This anthology features 15 own-voices stories from YA authors and there is really something for everyone in this collection. Not only do we get a return to the world of Schwab's Darker Shade of Magic and Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle, we also get some short stories set in fresh new fantasy worlds that are so much fun to explore. Each story is self-contained in the anthology which makes this the perfect book to pick up for a quick bite of fantasy. I really enjoyed it and will be recommending it in the future.

This was probably the best anthology I've read to-date featuring a handful of memorable stories! The 15 short stories together averaged a perfectly rounded 3 stars. Each story truly embraced diversity and it was a joy to read about characters who identified differently from myself.

My favorites were A Universe of Wishes by Tara Sim, Cristal y Ceniza by Anna-Marie McLemore, and The Coldest Spot in the Universe by Samira Ahmed.

While I had several "least-favorites" the only one I want to discuss is The Scarlet Woman by Libba Bray. Unfortunately this anthology didn't feel like the right place for this story that is based on an existing trilogy BUT takes places after the events of that series. It featured a cast of characters and an entire magical glossary that readers were expected to know while also spoiling the original stories. If the editor wanted to pull fans of this series in while also encouraging new readers to pick up the author's original series, it simply should've been a prequel.

Even though not every short story was a hit for me, I enjoyed taking time every day to immerse myself alongside new characters in a new setting. This anthology made me realize that picking up something like this is a great way to get out of a reading slump and for that I am very grateful!

I'm getting more into short stories and this collection was fantastic! Not only was it an amazing read, but I loved how diverse it was. Absolutely gave me more authors to add to my favorites list!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review! All opinions contained within are my own.

I always find it difficult to rate and review anthologies. This is because I have such different experiences with all the short stories! Which makes sense as they’re all written by different authors, but it makes it hard to talk about with anything approaching coherence 😂 Still, none of the stories in this wonderfully crafted anthology got less than 3 stars from me, so this is a winner for me.

A Universe of Wishes is an anthology that brings together diverse voices and stories in YA fantasy. I can praise enough how beautifully inclusive this collection is! And every story that was included was absolutely magical. Like I said, I definitely enjoyed some more than others, but I ended up liking all of them. This was such an enjoyable reading experience because of how many different lives we get to witness.

Now, I don’t want to dive into each, individual story too much because A) we’d be here forever and B) I feel like I would spoil these short stories! But I will give a list of all the stories contained within this anthology and my personal star rating. I’ll talk about my two favorites, as well, and try my best not to give everything away!

A Universe of Wishes by Tara Sims: ⭐⭐⭐
The Silk Blade by Natalie C. Parker: ⭐⭐⭐
The Scarlet Woman by Libba Bray: ⭐⭐⭐ (I admittedly might have enjoyed this one more if I knew anything about the Gemma Doyle series)
Cristal y Ceniza by Anna-Marie McLemore: ⭐⭐⭐
Liberia by Kwame Mbalia: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A Royal Affair by V.E. Schwab: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Takeback Tango by Rebecca Roanhorse: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Dream and Dare by Nic Stone: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Wish by Jenni Balch: ⭐⭐⭐
The Weight by Dhonielle Clayton: ⭐⭐⭐
Unmoor by Mark Oshiro: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Coldest Spot in the Universe by Samira Ahmed: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Beginning of Monsters by Tessa Gratton: ⭐⭐⭐
Longer Than the Threads of Time by Zoraida Córdova: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Habibi by Tochi Onyebuchi: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Now, as I mentioned, all the stories had something going for them, but I found two that rose above the rest for me. First was the story written by Kwame Mbalia, Liberia. This was the only story in the whole anthology that had me tearing up at the end, which is a feat for something so short! The story focuses around a crew of teenagers travelling from a dying Earth to a new colony among the stars. The main character is a botanist who is tasked with preserving crops that can then be planted on their new world. I don’t know why this touched me so deeply, but the passion and heart that the main character displays was beautifully written. It got into my heart and I know I’ll be thinking about that story for awhile.

The other story that’s going to stick with me for awhile is the last one in the anthology, Habibi by Tochi Onyebuchi. The set up for this story is that two young men behind bars somehow discover they can magically transport letters to each other… by eating them and pooping them out. It’s a strange premise for what becomes a heart-wrenching tale. One of the young men is in the prison in the United States after getting swept up in the gang life. The other is a Pakistani who was arrested during protests in the Gaza strip. Watching them tell each other about their lives, what led them to their current incarceration, and their dreams really hit me right in the soul. This was a gripping and touching story that is going to stay with me.

Final thoughts: Do you like YA fantasy? Do you like short stories? Then I think you would enjoy this one! It has everything you could want from a fantasy anthology and more. The diversity, the inclusivity, is what makes this collection shine the most for me. Not every story knocked it out of the park like my two favorites, but every story had something to offer that made me enjoy it. It’s such an incredible mixture of authors, of cultures, and of people that I think anyone could find something to love in this wonderful book.

I wanted this book purely for the Gemma Doyle story. But I got so much more than I bargained for and I cannot wait to check out the other related works!

