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

Nothing short of wonder and magic can come from a collection like this. These authors each on their own are wonderful at their craft, and brought together for an anthology just makes this book SO special.

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.

This is a partial review because I only finished half of the stories:

A Universe of Wishes: super gay, 4.3 stars

The Silk Blade: I love the concept, also features bisexual characters 3.5 stars

Crystal y Ceniza- fantastic retelling of Cinderalla featuring a trans prince 4 stars

Liberia- I may have teared up a bit 4.5 stars

A Royal Affair- makes me so excited for the Threads of Power, I wanna go reread A Darker Shade of Magic now. 5 stars

Take Back Tango- super cute, wish it was longer 4 stars

-Dream and Dare- Super cute and super gay :) 4 stars

Wish- perfection, imaginative. I wish this were more than a short story 5 stars

The Weight- well-written, but I want to know the ending! 4.5 stars

Anthologies are hard to accomplish, but knowing Dhonielle Clayton... I trust her writing and her editing and being a huge fan of her work, I had to give it a try. The fact that it was a YA fantasy anthology already had me hyped up and as I read some familiar authors and some new ones, it was definitely an interesting adventure. There were some stories I loved, some that were meh, but overall... I think the book does a good job of combining different authors under one genre and gives you a taste of different author styles.

It was definitely a great change to most anthologies I've read.

I was a little disappointed with this anthology. I loved Thank U: Poems of Gratitude and Flying Lessons (also imprints of We Need Diverse Books), and A Universe of Wishes was just an okay book for me. Some of the stories like V.E. Schwab's and Libba Bray's, were set in worlds from their novels, so those 2 short stories are probably better if you have read their books. Don't get me wrong, the stories are like-able but won't really stick with me for long- and I would love to see more collaborations like this with diverse authors and stories. I would recommend A Universe of Wishes to readers who already know and love the authors of the short stories.

I love to read anthology books, it's easy for me to read a short story and put the book down to process before starting the next story which I love. Typically really good fantasy anthologies are hard to come by but I was amazed at some of the stories in this one. In only a couple of pages these authors managed to craft, amazing worlds with unique magic systems and characters that catch your eye.

Like most anthologies some stories you do invest a bit more into stories than others, a few times I found myself saying "I wish they would keep going" or "Aw why did they have to stop it there!". This could be a good or bad thing depending on how you think.

Overall A Delightful anthology.