Fresh Ink is a lovely collection of short stories that are fun. fast reads!

First off, I would like to thank the publisher and author for providing me this ARC to review. Please note that the version I read was an advanced copy, and certain events/language may be changed in the published edition.

Stars (Out of 10): 7/10 Stars

Since this is an anthology, I’ll be writing a short review for each individual story!

As a whole, this was a pretty good anthology. Most of the stories seemed to fit the theme, and there was a variety of characters and stories. While each story did hinge on the idea of diversity, they focused on a variety of other things as well, making the stories much more fleshed out overall. Lastly, the message in each of the stories usually came across quite well, except in some cases where it may have been too hidden or too forced.

Out of the 12 stories, my favorites would have to be “Super Human”, “Catch, Pull, Drive”, and “Eraser Tattoo”!

Eraser Tattoo: I haven't read any if Jason Reynolds full novels (have seen them around though!), but this story makes me want to! It was fairly simple, but in the few short pages it lasted, I was already loving the characters. The message in this one was also fairly obscured, but I think the small references to the unfairness of the situation only added to the overall effect of the story.

Meet Cute: Exactly fits the name! The setting was interesting too, since it's during a con and there's quite a few references! Only issue is, if the reader doesn't automatically know where the characters are from (since it's not revealed until later), parts of the beginning fall a little flat since it is pretty heavy in references

Don’t Pass Me By: I think story fits my expectations for this anthology more than the other two so far. While the beginning it was difficult to follow since I had to orient myself in a culture I didn't necessarily have experience with, that quickly resolved itself. Overall, this story just made me angry (at the white teacher and the white students and ugh)

Be Cool For Once: Overall I thought this was a super cute story, but it didn't seem to fit in the anthology as well as others

Tags: I really liked the format and idea behind the story, but I wasn't the biggest fan of the story myself. It felt a bit short and all over the place, and I only really sympathized with one or two of the characters

Why I Learned to Cook: This story was super cute! I love how it blended both diversity in sexuality and in culture! I especially liked that this story fostered a love both between acceptance and family, as many stories involving sexual diversity focus on the hatred from the parents.

A Stranger at the Bochinche: While I liked the premise, the story felt as if it was trying to accomplish too much in too few pages, and it left me feeling lost at points. However, I did like the stark contrast of ancient gods/an older setting + fancy tech

A Boy’s Duty: I wasn't as big a fan of this story, as I felt it dragged a bit and took a while to get to its point, but I still enjoyed it. If anything, I think I liked the characters the most.

One Voice: Okay, so don't read this if you haven't read Something In Between because this basically spoils the entire book. Also, I'm never really a fan of short stories in anthologies being from other series :/ additionally, the story itself felt too short, and made the message feel forced while also having a fairly abrupt ending. This one would have to be my least favorite.

Paladin/Samurai: I get why the comic book story was so short, but it almost felt waaay too short. However, it still was able to carry a message more subtle than One Voice, so for that I applaud it

Catch, Pull, Drive: I really loved this one! Not only the message, but the way it was written as well! Having it set during the middle of a swimming race heightened the tension dramatically, and the inner thoughts complimented that really well also.

Super Human: I really really enjoyed this one. It seemed one of the only stories that didn't have a positive ending, and the openness of the ending combined with the lack of positivity made it all the more powerful. Overall, it feels as if this story carries the message of the anthology the most.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Fresh Ink is everything YA needs. It is a combination of short stories, a graphic novel, and a play that is brought to us by diverse voices. One of the best features of fresh ink is that it encompasses so many unique stories and voices, it would be hard for a teen to not see themselves somewhere in these stories.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This collection of short stories is trying to make a point about how important diversity is and I think it more than did its job.

There were quite a few stories that I thought were wonderful in one way or another.

Eraser Tattoo was a cute love story. When it ended, I was truly upset because I wanted more of it. It was truly precious.

Meet Cute was honestly one of the nerdiest things I ever read and I lived for it. There were parts that dragged and slowed it down, making me lose a little interesting, but I truly loved these nerdy girls.

Don't Pass Me By really dragged for me. It was slow and I lost interest a lot, but it was one of those that I felt could be truly empowering to POC as this Indian boy stands up for his heritage and is proud of it instead of trying to blend in like some of his other peers had.

