3.25 stars rounded down to 3*.

I've recently rediscovered short stories and generally enjoy the short bursts of various author's voices. Fresh Ink was no exception. A compilation of diverse voices, Fresh Ink is a really great taste of how different YA publishing is now as compared to 10 or 20 years ago.

I enjoyed the various characters and unique viewpoints of the authors. However, like all compilations, I liked some much more than others. Will be recommending it to my teen and tween-aged daughters.

*ARC received from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Such great stories here; an eclectic mix of diverse authors writing for teens of today. Some of the stories were a bit rougher than others, but overall the collection feels honest and fresh.

This is probably one of the best YA books I've read, since it truly reflects all teens today. I have a few teenagers in the house; these stories really resonate, and don't pull punches.

Recommended if you want to try some new authors--I've added a few names to my list for sure.

**NetGalley provided copy for review**

Summary: For a long time, the young adult world has needed stories that MATCH today’s youth because it’s important for young adults to be able to relate to and identify with protagonists. With this mentality in mind, some of today’s most prolific young adult writers such as Nicola Yoon (author of "Everything, Everything" and "The Sun is Also a Star"), Thien Pham (author of "Level Up"), Gene Luen Yang (author of "American Born Chinese"), and Aminah Mae Safi (author of "A Girl Like That") have written a compilation of diverse short stories that tackle topics relevant to today’s youth such as: finding one’s identity, learning to cope with familial and societal expectations, racism, and gun violence, just to name a few.

Mrs. Theander's Opinion: First and foremost, I celebrate the diversity presented in this book and the anthology even includes a section at the end entitled “About We Need Diverse Books” that discusses the “We Need Diverse Books” organization and their mission statement. For more information about this organization and their cause, check-out: https://diversebooks.org/.

One example of a book that focused on a diverse topic that I’ve never seen published before is a story called “Meet Cute”, by Malina Lo, which is about a teenage girl named Nic who is attending a Comic-Con convention when she meets Tamia, a girl who instantly attracts her attention and feelings. After the building loses power, and the two pass time discussing Star Trek and other nerderific topics, Nic wonders what possibilities await them. Although I am a self-described “nerd”, I have never attended Comic-Con but I know enough people, students included, who have. And, it is very rare to see stories that are set in the Comic-Con world so I can see this story speaking to those students.

My second favorite story in the anthology is called “Tags", written by Walter Dean Myers (author of Monster). It is structured as a play and focuses on the story of four teens: “Big Eddie” Jones (age 17), Willie Jimenez (age 16), D’Mario Thompson (age 16), and Frank Watkins (age 17). The four of them are tagging walls in a pseudo-Heaven and telling the story of how they were each murdered generally because of gun violence and being at the wrong place at the wrong time. The story truly highlights the epidemic of gun violence and racial profiling that is a very real truth in today’s society.

Finally, my favorite story is the very last one in the anthology and it is called “Super Human” by Nicola Yoon (author of "Everything, Everything"). It’s about a superhero named X who has always been ready and waiting to save the world. Unfortunately, he has lost faith in humanity and his goal is to destroy EVERYONE. So the government decides to send a teenage girl, Syrita, to talk to X particularly for the reason that she was the first person that X ever saved. This story is my favorite because it encourages readers to think about the status of humanity today. It probes a reader to look at how humans have a tendency to focus on race or someone’s skin color rather than the personality of an individual, the rise in hostility and violence between police officers and the public, particularly against African-Americans, and the established division between various socioeconomic statuses.

Overall, these authors aren’t afraid to tackle some of the topics relevant to 2018, rather than “brushing them under the rug.” Thank you to this group of authors for writing about diverse genres. We need more authors like this group!

Middle school teachers and librarians got a lot of mileage from Flying Lessons & Other Stories last year, and we devotees of We Need Diverse Books have been eagerly anticipating this collection. I had the opportunity to see Lamar Giles speak recently, and I was inspired by his passion to ensure that all children have the experience of seeing themselves in literature. He and the diverse collection of authors represented in Fresh Ink have curated a gold mine of stories in all genres. For those of us who teach in secondary education, this collection represents an opportunity for all of us to bring more diversity and representation into our classrooms.

From a teacher’s perspective, I tend to evaluate short stories using the following criteria:
1. Student engagement: How much do I think students will get excited about this story?
2. Teaching potential: What content can I teach using this story?
3. Representation: Does this story represent a broader perspective than the cis/white/abled/middle class experience that’s available in nearly every YA book?
4. Age-appropriateness: If I were to read this aloud to the class, how likely would I be to get fired?

