FOOLS IN LOVE is an eclectic collection of joyful teenage teenage love stories, and I loved every second of reading them. Many of these stories struck me as very experimental; concepts and techniques are developed in these stories that you wouldn't see from a full-length YA novel, which was very refreshing, if not risky. Of course, given the diversity in genre and author style there were stories I preferred over others; however there is truly something for everyone in this collection. 3.5 rounded up.

4/5

What a delightful collection of stories. Was I in love with all them? Of course not. That would be literally impossible. I did enjoy more than half of them, so that’s a win.

I love the inclusion of a bunch of different tropes, and of the diversity of the pairings. This is a great starter book if you want to start reading LGBTQ+ type stories, or if you already love them then this book is a great addition to your probably rapidly growing collection.

And I will admit that there were some tropes I wasn’t excited about, but the authors did really good jobs so that I was able to read their chosen trope.

And of course as a reader you’re not obligated to read every story. If you want to read just the tropes you like, you can do that.

If I had to choose favourites (which I’m totally going to do) they would be Bloom by Rebecca Barrow and Teed Up by Gloria Chao. Neither of which even featuring my favourite trope, enemies to lovers. But these two authors wrote such compelling short stories and I just loved their characters. So because of this anthology I am definitely checking them out as I type.

Fools In Love takes some of the most popular tropes in the romance genre and comes at them in new and engaging ways. Overall, the running theme with many of these stories is that a self-contained queer person is approached by a more relaxed, more comfortable in their queerness person who recognizes the attraction and has grown tired of waiting for the quieter person to admit their attraction. It’s repetitive and makes it increasingly difficult to enjoy the stories as every successive one takes the same form. So the standout stories, for me, were “My Best Friend’s Girl,” “Teed Up,” and “The Passover Date.”

This was a really nice collection. I really appreciated all of the stories because it's wonderful to see love stories that aren't often shown on media. And the discussion of various themes connected to the characters' identities makes the romance so much more deep, complex and enjoyable to read. The rest of the review will focus on the stories individually.

Silver and Gold (Snowed in Together) By Natasha Ngan: While the concept is pretty cool, the ending left me asking for more. After the trauma revealed by one of the characters, I was expecting an ending that address this and led to more direct support from her community. While their romance is cute, love doesn't fix situations like this.

Five Stars (Mistaken Identity) by Amy Spalding: I loved the characters so much, especially because they felt so real and connected to their world. They had a great connection but I wish the ending had opened the space for more conversation and connection.

Unfortunately, Blobs do not eat snacks (Kissing under the Influence) by Rebecca Kim Wells: The dynamic between the characters was golden, and the mystery and the magic were so cool. I kinda wish the cat could have become more important in the story.

Edges (The Grumpy One and the Soft One) by Ashley Herring Blake: As someone who doesn't appreciate the miscommunication trope, this story wasn't for me. Also while reading the story, I could see some symptoms of depression in the main characters actions and inner monologues and I wished this were addressed. The main character is struggling and also another unresolved plot point is the fact that the sister outs her.

What Makes Us Heroes (Hero vs Villain) by Julian Winters: The characters are the heart of this story and they have been so well written. The world and the superhero concept was so interesting, including the discussions of morality and family. Even though sometimes the dialogue was a bit cringy, I will definitely pick up more from this author in the future.

And (Love Triangle) by Hannah Moskowitz: This story was quite interesting and the use of the second person gave it a somewhat film noir narrator vibe. The point that I struggled with was the pace, that speed up but didn't calm down after the climax. I say this but I really enjoyed the story and the polyamorous rep.

My Best Friend’s Girl (Best Friend’s Girlfriend) by Sara Farizan: The beginning fell a bit too info-dumpy and I wished the relationship could have been developed more, as to make the climax scene more deep and meaningful. But overall, I liked the romance, the concept of the world (this anthology writer's love their superheroes) and the flirtatious dialogue

(Fairy) Like Attracts Like (Mutual Pining) by Claire Kann: This was my favourite story of the anthology, just so good. The discussion of how the parents pay for their kid's dreams to come true, the fatphobic comments and non inclusive fairy ears company is so interesting. It is, all around, a full and cohesive short story.

These Strings (Sibling’s Hot Best Friend) by Lilliam Rivera: The aesthetic of this world was so beautiful, added my the wonderful writing. And yet the ending felt off. I believe it was because the story felt like it had too much going on. That maybe the love should have been platonic and that the story should have focused on the main character's arc.

