Student Book Reviews: Meet Cute by Various, reviewed by Alicia Gan

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This week, Alicia Gan (Year 9) explores the romantic anthology of short stories, Meet Cute.

Meet Cute is a series of short stories written by 13 authors. Every story is unique to itself. From a new intern giving a singer-songwriter a tour of the city, to working in a print shop and having to deal with twitter chaos, to a futuristic campus dedicated to love, I don’t think you’ll put this down until you finish reading.
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One of my favourite chapters is The Unlikely Likelihood of Falling in Love. This chapter starts off with a girl who believes in logic and statistics, not fate. But perhaps that’ll change. One morning on the train to school, she sees a boy on the line travelling the opposite way. Coincidentally their eyes meet and they both smile. Once Viv gets to school, she decides to make this her science project. The probability of both of them seeing each other again. This is one of the more realistic stories in the book which I thoroughly enjoyed because it’s a bit easier to imagine and relate to. To all you readers who are a bit more realistic, this is a good one. It’s not too cliche that you foresee every action, but something you would expect to hear from a friend.

A futuristic story that doesn’t seem too out of reach is Click by Katherine McGee. The story starts off with Alexa Faraday who’s on her way to her first “Click” date. I’ll explain what Click is, once you sign up, Click sweeps the internet and finds every. Single. Thing you did. The app then gives you a list of romantic potentials and their compatibility rates. Alexa meets Raden, her “date” but realises that she left her phone on the taxi here, and in that phone is a very, very important data chip. Now you’ll have to read the rest of it to find out how their search ended and why the data chip was so important to Alexa. The author ends on a lightnote with hotdogs which I think is a nice touch after the anxiety I had following their “chip” chase. I will tell you that there are hotdogs at the end. I think that the message the author was trying to convey was that although data and statistics are good to rely on, sometimes you need to stray from the more travelled road to find the right path for you.
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One of the few stories I didn’t like the most, is the first story! I found it a bit boring as 99% of the story consists of two teenagers, Hailey and Wolf, the main characters reminiscing about their childhood in a really ugly bathroom hiding from the police after getting caught drinking… Yeah. It doesn’t flow that well in my opinion and there isn’t much to take away from the story. Apart from this, Meet Cute has a wide range of stories and a very good novel I recommend to 12 year olds and over. A pleasant read on a rainy day, or on a picnic with friends. With fourteen stories, I’m sure you’ll find one for you.

​Keen to read? You can check out Meet Cute at the Frances Compton Library!