Now, the best thing about this collection is that ALL of the stories will score a 5/5 for representation. Here are my ratings for the stories in Fresh Ink:

“Eraser Tattoo” by Jason Reynolds: (5 stars)
1. (4/5) Students who are thoughtful and into realistic fiction will love this story. It has a subtler message, which makes it ideal as a teaching tool. Younger secondary students may not “get it” right away.
2. (5/5) I would teach this story in a hot minute. Pair it with “Cynthia in the Snow” by Gwendolyn Brooks, and you’ve got paired passages and a symbolism unit.
3. (5/5) The theme of this story deals directly with the painful ramifications of gentrification and whitewashing.
4. (5/5) You could absolutely read this aloud with no fear; although you may have light tittering when you say the words “grabbed my butt” aloud.

”Meet Cute” by Malinda Lo (4 stars)
1. (5/5) Your nerdy, fandom-loving students will eat this up with a spoon, and the romance is highly shippable.
2. (4/5) This one could be used to teach POV and characterization, as it alternates between the two girls’ perspectives.
3. (5/5) This is the romance between a race-bending Dana Scully and a gender-bending Sulu that I never knew I needed.
4. (5/5) Never fear – the flirting here is earnest and sweet.

”Don’t Pass Me By” by Eric Gansworth (4 stars)
1. (4/5) Students will chuckle at the main character’s suffering through high school health classes and relate to his mixed feelings about his heritage, and teachers will connect with the hapless health teacher’s futile attempts to force teenagers to learn about sex ed in a mature way.
2. (5/5) Pair this with “Sonrisas” by Pat Mora or “Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu to discuss theme and how we all have multiple identities that we navigate in life.
3. (5/5) A hilarious, touching story about one native boy’s experience on and off the reservation.
4. (2/5) – With all the talk of male anatomy, this would be a tough one to read aloud (without being drowned out by riotous laughter and inappropriate jokes). However, I would definitely offer this as a short story book club selection.

”Be Cool For Once” by Aminah Mae Safi (3 stars)
1. (5/5) I really didn’t like this story – it was way too fluffy and full of teenage romantic angst – but I think that’s precisely why teenagers will love it.
2. (1/5) Meh. My disinterest in the overall story here is crushing my will to teach it.
3. (5/5) A Muslim teen ventures out to squee over her favorite band and runs into her mega-crush (Japanese).
4. (5/5) There would be no firing for inappropriateness, but I might pass out from rolling my eyes so hard.

”Tags” by Walter Dean Myers (4 stars)
1. (3/5) Although the script-style of this scene makes it easy for kids to read aloud in reader’s theater, the slang and story seem outdated.
2. (3/5) This could possibly be used to teach dramatic scene structure or making inferences.
3. (5/5) I love Walter Dean Myers. A lot. However, I do think that there are already plenty of stories out there featuring people of color who are criminals or of lower economic status. Certainly these stories are important, and the struggle against systemic racism and a biased justice system is very real, but I would still hesitate to use this in class. I have plenty of those stories to offer, and my students deserve to see that they can be more than that. Whenever I book-talk any story that features a person of color as the romantic interest, a driven student, or an accomplished athlete, there is this immediate spark of interest because they so infrequently get to see themselves portrayed in a positive light. So while I did enjoy this scene, I wouldn’t use it in class.
4. (1/5) Lots of swear words in this one.

”Why I Learned to Cook” by Sara Farizan (5 stars)
1. (5/5) Wow. This was probably my favorite of the collection, alongside “Eraser Tattoo.” Students will completely relate to the main character’s anxiety about coming out to her conservative, Persian grandma and may even shed tears at the end of this. I wish I had had this story at the beginning of this year, because I absolutely would have included it in my short stories book club.
2. (5/5) Use this to teach characterization, plot structure, conflict, and theme.
3. (5/5) A heart-warming coming-out story featuring a Middle-Eastern protagonist, this made me want to read all of Sara Farizan’s books.
4. (4/5) There’s a brief make-out scene at the beginning of the story, so this is probably better as an option rather than a whole class read-aloud.

”A Stranger at the Bochinche” by Daniel Jose Older (2 stars)
1. (1/5) I read four pages of this, realized that I hadn’t absorbed anything that just happened and had to read them again. This is more of a scene than a short story, and there’s very little to get excited about here.
2. (2/5) Use a paragraph of this to teach figurative language and mood/tone. There’s great descriptive writing in this “story” but no real plot.
3. (5/5) Latinx characters adventure through a highly imaginative sci-fi setting.
4. (5/5) Nothing inappropriate here – just…boring.

”A Boy’s Duty” by Sharon G. Flake (2 stars)
1. (3/5) One of the only historical offerings in the collection, this story may appeal to some who already like the genre. However, I found it pretty dry.
2. (3/5) This might be a nice pairing with a WWII unit – as an introduction to a full book club.
3. (5/5) This touches on the racism that so many faced at home, even as they were fighting for our country abroad.
4. (5/5) It could be read aloud…but it might put many to sleep.