The Passover Date (Fake Dating) by Laura Silverman: This was my second favourite story. We have cute and fun dialogue, more tropes than the prompt one, Jewish family dynamics. Plus a boy who panics and buys cheese (we love those). So wonderful, I could have read an entire novel about them.


Bloom (Love Transcends Space Time) by Rebecca Barrow: It somehow felt too long and yet not long enough. Still, it was such interesting, even for someone who isn't keen on time travel like me. I would like to be sent a pdf with information about the flowers and their growing process because it is something that I really liked and wish we had learnt more about.

Teed Up (Oblivious to Lovers) by Gloria Chao: I really enjoyed this story. I relate to the theme of pleasing your parents and wanting to be someone else, and not the role assigned to you. I love both characters, for golden retrievers love interests are my type. I also was amazed by the inclusion of well-built storylines about the discrimination that her parents have suffered and how in a way our main character is competing for all women. Because of them, the story gains much depth and importance.

Boys Noise (Only One Bed at the Inn) by Mason Deaver: Just so cute and sweet! About two boys in a boyband that fall in love having to deal with the lives they left behind, the secrets they have to keep, the contracts they cant break. I could point out that the use of the trope wasn't totally used, because the characters were already together when they laid on it, but that would be nitpicking.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Secret Royalty) by Malinda Lo: Again, incredible visual semi steampunk world created in such few lines of description. We love a runaway princess and girls in STEM. The only thing I wish had been done differently was Malika not recognizing the princess. This was I could remain a secret night together for the main character until her friend saw the pictures. Also a bit comical since the friend was obsessed with her.

Disaster (Second Chance Romance) by Rebecca Podos: I ended up DNFing this story and I gotta say, I don't know why. Perhaps it was the pace or the main character. Still, the concept sounded very interesting and the promise of close proximity might lead other readers to finish it.

I loved all the representation in this book! Each story was so cute and I liked all the different styles of writing. I would recommend this to a friend. I do wish some chapters were more developed.

All of the stories were so cute! This was a fast read, and I really enjoyed how well the stories fit together. Some felt like they could be a whole novel, which is my favorite when reading short stories. I 100% recommend this book!!

OH MY GOD THIS BOOK IS VERY INTERESTING. I LOVE ALL SHORT STORY BY ALL AUTHORS IN THIS BOOK. EVERYTHING IS JUST PERFECT. it might get confused at first for me but OVERALL I REALLY ENJOYED!!!

I loved the approach of this short story collection: each story tackling a popular romance trope. The stories I liked, I really liked, but the stories I disliked, I really disliked them. That just happens sometimes with anthologies.

Favorite stories:
- Five Stars ("Mistaken Identity") by Amy Spalding
- Edges ("The Grumpy and the Soft One") by Ashley Herring Blake
- The Passover Date ("Fake Dating") by Laura Silverman
- Teed Up ("Oblivious to Lovers") by Gloria Chao

So many of my favorites wrote tender stories in this! I loved every minute of this book. It was so heartwarming and made me feel sheer happiness. I recommend this to anyone looking for wholesome stories or something to brighten their day and put a smile on their face.

I really loved all of the stories, and was excited to see some of my favorite authors be a part of the anthology. I loved how each of the authors had their individual style show through their chosen trope. I recognize these are short stories and that there is not much room for character development, but I do wish there could have been more — I found myself getting invested only to find the story ended a few pages later.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC!

thank you netgalley for providing me with an arc of this book! i really enjoyed it! it was a very cute collection of love stories that think had something special for everyone. if you want a quick cute book this one is definitely for you. unfortunately like a lot of short stories since they’re so short you don’t really get that attached to the characters, which just comes with the medium. but with that in mind i still think the authors did a very good job. 3.5 stars!

Such a cute book! Really enjoyed the short stories and how they all went together. A perfect book for YA romance readers!

There were so many amazing stories in this book that I loved. They were all diverse and really interesting to read. I have to admit that I'm going to be biased and say that Mason Deaver's and Natasha Ngan's stories were my favourite!

This book has introduced me to many new authors that I never read before and it was an absolute joy to meet and read some of their work for the first time.

This story is really easy to pick up and read in one sitting but as it is also separated into short stories, it is also easy to put down and pick back up whenever you wish!

Definitely recommend!

An insanely adorable compilation of love stories by an amazing assortment of authors. I absolutely adored reading this book, each story was better than the last.