Be Cool for Once is one I honestly don't remember, so I think that alone speaks for it.

Tags was written as a play and had me quickly intrigued. The ending was incredibly sad and left me a little speechless for a moment.

Why I Learned to Cook was another cute little love story. I loved this one. Yasi's grandmother was adorable. It was an excellent f/f romance.

A Stranger at the Bochinche was a struggle for me to get through and once again I don't remember anything about it.

A Boy's Duty dragged for me a little bit, but overall I enjoyed the story.

One Voice is one I really did enjoy. I thought it was another powerful story. I definitely was proud at the end of this one.

Paladin/Samurai was a little pointless to me. I must have completely missed the point on this one, but the illustrations were cute and it was a fun little read.

Catch, Pull, Drive is the story that I resonated with the most. It made me think and really root for the main character. This one was one of my favorites stories from this collection.

Super Human was a short story that really captures race in America right now. It was heartbreaking and truly a moving story.

This anthology has really made me hungry for more diverse stories. I can't wait to see more of them out there and get my hands on some.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House/Crown Books for an advanced read in exchange for this review.

This is a fun anthology of 10 short stories, a graphic novel, and a play from some of my favorite YA authors. I was impressed with the diversity of the characters in each work and many marginalized populations are represented. This is an important work to read.

This is a beautiful anthology that celebrates diversity and #ownvoices. It is something that has been needed, especially for YA readers for a long time, and it was done brilliantly! (Review to come on blog)

This collection of short stories is so very important. Twelve stories, from twelve minority authors, featuring teens who are all members of various marginalized societies. These stories tackle the touch subjects facing many teens today, and should be used in ELA classrooms to teach important themes. Hopefully these stories can help marginalized teens find their voices.

In the introduction of Fresh Ink, it's stated many reasons that we need short stories such as these. Even though I did not relate directly to many of the stories, I completely agree that we need more diversity in all writing, especially the young adult genre. All the tales had a very genuine feel to the characters and discussed extremely relevant issues facing our society today. I recommend this book to adults and young adults alike!

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers for providing an advanced copy of the book in exchange for this honest review.

Not my favorite book. I'm sure it's me and not the book, but I just wasn't interested it in. Sorry.

This collection of 10 short selections is moving, unnerving, sad, and hopeful. The characters in each story, play, and comic are authentic and inspiring, even as they battle a world that often doesn't accept them. Readers cannot walk away from this read without feeling a tug at their heartstring and a determination to view and interact with their world differently.

#weneeddiversebooks

Typically, I only make an annual reading goal not giving a second thought to much else. This year, I've really been making an effort to track the books that I'm reading in order to open myself up to more diversity. As a multi-racial woman, you would think I have been exposed to many different authors from diverse backgrounds, but surprisingly I haven't.

I was thrilled to come across this anthology because it combines all kinds of diversity into one beautiful book. These short stories deal with various topics: interracial couples, the LGBT community, different religions, cultures, etc. I had only read books by Nicola Yoon and Melissa de la Cruz, but I was excited to get snippets into new authors as well.

I'm sure many readers can agree that it is difficult rating an anthology regardless of the subject matter. There are many different authors, different writing styles, different characters and plot lines. Each one is its own entity and while I may love one story, I may feel unenthusiastic about the other.

That pretty much sums up my rating for this book. There were some stories that enraptured me and had me flipping the pages excited to see what was next and there were other stories that just didn't stir up much of a reaction in me.

I am happy to say that I did encounter some new authors that wrote intriguing stories and I'd love to read more books from them. I can see this anthology being very helpful to teens in high school who may be experiencing some situations similar to the characters in these stories.

I can only hope that it inspires more authors of various backgrounds to begin writing characters that all people can relate to.

Well, that was funny. I didn't really look at the producers of this anthology. While reading, I thought to myself, "Wow, the people at We Need Diverse Books would really be interested in this." Yeah, I know. I guess they were interested since their co-founder is the editor. That was dopey of me. Anyway, the anthology is pretty interesting. The writing is uneven in places. Some of the stories seemed not to go anywhere. Others had interesting enough characters that the narrative didn't matter all that much. It really is all over the place as far as diversity -- trans, gay, black, asian, native, etc. It's enjoyable. One problem with trying to be so inclusive in an anthology like this is that a teen reader will see themselves (I seriously have a hard time with the plural neutral singular pronoun) in a story -- but maybe only one. In the other stories, they'll see someone very unlike themselves, but that's a good thing too.

