A decent anthology overall with some hits and some misses. A good collection of stories that will have something for everyone.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

I love a good short story anthology. Even though the stories are never enough to satisfy me. Make it make sense.

I will say this one was a little different 😅
Some of the stories were really out there. Like having a dinosaur pet out there.

I will say for the most part I enjoyed these. I could have done without some. But I still recommend it if you’re looking for a quick read.

This isn't the first YA short story collection edited by Laura Silverman that I have read. I love a good theme, and I especially love how these anthologies always revolve around one. In the case of Firsts and Lasts, this coming of age collection explores the first and last experiences of teens as they set off to embark on their adult lives. Divided into two sections - Firsts and Lasts - these stories cover a wide variety of experiences - both those grounded in reality and others sprinkled with fantasy.

As for my personal reading experience, I definitely preferred the "Lasts" collection of stories better than the "Firsts." The "Lasts" stories were more creatively done and explored a variety of experiences, whereas the "Firsts" stories primarily featured LGBTQIA relationships. While relationships are certainly an important part of any teen's life, multiple stories on the same general subject get stale when you are fed them one after another. The stories in "Lasts," however, included everything from dinosaurs, to arena fighting, to purity balls, to murder.

FIRSTS

The First Time I Dated a Vampire by Julian Winters (2 stars) - A gay teenage movie buff who is grieving the loss of his father, finds acceptance, and possibly love, by way of the literal vampire who works at his local movie theater.

Unfortunately, there is nothing entirely memorable about this story. It feels like it was written to check off a social issues checklist, rather than to tell an engaging story.

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The First Day of College by Monica Gomez-Hira (4 stars) - A Colombian American college freshman with her family in tow, moves into her dorm and learns about family ties and heritage.

This is a touching coming-of-age story about looking to the future, but also remembering everything we leave behind. Authentically-written, it also includes a vibrant cast of characters.

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The First Kiss by Nina Moreno (3 stars) - A witch casts a spell to find love on her birthday (which also happens to be on Halloween), but things don’t play out quite as expected.

I enjoyed the Halloween/spooky vibes of this story, but questioned why Moreno chose to make her female lead bisexual, yet her crushes were all male. Why not just make her straight?

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The First Time We Buried a Body by Tess Sharpe (4 stars) - When a teenager commits murder to protect her friend from assault, the two girls are left with a body they need to bury.

This story is engaging and entertaining, but I am a bit worried about how the story is written as if resorting to murder was the only choice in this situation.

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The First Breakup by Anna Meriano (3 stars) - A girl navigates her first breakup in the search of something more.

A bit of self-discovery as the main character learns what it is she wants out of life and love is what unfolds in this story. While good, the story is pretty vanilla fare and is not quite memorable enough.

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The First Time I Saw the Stars by Shaun David Hutchinson (2 stars) - When an alien lands on a future Earth, it connects with a boy who has been struggling with his mental health.

Despite many readers loving this story, I just couldn’t get into it! I found it confusing to be thrown into an unfamiliar setting right off the bat, and it took me awhile to gather what was going on in this story. There were also a few distasteful sexual references that I didn’t care for.

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The First Crush by Keah Brown (2 stars) - A girl grapples with a way to fell her friend that she has feelings for her.

This story is all about friendship, but also falling in love with your friends. Unfortunately, it had to much going on for a short story and I kept losing interest.

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The First Job by Yamile Saied Mendez (3 stars) - When her long-time high school boyfriend makes out with her best friend, a girl struggles to navigate her small town on her own before finding her place.

I felt like this story was written with all of the angst and immaturity that scorned teenagers possess. I like that the main character’s first job ends up being a haunted house - it adds a fun Halloween vibe to this story.

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LASTS

The Last Dinosaur by Laura Silverman (5 stars) - When a young girl encounters a lone dinosaur while hiking the Appalachian Trail with her family, she makes a friend for life.

I always really enjoy Laura Silverman’s contributions in these short story collections. This story was a breath of fresh air. I was so glad that it didn’t deal with relationships and identity. Just a poignant, yet at the same time, fun, story involving a girl and her dinosaur.

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The Last Purity Ball by Joy McCullough (5 stars) - A girl who is attempting to plan a Purity Ball while also juggling her ever-intensifying feelings for her boyfriend, has to juggle both what she wants to do with what she feels is expected of her.

I found this story to be really engaging, and I was entertained throughout. It was a bit stereotypical and predictable, but overall, it contained some good lessons.

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The Last Bout by Amanda Joy (5 stars) - Two girls with mystical powers battle it out in an arena event.

This was the first story that I thought would work really well as a full-length novel. I appreciated Joy’s ability to world-build and layer on detail in just a few pages. Didn’t care for the romance side of things, but the battle and character attributes was really neat.

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The Last Days in the Only Place That Felt Like Home by Adi Alsaid (4 stars) - A teenage girl with a transient family is tired of always having to start over, but thinks she has found something worth holding onto when she discovers a magical time-warping fountain.

This was a touching story about trying to make a home for one’s self. I really enjoyed the magical element included in the story as well - it added a nice touch of fun.

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The (Hopefully) Last Demon Summoning by Kika Hatzopoulou (2 stars) - A group of friends about to diverge on their own paths accidentally summon a demon during their last hurrah.

I almost skipped over this story because I just couldn’t get into it. The characters end up being supernatural beings, which threw me off and just made things confusing. There was too much superfluous detail involved in this story, in my opinion.

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The Last Goodbye by Loan Le (3 stars) - A young girl connects with her mother over a drug addiction death in their past.

This story had a bit of a supernatural element to it, which isn’t my favorite. I had a hard time getting into this story, although I do think it was well done.

