Name: Serendipity
ISBN: 9781250780850

Marissa Meyer

Ten Romantic Tropes, Transformed

Serendipity

Courtney Passio

Eilidh 

A gorgeous collection of stories inspired by romantic tropes, edited by and including a story from the #1 New York Times-bestselling author Marissa Meyer.

Ten Romantic Tropes Transformed

Amanda

This book was an absolute delight. 10 very versatile and diverse, cute short stories about teenage love. I really loved the diversity of the characters. I appreciated each story having its own voice in the audio narration which echos the differing voices of the writers.

Some of the stories were more "for me" than others, but on the whole this was a very enjoyable read. 

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for making this ARC available

Latitude Tamarind

I loved this book of short stories! This is a book of YA short stories, and they’ve taken ten romantic tropes and transformed them in new ways. My favorites were Fake Dating, Stranded Together, Best Friend Love Epiphany, and The Makeover. Best Friend Love Epiphany was the first writing I’d ever read by Caleb Roehrig, and I was not disappointed. I read this on audiobook so I read most of this one in the shower and I maybe cried a little bit while reading it. There’s a lot to love in this collection - I didn’t dislike any of the stories in it!

“Bye, Bye, Piper Berry” by Julie Murphy focuses around the fake dating trope, and this is one of my favorite tropes of all time and I loved this one. The love interest of this story, Gabe, is explicitly described as chubby in this one, and one of the quotes is “You’re fat, but who cares? That’s not even a bad thing anyways!” which I found very good.

“Anyone Else but You” by Leah Johnson has the “stranded together” trope and it’s fantastic, Leah Johnson has my whole heart, she’s so funny and such a smart writer! It’s about two co-presidents who get trapped in a store together overnight and one thing leads to another — this is a really really good f/f story.

“Auld Acquantance” by Calebe Roehrig, which features the “best friend love epiphany” trope, was possibly my favorite short story in the collection; my heart swelled with worry and fondness for these two boys figuring out love and who will kiss whom at midnight. 

“Shooting Stars” by Marissa Meyer is about the “Only One Bed” trope. I’ve also never read anything by Marissa Meyer but I’ve heard a lot of good things! It’s about Misty who goes on a senior class trip and she keeps getting into situations with her crush, Roman, where there’s only one bed between them. It’s super super cute and sweet. 

“Zora in the Spotlight” by Elise Bryant is about the “grand romantic gesture” trope, and it does involve someone popping out of a large pink cell phone. To say anything else would be a spoiler; but I will say that this story uses Instagram and social media in a way that feels Actually Correct and not weird in the way that most literature often is.

“In the Blink of an Eye” by Elizabeth Eulberg is the trope “trapped in a confined space” together. I really liked this one because it’s not a romance story between the two main characters - and they’re both autistic or autistic-coded; the main character’s special interest is London and she finally gets to go to London but then her least favorite person is there, her best friend’s boyfriend and her former crush! He’s explicitly stated to “be bad at social cues”, and I am just saying, their instant first chemistry is because they are both autistic. There’s a lot of twists in this one and each of them delighted me.

“Liberty” by Anna-Marie McLemore has “The Makeover” trope, which is about Ximena using makeup to force herself into “popular” (white, Eurocentric) beauty standards to fit in on the cheerleading team until her favorite beauty YouTuber joins the team and MAYBE THEY FALL IN LOVE? You’ll have to read it to find out! (It’s very good.)

“The Surprise Match” by Sandhya Menon with the trope Matchmaker, and its protagonist is Rosie, who is working on a matchmaker app to match up her friends. It’s really really cute, and I love the representation of Girls In STEM where it’s not explicitly called out or made out to be a super weird thing. “It’s just Duolingo, threatening me with bodily harm because I haven’t worked on my Spanish for four days.”

I received an audiobook copy of this book, and every story has a different narrator - some of the stories with multiple POVs have multiple narrators! My favorite narrator is Kristen Sieh, who narrates “Anyone Else But You” by Leah Johnson. She also narrated “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing” (and its sequel) by Hank Green, and I think she did fantastically here. 

This is a really diverse collection of short stories, very much in the vein of a Dahlia Adler anthology collection. If you’ve liked her anthologies before, you’ll like this one (although it is edited by Marissa Meyer, not Dahlia Adler, to be clear). Five stars!

Ten Love Stories to Make You Swoon!

Average Rating - 3.5

Bye, Bye Piper Berry Review - 
(The Fake Relationship)
I really enjoyed this short story, I found it interesting and engaging. I liked how the perspective changed between the two love interests, as it meant you got both perspectives on the fake dating situation, I think though I would have preferred it if it was half the story one and the other half the other because it did jump around a lot. The romance trope this story was based off was fake dating and I really enjoyed it, it's not always a trope I loved but I liked it here. Definitely want to try more of this author, and see what their novels are like.
4/5 

Anyone Else But You Review - 
(Stranded Together)
I loved Leah Johnson's previous book You Should See Me In a Crown but this story just didn't hit the same for me, and to be fair I don't know why other than possibly the trope. This trope is one that I like in very specific situations, I like Force Proximity when it takes place while the characters are doing something like a job and over a longer period of time not so much when they are trapped somewhere together for a period of time, like in here when they were stuck in a shop overnight. 
3/5

The Idiom Algorithm -
(Class Warfare)
I'm not sure on this story. I think I enjoyed it more than yesterday's but it was nothing special, and I'm also not sure what the trope was. This story for me was just enjoyable it wasn't a trope I have any specific feelings towards and it wasn't anything special. I'm also not really sure if I want to read more of this author. I did like Winter as a character though. 
3/5