Anthologies like these are slowly but surely worming their way into my heart. And put Dhonielle's name on anything, I will love it.

A few of the stories were enjoyable, but on the whole, I wasn't thoroughly impressed by this title. While the concepts were original, the writing varied greatly among the stories, and the collection lacked cohesion. On the whole, I would not recommend, but I didn't regret reading it,

I love a good anthology and this one is one of the best! This book is packed with amazing authors from start to finish and the stories they write in here show it!

I found this to be an enjoyable read, keeping me on my toes throughout. The storyline was written well and flowed seamlessly. I look forward to reading more by this author!

I throughly enjoyed this anthology! Some of my favorite authors with awesome fantasy stories! My favorites were from V.E Scwab & Natalie C. Parker.

I love anthologies. I feel like I get a lot of story from the short stories that are written.

Obviously, I didn't like all the stories, but some I loved more then others! It was well written I enjoyed the wide variety of diverse short stories that were written.

So fun to read! This is a collection of short stories from different authors! I love nearly every one of them, it was so fun to read. My favorite short story was probably A Royal Affair written by V.R. Schwab set in her Darker Shade of Magic series.

I started reading but lost interest just a few stories in. Maybe I have just outgrown a lot of YA stories and feel unable to connect with them anymore.

Review posted on GoodReads (September 20, 2021)
Review linked.

4/5 stars!

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for sending me an E-ARC of this book for an honest review.

I rarely pick up anthologies and I am so glad that I read this one. It was a beautiful, thought-provoking, and fantastic read that celebrates different identities in fantasy and science fiction. I really tried to take my time while reading this book because I wanted to spend time with each story and character. I really loved how some authors brought back stories that talked about past characters from their own books. That was super fun!

If you love anthologies, specifically anthologies that focus on science fiction and fantasy, then I really recommend this book!

Thanks for reading!
Caden

The biggest problem I have with short story collections is that with all the authors, I like some of them and not others. I love the diversity in this collections, there is so much of it (obviously), but bringing back known characters, or even just twists to old stories felt like those were after thoughts to the collection. There just didn't feel like a uniformed theme within it, yes there was yearning and wishes, but so many of them didn't feel like that was the focus. I think my favorite story was Liberia by Kwame Mbalia. I think this would have been better if read individually and pausing between each story instead of reading them all at once.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this book.

I enjoyed many of these stories, though I didn't read V.E. Schwab's story due to it being set in an already established world of books I have yet read, but want to.

My favorite was The Takeback Tango by Rebecca Roanhorse.

I'll be honest -- I picked this one just because I needed more from V.E. Schwab. She didn't disappoint, as usual. But I enjoyed the rest of the stories, too! There's so many diverse perspectives in this collection!

OF THESE DIVERSE YA RETELLINGS WERE ABSOLUTLY GLORIOUS!

You would likely love this book as much as I did if you love unique, diverse YA stories about friendship and family relationships with a touch magic, fantasy and science fiction like The Diviners, The Astonishing Color of After , Fresh Ink, Bruja Born and The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza

I had huge expectations because of the amazing authors but these stories exceeded all expectations! Especially because of the overarching theme about the importance of identify, ancestry and family!

They go from deliciously dark, morbid, disturbing with corpses, cemeteries, funeral homes to uplifting and touching but they all gravitate around incredibly relevant topics such as colonialism and cultural appropriation, immigration and displacement, and the importance of honoring your ancestry and carrying on your lineage, and the sacrifices we would do for our loved ones.

Can't recommend this book enough!

I agree we need diverse books and this, this gave it to us. And this amazing group of authors gave it to us. This book is an Anthology meaning that it's a bunch of smaller stories from numerous authors making this a quick and easy read. That's not the only reason though, once you start this book you're not going to want to stop.

I received a copy of this from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

There were some fantastic short stories in this collection as well as some that I didn't enjoy very well. Like any collection, the separate stories are going to hit each reader differently. The only one that I skipped was 'The Scarlet Woman' by Libba Bray. I haven't read any Gemma Doyle so I don't feel that I can fairly judge that short story, as it felt like you had to somewhat know the world to get into it.

I absolutely loved 'A Royal Affair' by V.E. Schwab. The 'Darker Shades of Magic' trilogy is one of my favorites of all time and it was so fun to read a little prequel to get more backstory on Alucard Emery.

I also really enjoyed 'A Universe of Wishes' by Tara Sim and 'The Coldest Spot in the Universe' by Samira Ahmed. Both had very relatable characters and fantastic writing.

There were a few I didn't like as much, such as 'The Silk Blade' by Natalie C. Parker. I don't really enjoy stories where the character gives up their biggest dream or mission that they have been working their whole life towards for someone they just met. Insta-love is one trope I am not a fan of. The ending also felt very abrupt.

Overall this was a very solid collection of diverse stories. As part of the 'We Need Diverse Books' movement, it was super cool to see so many types of characters. There was a trans-prince, m-m romance, gender fluid characters, minority characters and so much more. I definitely recommend this book to YA sff fans, especially if they enjoyed books by these authors previously.