2.5 Stars.

I have been really enjoying anthologies lately, so I was looking forward to this collection of short stories highlighting a variety of different romance tropes. The diversity in this book was wonderful to see, and the range of genres promises something for any reader, but I found it difficult to connect with or feel invested in most of the stories. I think a lot of this comes down to the short page count, as the majority of the stories would be better suited to a full-length novel. This is the case for the fantasies especially, since there is so little room for world building and character development, which made it difficult for me to truly engage with them.

Based on the word “reimagine” in the synopsis, I was also expecting something more along the lines of subverting or re-writing these tropes, so I was a little disappointed to find nothing overly original in this book. To be honest, I found that most of the stories inside also follow the same structure, which contradicts the book’s purpose. This anthology does have its strengths—I enjoyed Amy Spalding’s story featuring the mistaken identity trope—but I was hoping for something more innovative. Not for me, unfortunately.

Fools in Love is a diverse, heartwarming collection of love stories and all of them made my heart sing with joy! Each of the 15 stories covers a different well-beloved trope and they made me fall even for the tropes I am generally not the biggest fan of!

Since these were of course written by different authors and cover different genres, there could've been an audible discord (or lack of harmony) in this book as a whole, but somehow it all worked, despite every story being a whole separate universe. Some writing styles and plots were of course more to my taste and some less, but all in all, I adored these uplifting stories of love (and falling in love), loss, and friendship! Of course romantic love was the main focus of these stories, but they delivered on other accounts as well (familial love, friendships, etc.).

While I loved most of these, I felt that a couple of stories were a bit underdeveloped and therefore lacking character development, which just made me feel less invested - but again, maybe others will find them the most endearing.

Four of my favourite stories between the 15 were:

1. Boys Noise by Mason Deaver: Give me all the amazing boy band love stories! These characters felt as real as they get and I got invested in no time - I wonder what would've come of that if we got a full book. I wouldn't mind that one bit!

2. What Makes Us Heroes by Julian Winters: There was just something so cute and relatable to the main two characters, despite it being a pretty short story. I wanted to find out more and see where their tentative love story was going. Plus I am ALWAYS here for a hero/villain dynamic!

3. Girls Just Want to Have Fun by Malinda Lo: Absolutely adorable story, plus it had that sci fi goodness that makes everything both foreign and familiar (how do authors do that), like it's super surreal but also something that might happen in not such a distant future. Another story where I NEED to know the whole deal!

4. Bloom by Rebecca BarrowNow this story was one of the most unusual ones and while I expected the ending to be completely different than it was, I was enchanted! At first I thought this one might not be for me, but boy was I wrong! The "messing with time" plot made me so curious - and in constant pain, ngl - and while it took me a while to warm up to the love story, it's one of the novellas that stayed with me longest.

All in all this was a beautiful collection of short stories that explored different tropes and I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good untraditional rom-com!

WOW, the last time I have read a book with comprised short stories was back in middle school and I have to say that I really enjoyed reading all the different stories in this book. If you are in a reading slump and want a fast paced story then I recommend this book! Very fun, quick, and comprises of all the tropes that everyone likes!!! This book also has diversity as well and I love it!

"Mixture of short stories based on a range of romance tropes. Particularly enjoyed Edges, The Passover Date and Bloom which were sweet stories which I found had more feeling in than the others.

Fools in Love is a collection of 15 short stories, each featuring a different romance trope. They span a wide variety of genres and styles, and feature a good combination of better-known and somewhat less-known authors..

"Silver and Gold," by Natasha Ngan: This story features the "snowed in together" trope as it follows two girls in a sled race who get hit by a snowstorm and have to share a tent as they weather the storm. It's super cute, and the characters are lovable and well-developed; I just wish it had had a tiny bit more worldbuilding and character background, because I was super invested in all of it and just wanted more. 4.5/5.

"Five Stars," by Amy Spalding: This story features the "mistaken identity" trope, and the long and short of it is that the girl's crush mistakes her for her Uber driver (failing to recognize her from the class that they share together), and so she just goes along with it and drives her to her destination, and sparks ensue. The story was cute I suppose, but lacked much character depth (or realism? Like, if you're being safe about taking Uber then this isn't a situation that should be able to happen). 3.5/5

"Unfortunately, Blobs Do Not Eat Snacks," by Rebecca Kim Wells: This story features the "kissing under the influence" trope, and follows two girls who go to a magic academy together and are paired up for their final examination. It was adorable, the character development and dynamics were amazing, and I'm a sucker for anything with magic. 5/5