”One Voice” by Melissa de la Cruz (3 stars)
1. (4/5) Although I didn’t fully connect to this story, I think that it’s highly relevant to many current political events, and many teens will be engaged. Give this to your students who follow the news.
2. (5/5) Symbolism, conflict, and comparison to any of a huge number of available nonfiction articles about modern-day racism and activism – there’s a lot to teach here.
3. (5/5) The main character deals with fears of deportation and racist graffiti on her college campus.
4. (4/5) This is a great fictional depiction of current events, so it may spark some controversial discussion. Be ready to mediate if you use this in class.

”Paladin/Samurai” by Gene Luen Yang (2 stars)
1. (2/5) There are so many other, more engaging graphic stories that could be used instead.
2. (1/5) Again, I was bored.
3. (5/5) The main character fights to be a Samurai (instead of a Paladin) in his D&D-like role playing game.
4. (5/5) I wouldn’t get fired, but I would see at least 15-20 glazed, soulless eyes in the class that day.

”Catch, Pull, Drive” by Schuyler Bailar (4.5 stars)
1. (5/5) This story is SO COMPELLING, and students will be even more engaged when they find out that Schuyler Bailar is currently the first transgender man to compete in NCAA Division I swimming.
2. (5/5) Conflict and theme are easy targets here, and it would be interesting to pair this with a nonfiction article about the author and his life. This would be a great introduction to personal narrative writing, where students craft a story about their own personal struggles.
3. (5/5) The main character struggles with hate and bullying on his swim team after coming out and beginning to transition from female to male.
4. (3/5) The bullying here is portrayed realistically, meaning that there are some F-words (not the fun four letter ones, but the heinous six letter ones) and other transphobic slurs. Offer this as an option to your older secondary students with plenty of trigger warnings first.

”Super Human” by Nicola Yoon (5 stars)
1. (5/5) Another favorite, this story is a compelling blend of reality and fantasy, as the “Black Superman” is brutally confronted with the racism in the U.S. and begins to think that maybe humans don’t deserve to be saved after all.
2. (5/5) This will also pair so easily with current events and would be a great avenue into research skills, summarizing, or finding main idea.
3. (5/5) The main character is a black girl who is called upon to convince the superhero “X” not to end the world.
4. (4/5) Despite the sensitive topic, this could be read aloud to older students. This would be a great pairing with The Hate U Give or Dear Martin.

Anthologies are a great way to discover new authors without having to commit to a whole book.  I picked this one when I saw Jason Reynolds had contributed to this anthology because I have heard great things about his books.  I loved his short story and will definitely be checking out his books.  I also enjoyed Nicola Yoon's story which didn't surprise me since I really enjoyed her first two books.  Most of these stories were about characters that feel like they don't fit in anywhere and the topics ranged from discrimination based on religion, race, and gender.

This collection of short stories, created in collaboration with We Need Diverse Books, is brimming with heart. It's comforting and hopeful and heartbreaking in equal measure. Some of the stories are so adorably sweet and fluffy you can't help but smile while others deal with the heavy reality of being a minority. It's a really lovely collection and has something for just about everyone, whether you're looking for a sweet queer love story about two girls falling in love at a convention or about the fallout of a racial slur being graffitied on a college campus or a young trans athlete pushing to stay true to himself.

My favorite stories in the collection were probably "Meet Cute" by Malinda Lo, "Why I Learned to Cook" by Sara Farizan, and "Super Human" by Nicola Yoon, but there were a lot of really great stories in this collection both by authors you know and some you're definitely going to want to know.

Like with all anthologies I liked some stories and others were just okay. Despite my rating I think that all anthologies deserve to be read because what stories people like or have impact them is 100% subjective experience.

Would I recommend that you check Fresh Ink out? Yes!

It is tough to pull together and edit 12 unique stories, even harder still to review such a novel! There are so many aspects to consider and decisions on outcomes! I really enjoyed 9 of the 12 stories. I approached this novel as 12 novellas.
I was so excited to start these stories and I was not disappointed! There is always room for diversity in our close-minded world! Fresh Ink will aid in helping dropping barriers by glimpsing the lives of normal everyday people struggling to fit into conformity.
This book would be perfect for a group read or book club. There are so many great topics to be discussed and opportunities to let everyone shine. I adore everything that Melissa De La Cruz writes, once again I was not disappointed! I was not familiar with some of the other authors but now that I have glimpsed a snippet into their work, I am going to explore them more!
I will recommend this book to everyone who is looking for a book to love! These are some of my favorite stories of the year!
Thank you Netgalley, Random House Children’s, Crown Books for Young Readers, and Lamar Giles for allowing me to read this novel early!
***I was provided this book in exchange for an honest review. Thoughts and expressions are within the review are my own.***

Fresh Ink edited by Lamar Giles was created in partnership with We Need Diverse Books and includes 13 authors sharing a short story (well, 10 stories, 1 comic, and 1 play). These authors include some of my favorites including Jason Reynolds, Walter Dean Myers, Nicola Yoon, Sharon Flake, Gene Luen Yang, and Malinda Lo as well as new to me authors who I can’t wait to read more from. This is a MUST GET everyone. I promise you–you and your students are going to love it!

