Book Review | Blackout

I was definitely in the mood for a light and fun book after my last couple of reads.

When a heatwave plunges New York City into darkness, sparks fly for thirteen teenagers caught up in the blackout. From the exes who have to bury their rivalry and walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn in time to kick off a block party, to the two boys trapped on the subway who come face-to-face with their feelings and the pair of best friends stuck in the library and surrounded by love stories and one very big secret, they are all about to see that when the lights go out, people reveal hidden truths, love blossoms, friendship transforms, and all possibilities take flight.

Six of today’s biggest stars of the YA world bring all the electricity of love to a collection of charming, hilarious and heartbreaking tales that shine the brightest light through the dark.

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After reading a few heavier books lately, I decided that I needed a bit of a genre change, something that would be fun and full of joy and Blackout seemed like the perfect fit for that.

I really enjoyed that all of the stories were connected, they are set at the same time in the same city, New York, during a blackout and each of the characters is linked in some way to a character featured in one of the other stories. This is a book of love stories and explores quite a few tropes within the collection, it could be a little predictable at points but in that nice way that happens in romance where it just makes you feel warm and happy.

It has a bit of an unusual structure in that one of the stories is told in six parts and the other stories are told in between. I quite liked this because it helped to mirror the connectedness within the stories and made it feel like I was taking a journey through the day into the night and stopping in with different people along the way.

As with every short story collection, especially when they are made up of different authors, I always have some stories that I favour over others but actually, in this book, I enjoyed most of them. Luckily there were no bad stories just a few that did not hit quite the same as the others, some structure that didn’t quite work for me, and a story that came in too quickly, as if we already had all the backstory and didn’t entirely make sense until I was a fair way through it.

I think the only thing that I was a little disappointed by was that there wasn’t a better round-up of everyone at the end. There was an insinuation that everyone had made it to the block party, but I feel like I would have liked a little more, although I’m not sure what that would look like.

If you are looking for a quick, light-hearted, fun romance that features love in lots of different and wonderful forms, then Blackout is the book for you.