"Edges," by Ashley Herring Blake: This story features the "The Grumpy One and the Soft One" trope. It follows a girl (the grumpy one) who is tutoring another (the soft one) in art, and both are oblivious to the other's feelings. It was kind of cute I guess, but I just didn't connect to the characters at all. 3/5

What Makes Us Heroes, by Julian Winters: This story features the "Hero vs. Villain" trope. It follows a "hero" who is trying to get his ex-boyfriend (a more famous hero) back, and runs into his childhood friend who then turned intoa villain. I didn't really care about the characters, and the worldbuilding was just confusing; it definitely could have done with a bit more exposition and a lot more character background. 3.5/5

"And," by Hannah Moskowitz: This story features the "Love Triangle," trope, and is basically about a girl falling in love with another guy in addition to her boyfriend and starting a polyamorous relationship. I didn't connect with any of the characters and didn't feel any connection between them. I appreciated her resolving the love triangle in a different way to how it's usually done, but I was just really uninvested in this story. 2.5/5

"My Best Friend's Girl," by Sara Farizan: This story follows the "Best Friend's Girlfriend" trope. It's another superhero one, this time with the protagonist's best friend being a secret superhero/alien, and the protagonist growing close to his girlfriend while covering for him. I hate cheating, so I already wasn't going to like this story, but the worldbuilding was confusing as well. 2/5

"(Fairy)like Attracts Like," by Claire Kann: This story features the "Mutual Pining" trope as it follows two girls who are camp counselors at a fairy-themed camp. The protagonist has a curse where she has to truthfully answer questions asked to her. It was really cute, but lacked the character depth to make me love it, I just wish it had been longer to allow for that. 4/5

"These Strings," by Lilliam Rivera: This story features the "Sibling's Hot Best Friend" trope as it follows a girl whose family runs a puppet show and has a crush on her brother's best friend, who helps them. I just didn't connect with this story at all; it was cute, but I didn't find anything noteworthy about it. 3/5

"The Passover Date," by Laura Silverman: This story features the "Fake Dating" trope. The protagonist's family has a tradition where everybody has to bring a date to Passover Seder, so she asks her childhood crush to help her. It is so cute and I adored it so much. 5/5

"Bloom," by Rebecca Barrow: This story features the "Love Transcends Space Time" trope, and follows a girl whose family grows magical flowers who uses a time travel one to go back to kill the man responsible for his mother's death before he can do it, but ends up falling in love with his daughter. It's so adorable and I loved it. 5/5

"Teed Up," by Gloria Chao: This story follows the "Oblivious to Lovers" trope. It follows a girl who is competing at a golf tournament that has previously been only for boys, and a boy who has a giant crush on her, but she just views him with suspicion. It's really cute. 4.5/5

"Boys Noise," by Mason Deaver: This story features the "Only One Bed at the Inn" trope. It follows two members of a boy band who escape for a day to New York City, and it honestly just read like a fanfic. It didn't feel like there was anything unique about it (there have definitely been thousands of fanfic stories with the same plot that have probably done it better and with more individuality), and it didn't even do the "only one bed" trope that well. The romance was kind of cute I guess, but I honestly didn't care about it. 2.5/5

"Girls Just Want to Have Fun," by Malinda Lo: This story follows the "Secret Royalty" trope, and is about a mechanic who falls in love with a princess who has snuck away for the day. The opening is basically exactly like Cinder, by Marissa Meyer, which is recognizable enough in the YA world that I felt like I couldn't forgive the story that, since it felt so much like a rip-off of it. However, that opinion did change due to the fact that I absolutely adored the characters and romance. 4.5/5.

"Disaster," by Rebecca Podos: This story follows the "Second Chance Romance" trope, and follows a girl who has to go stay with her ex-girlfriend during what could possibly be the last few days of life on Earth. The romance was adorable; I just don't like apocalyptic scenarios as settings, particularly in this case where the scenario in question didn't seem to make much sense. 4/5.

Overall, I'm giving the book 4/5 stars. My opinions on the stories varied wildly; there were some I absolutely adored, and some I hated, but overall I really did enjoy the book. I particularly appreciated the abundance of wlw romances in it; they were all so cute and I enjoyed the representation a lot. I'd definitely recommend reading this book if you remotely enjoy YA romances; I would still happily buy it, even knowing that I disliked some of the stories, because the rest were just that good.

Thanks so much to Netgalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This was a cute anthology, and I think the representation in these stories are incredibly needed in the YA genre. However, some of the stories dragged a bit for me. This was an instance of "It's not you, it's me" in realizing that I am not the biggest fan of anthologies. That being said, there were some cute moments!