Lilibet Bombshell's Reviews > Serendipity: Ten Romantic Tropes, Transformed

Real Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Marissa Meyer starts off this anthology by dedicating it to all us incorrigible romantics. And that’s the type of people who will want to read this book. I venture to guess that’s even the target audience for it. Unsurprisingly, I’m an incorrigible romantic marshmallow underneath my seriously jaded and cynical exterior. That’s why I was so interested in this anthology in the first place.

The largest issue I have with this anthology is the proclamation the book makes, stating they intend to take some of our most popular romantic literary tropes and to embrace them and then turn them on their heads. Thing is, most of these stories do indeed embrace their designated tropes with unabashed glee… but most (in my opinion) fail to turn the trope on its head.

I should point out none of the short stories in this collection are bad. Nothing could be further from the truth. For a collection of YA romantic short stories, they are all pretty cute and sweet. This is a book that could be read by the whole range of YA readers, from your tweens to your older teens, and not worry about truly offending anyone’s sensibilities (well, anyone worth their salt, anyway).

The stand out stories to me were: “In the Blink of the Eye” (trope: trapped in a confined space) - A story more about fixing a friendship and saving another’s relationship than the protagonist falling in love and “Liberty” (trope: the makeover) - A story where the makeover takes place before the story even starts and then another one is done by the protagonist herself, for herself, near the end.

If you read this on Kindle Paperwhite (as I did), you might have issues reading the graphic novel-style short story, “Keagan’s Heaven on Earth”. I could not increase the size of it on my version, and I have horrible eyesight, but even with my bifocals on I couldn’t read the small text and I couldn’t increase the size of the image (and therefore text).

The rest of the stories in the collection don’t turn their assigned tropes on their heads as much as they probably think they did, but it doesn’t mean they’re bad stories. “Bye Bye, Piper Berry” is a cute take on the trope of fake relationships, “Shooting Stars” (Meyer’s contribution) is a touching and sweet entry when it comes to the “one bed” trope, and “Zora in the Spotlight” manages to be both weirdly funny and somehow vulnerable.

It’s a solid collection. If they had actually managed to turn all the tropes on their heads successfully, I would’ve fallen in love with it.