Love in Color is a short story collection based on folktale and myths from West Africa and other countries. The stories are filled with misogyny and violence but Babalola retells them from a fresh perspective, in a manner that centers women. They are bold and colorful!!
3.5 stars

In Yaa’s original story, "she was a shallow, ditzy woman damned to the land of the dead for choosing to marry a rich and glamorous stranger, instead of the noble Prince from her village that her parents had chosen for her." In the re-telling, Yaa is a smart and well educated woman who's parents arranged for her to marry Kofi to create a wealthy dynasty between their two families. They both understand the value of the marriage but Yaa ultimately chose a different path for herself. Babalola’s shift paints Yaa in a stronger role and shows a resistance against parental expectations.

In addition to Yaa’s story, Nefertiti, Attem and Tiara also stood out. The characters are well-developed, the women are strong and resilient and the setting felt authentic. Babaloa has a way with words that just pull you in from the beginning to the end. I would've enjoyed seeing a connection between the stories but nevertheless, each is powerful in its own way. Grab a copy and thank me later!

Thanks to William & Morrow and Net Galley for the review copy!

This is a very fresh story collection! It blends the heightened tone of mythological storytelling with contemporary settings. Of course, as a romance reader, I love that the stories focus on the richness of the manifestations of love. I just love when writers take love as seriously as loss and trauma and hardship, because it is, of course, the way through all of those things. Dipping in and out of the worlds of these stories mostly made me wish for novel-length explorations of the myths and legends in the book.

3.5 stars

A lovely collection of short love stories, some that are derived from West African original folktales and myths. Bolu Babalola has given these tales a contemporary retelling, that makes me wish I had heard of the original stories for comparison sake but even without this comparison, these reimagined stories feel very authentic in their own right.

My favourites are: Thisbe, Zhinu, Nefertiti, Attem and Naleli. All had just the right balance of culture, captive settings, romance and creative character development centered around strong women. I definitely want to read more from those short stories. The others didn't grab me in the same way, but as with all anthologies, each reader finds their own favourites.

Thank you HarperCollins for the copy to review.

The cover of this book was stunning. I don't believe I am the target audience for the writer. The writing style failed to hold my interest. If you love verbose romance, you may love this one.

This was an interesting anthology of love stories. My favorites were those that were updates of older tales but each story was woman centered which made it that much more powerful. I also really loved the exploration of how a love story can be about more than most romantic love.

This book has a great premise and I really adore the cover. But I was unable to finish reading it due to my complete uninterest in the myths and characters introduced. I do see a great audience for a book like this and I wish I'd really enjoy this one. But I just didn't like the format in which this book was written in. I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't this.

I did not expect this book to be so funny! The stories overall were cute, some more memorable than others, but I noticed the lines I highlighted were almost all funny one-liners that Babalola had given her characters. So much snark! Most of the tales retold in this collection are African, with a few from the Middle East and Persia, and one from China. They seem to be mostly set in Africa and the U.K., though the exact setting isn't always revealed. She also adds three original tales at the end, for 13 stories total. My favorites were "Nefertiti," "Attem," "Yaa," "Naleli" and "Thisbe" from the retellings, and "Orin" from her original tales.

Bolu Babalola's writing is lush and superb. There were so many beautiful and heartwarming quotes and passages in this book, it’s hard not to fall in love with the stories (the ones I fell in love with instantly, anyway). The female characters in this book were all so superb in their own way, and each one was amazing. She writes romances and love in the best way, and there were so many beautiful meet-cutes in this book.

Her retelling skills are TOP NOTCH. She bared the stories down, took the most important elements, and redid them in a way that made them authentically hers. I love how diverse the myths are, drawing from different cultures from Ghana, Nigeria, China, Rome, and Greece.

Since the book was split into two sections – one for retellings and one for “New Tales”, which are the author’s original stories, I decided to abandon the old tales and move to the new tales, since I couldn't get into the old tales. The first story in the New Tales, “Tiara”, was exactly what I needed. I enjoyed it oh so much and I knew there was hope for me and this book after all. After “Tiara”, I decided to read all the other stories out of order, and that’s how I read six others.

I enjoyed the first couple of stories I read, but I had trouble getting through the rest. I generally have trouble reading short story collections but I really wanted to read this one. I ended up getting the audiobook to finish the remaining stories, and I listened to “Scheherazade” and it’s one of my faves. I had so many DNFs in between the stories I read, and I kept picking and dropping this book over the space of three months or so.