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The Last Concert by Rachel Lynn Solomon (4 stars) - A group of high school friends in a band prepare for their last performance.

This story was fun and nostalgic all at the same time. It gave off good vibes, and I enjoyed the friendships among the band members.

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The Last Time I Saw Her Alive (5 stars) - A girl contemplates the last time she saw her best friend alive, before she stole her boyfriend.

Holy plot twist - I did not see that one coming! I had to re-read parts of this story more than once because it completely took me by surprise.

This was a decent anthology. I would say I had a couple stories in here that were a little too short for my liking that carried on a little bit longer.

Some are hits, some are misses, I love the diversity of it all in authors, genres, and experiences so I love anthologies like this.

This was very cute. I enjoyed some part better than others but I think that’s common with all anthologies.

Pretty good YA stories. I may not be the right audience, but I enjoyed many of these stories, and suspect many others will as well.

I really appreciate the free copy for review!!

This is a great collection of fun short stories with a range of emotions. Somehow I was fully invested in each story and fully satisfied by most of the endings.

FIRSTS AND LASTS, edited by Laura Silverman, is a strong addition to the YA anthologies already on shelves (including my own shelves). The broad "first" / "last" theme seems to have given this group of authors room for significant creativity, which led to a wide range of short stories. I really appreciate that because I can use this collection in many different ways and most, or even all, of my students should find something here to suit their tastes. The standout short story for me is "The First Time We Buried a Body" by Tess Sharpe and I will use that for a short story class, no question.

Laura Silverman's commitment to editing this YA anthology needs to be celebrated. The stories flow together like an endless creek until to hit the last one and are left with such an utter feeling of satisfaction. My emotions ran the gamut while reading this true work of wonder.

Thank you to PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group, Penguin Workshop, and Netgalley for providing an eARC for an honest review.

Thank you, NetGalley, PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group, Penguin Workshop, for the chance to read this book in exchange of an honest review.

I do love anthologies so much and I was really excited to read this one, because there are some of my favourite authors in it and I couldn't wait to find some new ones.
Firsts and lasts is a YA anthology about the complexity of being a teenager, with its ups and downs, breakups, adventures, first loves, friendships, new experiences and last and final moments when the journey is towards being an adult.
Vampire encounter, band perfomances, last friendships, each story is different in genre and style, but capture all the the complexity, all the emotions of being a teenager. between leaving your childhood behind and entering the adulthood, with its joys, struggles, pains, anticipations and so much more.
All the range of emotions a teenager can experience, like falling in love for the first time, being unable to tell a crush, losing someone while growing up and facing that loss, finding where you belong or realizing you can belong somewhere else, this collection of stories is perfect for every age. So so recommended.

I love how anthologies never have two stories that are the same. Each other takes the prompt and makes it their own thing. This book will have something for everyone, from a paranormal romance (The First Time I Dated a Vampire) to a story about a high school band (The Last Concert). It was so much fun to read & I highly recommend it!

I liked the diversity, I just didn't care as much for the new-age references all over the book. I enjoyed all 12 stories though!

This is a short story or anthology where teens experience their final and first moments into adulthood. Going through the motions and experiences.

Collectively I liked the stories and rereading some things I also went through going into adulthood. My only falter was some of them were either slow and didn’t grasp me or felt cheesy. Obviously some were very fictional, because let’s be real there is no vampires, no matter how much we’d love them to be real 😂

All in all, it was stories meant for young adults.

I love anthologies. Especially those with authors I may not have read yet. It gives me a good idea of whether or not I might like an author's writing and if I'd like to read books they have written or may write in the future. I will say anthologies are a bit hard to review. I did get the overall theme from this book of diversity, which was a breath of fresh air. Overall the stories were fun and I can see how they could be relatable to teens who may be experiencing similar things.

Thank you Netgalley and Penguin Random House for this ARC!

DNF 50%. I really wanted to finish this book because I'm trying to get into short stories and I find that they can be really nice when you don't want to get into an entire 300-page story, but with this one I really couldn't. There were a few stories I genuinely enjoyed, but none of them really gripped me or stayed with me afterwards, and for some of them the writing was so bad I genuinely had to skim most of it and skip to the next story. I might get back to this time and again when I'm in the mood for a shorter story, but for now I think I need to put it down.

The concept for this collection is super vague and that is the reason that it fell really short for me. I felt myself dragging along just so I could say that I finished it. There were some stories that were better than others, but I've seen a lot better collections come from Laura Silverman, so I was pretty disappointed to not enjoy this one.

Thanks to Penguin Teen and NetGalley for allowing me to read an eARC of this title in return for an honest review.

This one has a bit of everything: first loves, secret crushes, breakups and cheating significant others, family drama and friend drama, magic, supernatural beings, aliens, and even dinosaurs. Some stories will make you laugh, some will make you cry, some will do both. I really enjoyed this anthology.

Content Warnings: grief related to family death, death, violence, attempted assault, drug use, depression, self-harm, underage drinking, sexual harassment, drug addiction

Dinosaurs, rock stars, and haunted house shenanigans? Pretty dang cute. I enjoyed the overall theme of the book - half of the book being focused on firsts and the other being focused on lasts. The nice thing about these anthologies is that there are so many different stories and themes. Don't like one? Just skip to the next. (I did this for 1 story, just because I wasn't being drawn in)

My favorite was easily Laura Silverman's, because dinosaurs duh. But it was great seeing many of the authors I'm familiar with and a few that I'll be keeping an eye on in the future. Just overall a very interesting short story anthology!

*Thank you to Penguin Teen and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*