I enjoyed certain stories and parts of the book. I think some were more creative than others. These will be great as mentor texts or just another thing to recommend for my students to read. It's nice that the authors are famous and popular.

*i received an e arc from netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own*. I thought this was ok. I’m not huge on anthologies, but say some really good authors had contributed. I have a hard time rating this because some stories I loved, some were meh, and others I didn’t enjoy at all.

I just couldn’t finish this book. It wasn’t because the story or writing wasn’t up to par, it just wasn’t my type of story that I enjoy.

First off, I’m a cis, extremely white passing reviewer. I have been able to see myself in literature and media my entire life, regardless of how much my Filipino culture means to me and how proud of it I am. So even though all of these stories are ownvoices, this review you are about to read is not. After publication, I will feature some actual ownvoices reviews here because this anthology was created to support and boost diverse and marginalized voices, therefore we should also be supporting and boosting diverse and marginalized reviewers. (If you’re a PoC who would like to have your review listed on mine, please DM me on any platform!)

“It became pretty freaking clear that, book after book, adventure after adventure, the heroes weren’t like me at all. I don’t mean short and moderately athletic with severe seasonal allergies, because I’m aware those traits might hinder one’s ability to save the city/world/galaxy. I mean black boys. More often than not, if I ran across a character who shared my race and gender in a book he was a gross stereotype, comic relief, token sidekick, or, depending on genre (I’m looking at you, science fiction, fantasy, and horror), there to die so the real hero could fight another day.”

Next, friends, this was amazing. Like, go get your preorders ready. This is so worth every single penny. And if you have some extra money, maybe you’d be interested to donating to We Need Diverse Books as well. And hopefully one day we will live in a world where every child can easily see themselves in all media. And the first step to that is showing the world how important books like Fresh Ink are, and how these stories are quite literally life-changing.

This book has so much! Black stories, Asian stories, Native stories, Persian stories, Latinx stories, Muslim stories, Bi stories, Trans stories! Contemporary stories, play acts, fantasy stories, historical stories, sweet stories, heavy stories, superhero stories! And every single one is ownvoices. What a damn blessing in 2018. I’m not sure I’ve ever been as proud reviewing a book as I am reviewing Fresh Ink.

My personal favorites were Meet Cute by Malinda Lo, Why I Learned to Cook by Sara Farizan, One Voice by Melissa de la Cruz , and Super Human by Nicola Yoon, but I promise there is so much to love on every single page of this anthology. I have no word combination to let you all know how powerful and amazing this collection is.

I’m going to break down each short story with my thoughts, opinions, and individual star rating!

➽ Eraser Tattoo by Jason Reynolds – ★★★★
This was so beautifully written, and it was able to evoke so many emotions from me despite this being so short. This is a story about a girl and boy who have grown up together, and who having fallen in love over the years, having to say goodbye because one of them is moving away. But while the girl and her family are moving, we also get to see a white family moving in and their disregard for the black family packing up and leaving the home they’ve known for most their lives. This was a perfect opener to this collection.

➽ Meet Cute by Malinda Lo – ★★★★★
This was perfection in every single way. Like, to genderbend and racebend cosplays, to living that constantly queer life of always questioning if the person you are currently flirting with is also queer, to all the nerdy references, to the call out of me never being able to hide my blushing, to the feeling of claustrophobia and anxiousness in hectic crowd settings. This felt like a love letter to myself in every way, and it was easily the story I most connected to. This also has such an important discussion about “geek culture” and how toxic it can be, and how gross dudes can be towards girls. And this story stars two girls whose paths happen to cross at a convention center, while a big storm causes the power to go out. And if you like The X-Files and Star Trek, you have to buy this anthology for this story alone! I can’t stop smiling just thinking about this one. I loved it. And give me all the w/w stories! Masterpiece.

➽ Don’t Pass Me By by Eric Gansworth – ★★★★
This was an amazing short story, that packed such a powerful punch. We follow a Native boy who lives on a reservation but is forced to go to a Junior High where he is in the vast minority. This story talks about how some people of color are more white passing, or people who are biracial, or how some choose to hide their heritage, and how some stand out now regardless of their wants or wishes. This also heavily talks about how white is the norm in most classrooms, and how hurtful that can be to teens who are proud of who they are and their beautiful not white skin color.