Auld Acquaintance - 
(The Best Friend Love Epiphany)
For some reason I really didn't enjoy this story and I'm not sure why. The trope was one that enjoy on a semi-regular basis, bit I didn't enjoy it here. I don't think there was really anything about that I did enjoy, I just found it weird and not in a good way. 
2.5/5 

Shooting Stars - 
(One Bed)
This was Marissa Meyer's story and I loved it. I was hoping I would seeing as I've enjoyed her books so much recently and I wasn't disappointed. I think this may be my favourite so far. I really loved Misty as a character and the romance was believable and interesting. This is a trope I have barely read but want to read more of. The setting was really interesting as well. I think that if this was a full length romance/contemporary novel then I could give it 5 stars. 
4.5/5 

Keagan's Heaven on Earth - 
(The Secret Admirer)
I was looking forward to this story as it's a short story but done like a graphic novel as I've been getting into graphic novels more recently but it wasn't really anything special and if anything I found it a bit boring. There was nothing that pulled me towards the characters and the only thing that I really liked and that stood out to me was the fact that the main character writes fanfiction simply because I do too. 
3/5 

Zora in the Spotlight - 
(The Grand Romantic Gesture)
I don't know what I think about this one. I quite liked the first half but once Astrid started dancing I lost interest. I liked Zora as a character and understood how she felt but she was probably the one character I felt that way towards. Overall it was just meh. I also really didn't like the love interest. 
3/5

In A Blink of the Eye - 
(Trapped in a Confined Space)
I liked this story and found it interesting, I think part of it was because it was set in the UK instead of the US and I am more familiar with the UK. I liked the main character and found her easy enough to get on with, she's not my favourite character but I liked her. This was another one I'd like to read as a full length book. Probably my second favourite story so far. 
4.25/5

Liberty - 
(The Makeover)
I liked this. Do I know why I liked it so much? No, but I did. I liked the Protagonist, she was interesting and I understood her. I like the love interest and what she showed and represented. I like the message it had of being yourself and not caring about what others think. I liked all of it. There was nothing that stood out as fantastic for me but I enjoyed it all and want to read more. 
4/5

The Surprise Match - 
(The Matchmaker)
I really enjoyed this. There were parts I really loved - the key one being when Six of Crows was mentioned. And I found the concept really interesting, it was enjoyable to read about. There was a scene I found super cringy but that was to be expected and it didn't really effect my enjoyment levels. I quite liked the main characters too, I think my favourite was Charlotte (I think her name was)
4/5

Ashton Reed

If there existed a serotonin boost in the form of a book, this would be it! It’s precious!

Goodreads synopsis:
//Love is in the air in this is a collection of stories inspired by romantic tropes and edited by #1 New York Times-bestselling author Marissa Meyer.

The secret admirer.
The fake relationship.
The matchmaker.

From stories of first love, unrequited love, love that surprises, love that’s been there all along, ten of the brightest and award-winning authors writing YA have taken on some of your favorite romantic tropes, embracing them and turning them on their heads. Readers will swoon for this collection of stories that celebrate love at its most humorous, inclusive, heart-expanding, and serendipitous.//

I don’t read a lot of anthology-style novels, but I was pleasantly surprised with how much I adored this one! While there are a couple of stories I felt needed more development and/or more length (considering every story is around thirty pages long), more of them were incredibly well-developed considering their length. Overall, every story had an adorable ending and some kind of theme that provided some depth despite the stories being so short, making them feel like little doses of happiness without the commitment of a novel haha! 

Each story is based on a romantic trope as well, which is adorable! Some stories put more of a twist on their trope than others, but I loved getting to see each author’s take on the tropes we all know and love. No surprise here, but my favorite was Marissa Meyer’s, based on the “one bed” trope!! It was beyond adorable, and the timing was perfect for a short story! I also loved the last story by Sandhya Menon based on the “matchmaker” trope, which was a close second! It is also incredibly cute and super funny! And Elise Bryant’s story based on the “grand romantic gesture” trope, and Elizabeth Eulberg’s based on the “trapped in a confined space” trope - ok I’ll stop HAHA!! All these stories were little snippets of romance and basically serotonin in book form. I recommend this anthology if you love contemporary romances but are craving something a bit quicker!

*I received an e-arc from Fierce Reads; all opinions are my own! This book released on January 4th, 2022.*






If you enjoyed this review, you can friend/follow me here on Literal or on Instagram and Pinterest @ashton_reads for more bookish content (@ashton.reads on Tiktok)!! If you want, you can give this review a like or comment with your thoughts so I know you've read my review; your support means a lot to me! Happy reading!

The best book I could have chosen to read during the hectic holidays and me coming down with someone has to be Serendipity. Full of all things joy and happiness that will surely boost your serotonin levels right up!

For me, it’s hard to rate and review a collection of short stories, especially fairly but I completely enjoyed every story packed into this book. There are tropes featured that are definitely fan favorites but also a few you might never have thought of and could quickly become a fan of! 

Every story was written so well and thoroughly, not a single one left me wanting for me. Like seriously, for how short the stories are, I really thought there was no way I would be satisfied by the end but I really was! They also had a way of making me chuckle and really think while reading them that I was shocked by the end! 

Something else I’m excited to point out was how diverse every story was. There were a few different ethnicities, there were LGBTQ stories, straight stories, stories about finding a friendship instead and just so much love to go around that I really do feel all warm inside!

This book was like a big hug and something I really wasn’t expecting, so I’m hoping you give it a chance and really find something you love in it! 

Also, I thought I’d point out my favorite story of the bunch, In a Blink of the Eye by Elizabeth Eulberg. So so cute, I loved all of the London talk, and it genuinely made me laugh!

Serendipity Ten Romantic Tropes, Transformed

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