How They Met, and Other Stories

David Levithan did a good job with this collection of short stories. They're all about love, different kinds of teenage loves, and they definitely remind me of my teen relationships -- though I think the girl who plays with her lesbian/bisexual best friend's heart and will never quite get the signals unmixed is a pretty ubiquitous one. Still, there's defiant we're-gay-so-what love, dating because it's familiar and convenient love, bittersweet love... There are love stories with two boys, two girls, a girl and a boy, a man and a woman...

It's a lovely collection; it touched my heart and made me smile. ( )

Didn't read every story. Deals with homosexuality. ( )

This collection of short stories by David Levithan initially took me by surprise with its explicit accounts of romance through the eyes of both straight and gay characters (mostly teens). However, I was soon taken in by Levithan's skillful writing which made me laugh out loud, cheer and cry along the way. I think every teen would be able to see themselves and feel validated in one of these powerful stories. As a mother, I think Levithan also brought home the message about how a parent's actions and words of acceptance or rejection can impact our children.

This book was a collection of stories written by the author for his friends each Valentines Day. Some were heart warming, some bored me. A large portion of them were about homosexual partners which surprised, but didn't bother me. It was a fun read, but some of the stories lacks the "awww" moment that you would hope for in a collection of love stories. Not my favorite work by Levithan, but worth reading if you like him. ( )

Short story collections all by the same author can often have some deeper thematic links, but this one is right out there on the surface: these are all love stories. Stories, yes, of how people met, but also of how they came apart, or came closer together, or found something deeper in their love, or found it wouldn't work. And that was really most appreciated, because man, that many stories of people meeting and falling in love and everything being rosy in a row would be pretty hard to get through.

But Levithan manages quite a solid mix of these, with some funny ones (the Alumni Interview was probably the one that got the most laughs out of me, but the Good Witch worked as well), some poignant ones (Memory Dance; The Number of People Who Meet on Airplanes), and ones where some people work it out, and some where they don't (and that, I'm not telling you which is which). And with a mix of ages, as well, although there's a preponderance of high school to early college stories, as perhaps befits an author who usually does YA books. And that works pretty well, too, from the trying to figure out even how to work with your feelings perspective that shows up in a few of them.

I liked that a large number of them had homosexual pairings, and I liked still more that in a decent number of cases, it wasn't clear what the genders of the couple in question were. There are definite coming out issues that show up in a few, closeted relationships, and that sort of thing, and those are handled quite well as well, usually. The first few were all gay or lesbian couples, and I was glad after a while to have at least a couple of straight ones, for the fleshing out of the concept, but I'm not going to complain about lots of gay characters when they're well written.

There are a couple of less-good stories in here, or ones that I think were meant to be more stylized that I wasn't sold on, and while I can usually see what the intention was, it did mean I didn't love everything. Still, for the first David Levithan book I've read that he wrote just by himself, I don't think this was a bad pick at all, and I'll probably be trying to read more of his stuff soon. Starting from here, if you haven't read anything of his before, could work, too, although I might try one of the novels. But if 75-80% of a short story collection really clicks, then you're getting your money's worth. ( )