➽ Be Cool for Once by Aminah Mae Safi – ★★★★★
Friends, this was just written completely captivating for me. The conversations, the setting, the feeling of having a crush, this was just such an accurate depiction of my high school experience, and I loved it. I legit giggled tears over the Anne Boleyn conversation. Also, full disclosure here, my first kiss was at a similar concert experience as this, so this story was just completely perfect for me. All the feels. And this story’s main character is a Muslim-American teen whose parents immigrated to The United States, and the boy she is crushing over stated that his grandparents immigrated to The United States. After reading this, I instantly added Not the Girls You’re Looking for to my TBR, because this was such an addicting read! I truly fell in love with this author’s writing

➽ Tags by Walter Dean Myers – ★★★★★
This was beyond words powerful. This story is told by one act in a play that I wish the world could actually see. We get to see four boys recounting the reason they died, while hoping their tags will keep them remembered. Systemic oppression is highlighted in this story, and how we allow black men and women to die because of the broken cycles we’ve never abolished. It’s a different kind of slavery, and police brutality and internalized racism enforce it. This script evoked so much emotion from me, and seeing these young men’s stories cross is something I don’t even have words for. Seriously, this is a must read. Not just from this collection, but from all the works being published in 2018. Also, I’m reporting this with a very heavy heart, but the author of this story passed away a few years ago. But I am forever thankful that his beautiful work was still incorporated into this anthology.

➽ Why I Learned to Cook by Sara Farizan – ★★★★★
This story has a Persian bi main character, and I’ve never felt so blessed. This w/w romance was also the damn cutest. Yasi also has anxiety and is feeling a little anxious to come out to her Grandmother, who immigrated to the United States from Iran seventeen-years-ago. And every Friday night, Yasi has dinner with her, and on this particular Friday, she asks her to teach her how to cook. She then spends the next two months learning everything her grandmother knows, while also not being sure how to come out. You all, this story had the best one liners in the collection. The beautiful writing and important messages were the perfect combination. ”You don’t apologize for who you are.” And the ending was the cutest thing I’ve ever read. All the happy years. This was such a bright shining light in this collection. I loved this with my entire heart.

➽ A Stranger at the Bochinche by Daniel José Older – ★★★
This one had a little more difficult of a learning curve I think, just because it felt like such a fantastic, SFF world. But I still really enjoyed this one, with a Latinx main character, and I also think there was a very important discussion on how white people have stolen/taken a lot of things from people of color and try to make it their own, while also stealing credit. I also really liked how this was so very different than everything else in this anthology.

➽ A Boy’s Duty by Sharon G. Flake – ★★★
I really enjoyed this historical story that starred a black homeless boy, who’s trying to not give up on his dreams or his love for astronomy. And even though this story has its sweet moments, it was a very heavy one, too. From just reading a book about a homeless kid, to seeing everyday racism, to learning about a side character who is grieving the worst loss in this world. This was able to evoke a lot of emotions from me. And honestly? This is the type of story you read and immediately want to go out in the world and do better.

➽ One Voice by Melissa de la Cruz – ★★★★★
I loved this short story so very much. This story centers around a string of hate crimes that are happening on Stanford’s campus, and we get to see how it’s impacting a Filipina girl whose family was undocumented. This story talks heavily on the privilege that white and white passing people take for granted when they are doing something as simple as walking back to their dorms. How white people can use police and “authority figures” as a convenience, where people of color not only can’t, but they feel more afraid of what will happen if they speak out. And this story perfectly talks about how hard it is to reclaim your space once it has been violated and deemed unsafe. And this also even discusses how we sexualize Asian woman and how so many men fetishize them. Like I said above, I am so very white passing, but this is a book about a Filipina girl studying microbiology, what I got my degree in at UofM. Like, I knew from the first page I was going to completely love this novella the most in this collection. But as I read, I realized how I wish I could give this short story to every student and make it required reading. This was a masterpiece, and now I feel like such a fool for never reading Melissa de la Cruz before. Beautiful, important, and completely moving.

➽ Paladin/Samurai by Gene Luen Yang – ★★
I loved how a graphic work was incorporated into this anthology, but I just didn’t completely love this one. But I did appreciate it starting out with a D&D campaign. I also think this one didn’t pack a punch like all the rest in the collection, but it’s about a Japanese boy wanting to play as a Samurai in his D&D campaign, but his DM will only allow them to be one of five classes (which is absurd!), so he is trying to get to be a Paladin. But… that’s just the DM being bad, because Paladins and Samurais are nothing alike. Just because they both use melee weapons? I’m sorry, I really wanted to love this!