This YA anthology focusing on diverse storytelling had some great moments, but overall struck me as a little bit lackluster as a whole. Some of the stories, such as "How I learned to cook" were very sweet and memorable, but many of the others failed to hold my interest.

All I can say is that in my thoughts this book was executed almost 100% beautifully and that when it comes out in August you should all go buy it and read it.
It was a solid 4.5/5 stars

It’s a bit hard to review a collection of so many pieces, but I’ll try my best to do this anthology justice. I’ll start by saying that I’m so glad this book exists, as it’s an incredibly important one. I can’t wait to see this on shelves. Giles writes in the beginning about the importance of young readers being able to identify themselves in stories, and in the modern era, it’s hard to deny the importance of representation in media. This book makes strides on that count, and I hope it impacts creators to broaden their casts of characters. We need realistic representation for all people.

The stories themselves tackled a number of topics that, in truth, are deserving of entire novels. One shots are a start, but we can’t end it here. Fresh Ink takes on police brutality, gentrification, diversity in cosplay, coming out, immigration…and so, so much more. Every story made an impact, and in that sense, this book achieved what it set out to. It gave a platform to voices that are typically overshadowed by straight, white, cisgender protagonists that we have more than enough of. We definitely need more books like this.

As far as my own enjoyment of the stories goes, I’m a bit mixed. The majority of these were amazing reads, but a few did fall short for me. While I appreciate and recognize the importance of every single one of these perspectives, I think I found some of these harder to stay focused on simply because I’m not huge on contemporaries. Make me a collection like this, only with fantasy and sci-fi stories, and I’ll be skipping through the streets.

I gave Fresh Ink a 3.5 of 5 stars on Goodreads. Objectively, this is a fantastic collection and will do wonders for most readers, especially fans of YA contemporary. Personally, I also really enjoyed it. But since I do rate based on my own enjoyment, I did take a point or so just for the fact that I wasn’t always as engaged as I’d like to have been. Either way, I recommend picking this up. It’s worth reading and worth spreading around.

Being able to identify with characters in stories, namely protagonists, is a way that readers of all ages and a variety of backgrounds are able to see themselves beyond their normal life. In Fresh Ink: An Anthology edited by Lamar Giles there are stories with diverse characters and situations that has an appeal to broader audiences and represents a greater proportion of society. 

There is so much variety in life and the stories we entertain ourselves with should adequately represent all the ways in which we are different yet experience the same basic things and are all the same in a way that matters most: being human. Encompassing different mediums, including a play and a graphic short story, the tales included within this anthology offer examples of diversity, in the content, characters, and means of communicating these stories. By exploring topics such as race and sexual orientation and identification, these stories touch upon important discussions and perspectives that are all too frequently overlooked in other, predominantly white, narratives. Though some of the stories could use a bit more development, what each of them are able to accomplish in the limited pages they inhabit is, as a whole, quite powerful.

Overall, I'd give it a 4 out of 5 stars.

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc of this book.

I was so excited to read this for a few reasons. One being it includes some of my favorite authors. Individually, all the stories included in this anthology are top notch ranging between 4-5 stars.

Seeing the perspectives of every race and religion is eye opening. You don't have to be queer or black or brown to have empathy toward the characters and what they deal with. Everyone has a right to be heard. I am an ally and will always be one.

The only thing I didn't like is that there wasn't more of it. I would deem it a necessity for schools and/or for young people to read and discuss and maybe those who are struggling can find one character and say, "Hey, he or she is just like me. I am not alone." This is basically what I want everyone to get out of this book, even though I'm not even an author in it or a publisher. It's what I want every child going through that loneliness to know.

It's refreshing to see the diversity in the book world and how it's growing and changing the world. I hope it continues. I hope to see more like this book.

I received this book from NetGalley for an honest review. I love this new fresh take on diversity in the book community because it is very much needed! My new favorite author Nicola Yoon wrote a story so i wanted to read this for her, but at the end i fell in love with all the other authors that were in this book. Great storied of love & different people coming together. Everyone should read this book!

Thought this book was good. Received an arc so I dived into this. I'm glad I did because most of the stories were really well written. I became enthralled and discovered new authors I might want to read.