology. The story itself does sort of fit the premise. It's certainly more focused on romance than some, but there's a lot of back story to this (his dad apparently ruined her family?) and the date is creepy af (he takes her to her old home ALONE—everything in me thought murder was coming). And, once again, the anthology special: SECOND PERSON. CURSES! ★★

<b>"The Department of Dead Love" by Nicola Yoon</b>
Iiiiinteresting. Speculative fiction set in a future where departments are set up to help with difficulties in love. The MC has gone to the Relationship Autopsy department to find out why his good relationship suddenly ended. I want to know so much more about the world, but it's an intriguing and unique idea. ★★★★

If you're a person who can skip around, I'd recommend checking out a few of the stories for sure, but if you have a compulsive need to read in entirety, maybe skip this anthology.

Meet Cute is a collection of short stories featuring couples as they meet for the first time. Each story is vastly different, from a girl who meets her distant crush only to find out he's the son of the man who destroyed her family, to the girl whose challenging client at her new job turns out to be another teen with her same interests and passions. The stories span genres and styles, including a science fiction story about two teens interviewing for a spot to travel to Mars, and one featuring a futuristic dating app with a nearly perfect success rate. The stories also feature a variety of couples, including same sex couples and a couple that includes a transgender teen, as well as a wide variety of people from different races, backgrounds, and religions.

There are occasional references to teenage drinking, but overall, the volume is relatively tame and could be appropriate down to the middle school level. Romance fans will go crazy for this set of tales, with the only possible complaint being that each story fades to black just as the characters are coming together. It's the meet cute moments that the volume focuses on, after all. But all of the slow-burning build-up to the romance is here, the primary topic of each story. This collection might have some potential in a family and consumer science class, like Contemporary Relationships, but is most likely to appeal as a choice novel for students. The short story format may make this volume appealing to busy or reluctant readers, who will appreciate the ability to jump in and out of the stories quickly, or skip over a story that is less appealing. This is a much more representative and modern collection of romantic short stories than one published even five or ten years ago. Your students deserve an upgrade.

I wish I was more sucked into these stories. For some reason short stories are always hard for me to get into. I really wanted something cute and fluffy and this just didn’t deliver.