➽ Catch, Pull, Drive by Schuyler Bailar – ★★★★★
Schuyler Bailar is the first openly transgender NCAA Division I swimmer. He was first recruited in 2013 to Harvard’s Women Swimming and Diving team, but after his transition he was recruited to the men’s team. And his success is such an inspiration that I honestly was crying reading his Wiki. And just knowing this makes this story even more beautiful and powerful. This story is about a trans boy who has finally come out to his school via Facebook and is now having his first day on his school’s swim team as a boy. And with that comes a brand new locker room, and new reactions from his peers. TW/CW for bullying, hate speech, transphobic slurs, use of dead name (all of these are challenged, and none are in a positive light, but it can be hard to read). This was easily one of my favorites stories in the collection, even though an ethnicity and/or culture is never brought up, but the author is a PoC.

➽ Super Human by Nicola Yoon – ★★★★★
This was probably the most perfect concluding story to any anthology every. Nicola Yoon just teleports me with her writing every time, and I need a full-length story to this immediately. Oh my gosh! But this is a powerful story about how no black person is safe from police brutality in America, not even superheroes. And one black girl unfolds the story, and has her eyes opened. This story is so relevant, so important, and is honestly a short masterpiece. I loved this so much, and it is such a shining star in this collection. I can’t wait for the rest of the world to fall in love with it.

Out of a possible 60 stars (5 stars possible for each of the 12 stories) this collection accumulated 51 stars (85%). But these numbers mean nothing, because Fresh Ink means more to me than any amount of math. This collection is so damn important, and I truly believe is life changing. This a five star read, and I implore you all to preorder and request at your libraries! Everyone deserves to see themselves and their experiences represented in book., and Fresh Ink is the anthology that the world needs.

We Need Diverse Books partners with thirteen of the most popular diverse authors in the Young Adult genre. Walter Dean Myers, Nicole Yoon and Jason Reynolds are just a few of the contributors to this well-written anthology. It features ten short stories, one graphic novel-type story and a one-act play.

There is a representation of almost all diverse groups within these pages. Every reader will feel a connection to at least one character. I recommend Fresh Ink: An Anthology to young readers looking for diversity in literature. This collection will inspire to color outside the lines while painting your life.

Happy Early Pub Day! Fresh Ink will be available Tuesday, August 14.

LiteraryMarie

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS! This book is what the world needs right now!

Even if you don't like short stories, pick this one up. Really. They are different, evocative, relevant, sad, fun, happy, etc.

I especially liked Tags; Catch, Pull, Drive; Super Human; A Something in Between Story...

I wasn't a huge fan of only 1 or 2 stories.

Regardless, read this book. You'll enjoy it :)

This is a solid collection of short stories for young adults from diverse authors. Although I enjoyed some of the stories more than others, I appreciate the diversity not only of cultures, but of genres represented in this collection.

More often than not, if I ran across a character who shared my race and gender in a book he was a gross stereotype, comic relief, token sidekick, or, depending on the genre (I’m looking at you, science fiction, fantasy, and horror), there to die so the real hero could fight another day.

I love anthologies, and I love getting the opportunity to promote authors of color and diverse books, so as soon as I learned that the co-founder of the We Need Diverse Books movement was editing this anthology, I had to grab it—and I am so happy that I did.

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Before I get into the full breakdown, I’d like to give shout-outs to a few of my favorites from the collection, which were Why I Learned to Cook by Sara Farizan, which gave me all of the happy cutesy feels; One Voice by Melissa de la Cruz, which broke my heart in the best way; and Super Human by Nicola Yoon, which reminded me that even bullet-proof superheroes are capable of having their hearts broken by this world.

→ Eraser Tattoo — Jason Reynolds ★★★★☆ ←
“No. We were five. That ain’t count. You told everybody you loved them back then. You used to kiss your juice boxes after you drank them and tell the straw the same thing.”

What an absolutely precious beginning to the anthology: a teen couple swapping eraser tattoos and memories before one of them is uprooted to another state with her family. Not only is this story hilarious, sweet, and a little bit of a tearjerker, but it also takes a moment to show the microaggressions black individuals face in even quiet moments, like the general disregard and rudeness the characters are treated with by the white couple moving into Shay’s former home. I already knew I’d love anything Jason wrote for this collection, but this was honestly the most wonderful beginning to the book.

Rep: black

→ Meet Cute — Malinda Lo ★★★★☆ ←
That was the problem with being queer. You should never assume, but if you didn’t assume, you had to ask. And asking directly was so hard to do.

