Hello and happy Sunday. Tomorrow is a holiday in Colombia and I am so happy to live in a country where we are provided so many days off, even if it actually means that tomorrow I won’t be earning any money, but oh well. Yesterday I finished reading Meet. Cute. Awkward, a short story collection which features queer main characters in all stories. I’d like to thank NetGalley, the editors and publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Like I mentioned in my previous review, books that represent identities that are systemically and systematically marginalized are important and they are necessary, especially those written by people who belong to these underrepresented groups. That is a fact, and it has nothing to do with the authors’ writing style or whether the plot was interesting to readers or not. I will keep saying this even though it is obvious to some, because it is not obvious to others.

Now, that being said, I am not 100% sure that Meet. Cute. Awkward is fully own-voices, and I say this because I distinctly remember a story written by a person with a name that is typically male, but it featured a sapphic relationship. I’m not discrediting the entire book, or even this story, but I prefer clarifying this since some readers (me included) prefer their queer reads written by people who identify with the groups represented in their stories.

I am not much of a short story collection reader. I prefer novels that focus on a few characters, who we can follow and witness how the plot develops in depth. That could be a reason why I didn’t really connect with most of the stories in this collection. It could’ve also been a matter of how they were arranged, since it opens with a fantastical story, then goes on to a post-apocalyptic one, and I’m pretty sure the third one is about superheroes. It was too much for me, and I had to take several breaks. The other stories are realistic, so I felt like I was reading a completely different literary piece. Still, I didn’t really feel connected to any of the stories and wasn’t left wanting to know more from the characters.