Serendipity

Ten Romantic Tropes, Transformed

By: Marissa Meyer, Elise Bryant, Elizabeth Eulberg, Leah Johnson, Anna-Marie McLemore, Sandhya Menon, Julie Murphy, Caleb Roehrig, Sarah Winifred Searle, Abigail Hing Wen

Narrated by: Aida Reluzco, Alaska Jackson, Ewan Chung, Gary Tiedemann, James Fouhey, Jeanette Illidge, Natalie Naudus, Reena Dutt

Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's Summary

Love is in the air in Serendipity, a collection of stories inspired by romantic tropes and edited by number one New York Times best-selling 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, 10 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. Listeners will fall for this collection of stories that celebrate love at its most humorous, inclusive, heart-expanding, and serendipitous.

Contributors include Elise Bryant, Elizabeth Eulberg, Leah Johnson, Anna-Marie McLemore, Marissa Meyer, Sandhya Menon, Julie Murphy, Caleb Roehrig, Sarah Winifred Searle, and Abigail Hing Wen.

A Macmillan Audio production from Feiwel & Friends

©2022 Marissa Meyer (P)2022 Macmillan Audio

Thank you narrators and Authors.

This audiobook was an outstanding book to listen to. Thank you again narrators and authors for this book the stories were Awesome!

Woke stories :’(

Just a heads up if this matters to you. These are trope romance stories that get dropped into woke situations. Not a great fit for my entertainment.

**light spoilers **
The first story was confusing in the beginning because she talked about her “dad”…but every time she mentioned her dad he was wearing something or eating something different than one sentence before🤔. Then she mentioned her “dads” and I was like 😑 I feel like they were trying to confuse me with minor characters. Yanked me out of the story.

Second story is (bottom line) about 2 people who are opposites that end up trapped together and surprise 😍 are actually attracted to one another…but it’s 2 teenage girls. And they made a point to mention the police would not help them when they were in trouble because…well you get the idea. 😞

I decided it wasn’t worth my time to go through all the other stories because collective books usually lead with their best stories…. If that stuff entertains you then go for it. It isn’t a good fit for me personally.

Didn't Enjoy it

Usually, anthologies are a solid 3 stars for me but this one really didn't cut it for me, I will put my ratings for each story
Bye bye piper berry:
Cute story about a girl who wants to get back at her boyfriend by pretending to be in a relationship with her friend 4/5

Anyone else but you:
Two girls get stuck in a store together 2/5

The idiom algorithem:
Tam Lee is convinced that his girlfriend rebecca has been kidnapped by her parents, so he develops an algorithm to find her, just to be hit by the truth 3/5

Auld Aquaintace:
Two boys who are best friends realize they are in love with each other 1/5

Shooting stars:
Misty has been in love with Roman since seventh grade and now they are in senior year camp trip and sharing a room with him,its the perfect time to end her unrequited love 4.5/5

Zora in the spotlight:
Zora accidetandaly got a grand gesture from a guy she never met by mistake,she is really humiliated and mad at him .. until she gets to know him and his reason for that outrageous gesture.3/5

In a blink of an eye:
Morgan was dreaming of visiting UK with her best friend since they were little, but her friend's boyfriend crash into their plans and Morgan is not happy, so Danny(the friend) get them stuck in LONDON EYE to sort out their differences 3/5

Liberty:
a cheerleader squad has a new teammate who was a makeup YouTuber she used to follow 0/5

The surprise match:
Rosie gupta developed a code to match people together, so when her friend Easton tells her to use the code on him he get matched .. with rosie 4/5

Decent anthology, great narrators

What the heck, one of the stories in the book was actually left out of the audio?!? It says 10 romantic tropes transformed, and there were only 9 stories on the audio. I saw another review of the physical book that mentioned a story that wasn’t in the audio production, which is really dumb.

The narrators all did a great job; I liked that there was a full cast. Some of the stories were great, and some weren’t, which I find is always the case with anthologies. I loved In the Blink of an Eye, The Surprise Match, and Liberty. All the others were just okay to me, but overall I gave the anthology four stars because the stories did in fact, transform at least most of the tropes in really fun ways.