Okay, no lie, this geeky little f/f story about a fandom convention just about made me squeal because one of the girls is cosplaying as a black Agent Scully, and I grew up the biggest X-Files fan, so… I was automatically dying over the little inside jokes and references. I’m not a Trekkie at all, but Malinda Lo goes easy enough on those bits that I didn’t feel like I was “missing the joke” or anything, and these girls are just so damn cute and geeky. There’s also some important internal monologuing about how hard it is to be a queer person in the dating world, especially when you don’t know if the person you’re into is queer, too! While the title for this story is perfect, it’s not insta-lovey at all, and overall, my geeky little queer heart was just so here for this one! ♥

Rep: Asian-american, black, f/f

→ Don’t Pass Me By — Eric Gansworth ★★★★☆ ←
“This color,” I said, tapping the box of Flesh on his desk. “Its name doesn’t cover everyone.”

After how cute and sweet the first two stories were, this one took me by surprise with how heavy and sad it was: a narrative of a seventh-grade Native boy in a school full of white kids in the 70s, where he has to deal not only with microaggressions and outright racism, but also the fact that of the few other Native kids in his school, many of them are light-skinned and “passing” enough to shun him, too. He stands up for himself and it is such an empowering story, but it also hit me really hard on a personal note. My grandmother (rest her soul) was half-Native, and not white passing. I remember stories she told me about feeling excluded because of her skin color or her features, and how disconnected and erased she felt from her culture in a country that has tried so hard to forget Native people. It absolutely breaks my heart that Native people have been cast aside so much, and for so long, but stories like this—and like hers—truly need to be told.

Rep: Native

→ Be Cool for Once — Aminah Mae Safi ★★★★☆ ←
Biohazard: may cause heart to burst.

This wasn’t my favorite story so far, but it was super cute, and it perfectly captured the joys of concert-going for music-loving teens, so that alone was fantastic. It features a Muslim girl and her best friend, who run into the main character’s crush at a concert and she’s forced to face down her long-held secret feelings for him. Not only is there some cute lesbian rep on the side with her best friend, but the whole scene is really sweet and humorous. There are several references to Islamic practices, too, which I found so interesting and precious. ♥

Rep: Muslim, Japanese, f/f (side characters)

→ Tags — Walter Dean Myers ★★★★☆ ←
“We got our tags on the wall and people can see we were real, and they’re thinking about us. But we ain’t resting because we got to stay ahead of people cleaning the walls.”

This is a unique piece of the collection, as it’s actually a play, and man, did this one hit me hard. It’s a story of a few dead young black men, tagging walls in the afterlife as they discuss their memorials, how they died, and how they keep their own memories alive with their tags. There’s a devastating twist at the end, and a lot of subtle commentary on the way a corrupted and damaged “justice” system terrifies and warps the psyches of marginalized individuals, particularly black men. When I finished reading the story and realized where I knew the name from, and remembered that this author actually passed away a few years ago, it added some sort of extra heartbreak to think that even in his seventies, Walter was still having to write about the same injustices and cruelty he’d witnessed his entire life.

Rep: black

→ Why I Learned to Cook — Sara Farizan ★★★★★ ←
“You never apologize for taking up space, Yasaman.”

Okay, this might have been THE cutest, sweetest, and happiest story so far. Yasaman is a young Iranian bi girl who wants to introduce her girlfriend to her immigrant grandmother, but has been too scared to do so. In hopes of preparing herself for the big event, she has her grandmother teach her how to cook vegetarian versions of authentic Persian foods, and the entire story is just filled with grandmother/granddaughter bonding and important lessons about never apologizing for who you are and what your culture is. With how much I miss my own grandmother, I’m such a sucker for grandmotherly figures in stories, so this actually brought a few happy tears to my eyes! ♥

Rep: Iranian, f/f

→ A Stranger at the Bochinche — Daniel José Older ★★☆☆☆←
He let another silent prayer rise inside him, the one said to call on one’s warrior spirits before battle, and we gathered in the thick air around him.

Sadly, this is the first story I haven’t enjoyed in this collection, and I genuinely did not like it at all. It’s a sci-fi short, but it doesn’t feel like a short story; instead, it felt like I was just reading a passage taken out of context from a larger novel. There’s no explanation to any of the action going on, you’re just dumped right into the center of it, and I had no chance of connecting with the plot or characters in any way. There’s war, rival groups, guardian spirits, and suddenly, aliens? It didn’t work for me.

Rep: Latinx

→ A Boy’s Duty — Sharon G. Flake ★★★☆☆ ←
What’s a boy’s duty to himself?

Unfortunately, this historical fiction story made two in a row that I just couldn’t quite connect to; while the last one was “too much”, this one was just a mixture of boring and plotless. A young man sits in a café, observing the people around him and thinking about his father’s farm, the thieving boys he’s friends with, and his dreams of joining the Navy and becoming a sailor during WWII. There’s just not much of anything going on, the characters are mostly wholly unlikable, and I wasn’t a fan, sadly.

Rep: black

→ One Voice: A Something in Between Story — Melissa de la Cruz ★★★★★ ←
I wanted America to want me because I was already a part of the fabric of the country.