My favorite stories, in no particular order, are:
Scheherazade
Yaa
Nefertiti
Thisbe
Tiara
Alagomeji

This book is worth all the hype, okay?! But at some point I felt very pressured into loving it as much as everyone else was, when I wasn't feeling it AT THAT MOMENT. I love it now, so yay! Go get your copy!

What a fascinating book. I was impressed by the storyline and the characters were all well written and complex. Where there are complex storylines combined with intriguing characters the reader experience is magnified tremendously. To have a book that is well written as well as entertaining is a delight. Reading is about escaping your world and entering another one. Here I forgot about my own life and was immersed in the world created by the author.i really enjoyed the different versions of love stories that we have all grown up with but now these stories are told in a diverse light. I would recommend this book.

This reminded me of reading all the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books when I was a teenager in my grandparent's RV in the 1990's. Beautiful mulitcultural stories about love!

The premise of this book is absolutely amazing and I love that it exposes readers to myths and legends that are severely under-hyped in western society. It was refreshing to see a cast of characters that was not only diverse but represented all sorts of body types. As with all anthologies, some left a much bigger impact than others but my favorites ended up being: Scheherazade, Nefertiti, and Siya.

This is a super intriguing and brilliant premise, and I really appreciated some of the stories, particularly "Nefertiti." However, for some reason Babalola's writing style just didn't click with me, which is very much a me problem and not an issue with the writing. I'm sure most others will love this collection.

A collection of short stories about love and romance, mostly derived from myths and legends from various cultures around the world (there are a few new stories as well). As the author said in her author’s note, “with this book I was able to reimagine these stories in a manner that meant the women were centered; it was less about being chosen and more about their agency in allowing themselves to love and be loved.” I mean how cool is that? Stories that have been told for generations with a feminist twist. I am here for it. I was not familiar with any of these myths and legends so I can’t speak to how similar they are to the original stories, however it was so cool to see how these stories had clearly been modernized. As with all collections of short stories, there were some that stuck out more than others. But overall I enjoyed this this one!

Thank you to William Morrow Books and NetGalley for the advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Love In Color will be available on April 13th.

I was only able to read three short stories before I gave up. Idk there was just something about the writing that wasn’t really pulling me. I read three stories hoping the next one got better. There was so much hype surrounding this book. Maybe I just missed the mark.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

I fell in love with this book from the beginning. Each story contained strong female characters that were easy to relate to and understand. The writing style was easy to read. The descriptions were amazing and made you feel like you were actually apart of the story.

The chapters were just right. They weren’t to long or short although I did fall in love with some of the characters so I did want more. My favorite part was learning about the different cultures within the stories and they took place in different areas around the world. None of the stories were the exact same and you got different characters of many different ages.
I highly recommend this book to any romance lovers out there.

I think what I loved the most about Love in Color is that all the tales are reframed and reimagined to center women. But it's worth noting, these are love stories, not necessarily romances with neat happily ever afters.

With a mix of modern and ancient settings in the collection, I found myself most drawn to the ancient stories, especially Osun and Attem. Don't skip the author's note - if you're not familiar with the source material (I definitely wasn't), it almost worth reading first and last to bookend the experience.

4 stars

I really enjoyed this collection, but I realized as soon as I started it that I had the uncomplicated notion of Romance in mind, and the vibe is very different here. These are not all happy, basic stories of love found, minor struggle experienced, and love winning forever. Instead, these present all different shades of love, which I should've expected from living in the world,

The multicultural and mythological elements here are absolutely winning. Like all collections, I have favorites and those I enjoy a bit less, but overall, this is a solid group. Recommended.

I loved Bolu Babalola's collection of short stories "Love in Colour'. Her retellings brought centuries old stories into a modern age and her style of writing is beautiful. Reading the author's note at the end brought an especially important message to each story in that she was able to use the retelling to reframe the women in these stories. She centered women and gave them the power in these stories to choose love. The anthology ends with a particularly heartwarming love story about Bolu's parents that had me in tears - true love! Can't wait to see what comes next for Bolu!

Diverse! Romance! Short stories! Each story had its own unique style and setting, and some had me literally crying. Really beautiful work.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an advanced readers e-copy of Love in Color in exchange for an honest review.


Honestly it took me a couple of tries to get into this book but once I did get into the pace of the folksy retellings and the writing style (2 stories in), it was impossible to put down. The author makes no accommodations to the mainstream gaze, the representation of BIPOC stories remains authentic even when liberties are taken with the plot. Can see myself going back to Orin's and Psyche's stories for their playfulness. The author's final story about her parents is a joy to read as well and ties in the rest of the stories in a neat little bow by illuminating obliquely what love really means to her.

Some stories were less well done than others, and were slightly tedious and/or predictable.