My god, you guys… this story is heavy and relevant and so, so good. The narrator is a Stanford student whose family moved to California from the Philippines when she was a child, and she lives in constant fear of deportation. She talks about how she didn’t know her documentation wasn’t proper until she applied for college, and she had to jump through hoops to be allowed to stay, including forfeiting her rights to a scholarship she had worked hard to earn. The plot of the story follows her throughout a few days at her college in which racial slurs are spray painted on buildings and vehicles, and she laments the fact that her white-passing boyfriend isn’t able to understand why she feels so unsafe at their school. It’s just a tremendously sad and realistic depiction of something that so many people in the US are going through right now, and if there is one story in this collection so far that I find to be the most relevant to 2018’s sociopolitical climate, it’s this one.

Rep: Filipinx, black, latinx

→ Paladin/Samurai — Gene Luen Yang ★★★☆☆ ←

This little story is told through a comic strip, which is a neat addition to the anthology and a fun break from the standard text formatting. It’s about a Japanese-American teen who faces erasure from his group of friends while playing Swords and Spells (essentially D&D). While it’s a cute short, I wish more had taken place to address what legitimately jerks his friends were being, instead of it being swept under the rug at the end.

Rep: Japanese

→ Catch, Pull, Drive — Schuyler Bailar ★★★★★ ←
Beneath the surface, I am not the girl everyone says I’m supposed to be—in fact, I’m not even sure I’m a person. I’m just swimming. I am a singular action, proof that I am alive and powerful.

Oh my god, I love this story so much! It’s a first-person narrative of a trans teen who is at his first swim meet after coming out to his team and all his friends. There are a lot of transphobic terms and homophobic slurs in this one, so trigger warnings abound, but it’s such a beautiful narrative. It meant even more to me once I found out that the author is a swimmer himself, and more than that, is the first openly transgender NCAA Division I swimmer ever and the first publicly outed trans men to compete in any NCAA men’s sport! He’s kind of my new hero. The last thing I want to point out about this story is that it also features some amazing parental love and acceptance regarding his coming out, which was so sweet. ♥ (Side note: This is the first story in the collection to not make any reference to the protagonist’s race, so I didn’t mention that in the “rep” section below, but the author is Korean-American.)

Rep: trans

→ Super Human — Nicola Yoon ★★★★★ ←
Always the wrong place. Always the wrong time. A country that did not value his life.

Okay, this story… I knew Nicola’s story would be good. I don’t think her novels are perfect, but she has a way of writing that is always capable of hitting me hard, and I expected this to be no exception, but I didn’t think it would break my heart so much. It tells the story of a seventeen-year-old black girl who is sent to attempt to reason with X, nicknamed the “Black Superman”, who has decided to forsake his humanity-saving tactics in favor of wiping out the population instead. When she learns what changed his mind, it’s absolutely shattering. I’m choking up just writing this review, thinking about the society that I live in and how utterly and completely broken this system is. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, only because this is a story that you need to soak in, to allow it to hit you in the chest the way it did for me, but I will say that it was the perfect ending to this anthology, and I will carry it with me.

Rep: black

FINAL AVERAGE RATING: 4.0/5
My star ratings for each individual story averaged out to a perfect 4 out of 5, but honestly, this is the best anthology I’ve read in my life. It is so poignant, and haunting, and gorgeous, and solidly written, that I have to bump it up to 5 stars. It deserves nothing less. ♥

All quotes come from an advance copy and may not match the final release. Thank you so much to Crown Books for Young Readers for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Worth reading for Nicola Yoon’s masterful “Super Human” alone, but overall a strong collection of short stories featuring diverse protagonists.

Eraser Tattoo by Jason Reynolds 4 Stars
Meet Cute by Malinda Lo 5 Stars
Don’t Pass Me By by Eric Gansworth 4 Stars
Be Cool for Once by Aminah Mae Safi 3 Stars
Tags by Walter Dean Myers 5 Stars
Why I Learned to Cook by Sara Farizan 3 Stars
A Stranger at the Bochinche by Daniel Jose Older 2.5 Stars
A Boy’s Duty by Sharon G. Flake 3 Stars
One Voice by Melissa de la Cruz 3.5 Stars
Paladin/Samurai by Gene Luen Yang 3 Stars
Catch, Pull, Drive by Schuyler Bailar 4 Stars
Super Human by Nicola Yoon 5 Stars

A solid anthology of short stories. I especially thought the stories by Eric Gansworth, Nicola Yoon, Schuyler Bailarwere, and the comic by Gene Luen Yang and illustrated by Thien Pham were really outstanding.

love love love everthig about this book. Some of my favorite authors are all here and they don't dissapoint!!
Thank you Netgalley