Blackout (YA Anthology) various authors

 

Welcome Back, Booklovers! Blackout is a YA anthology by six bestselling Black authors with a focus on Black teen love. If anyone has followed me for awhile you know I advocate for Black love to be more visible in both the adult. So this one peaked my curiosity.

Anthologies are harder to get into for me. This one has less writers and stories than the usual ones I come across which allowed for longer more fleshed out stories. They all follow the central theme of taking place during a blackout in NYC and there are even characters that connected each story as nods to each other. 

I listened to this via audio courtesy of Harper Audio in exchange for an honest review.  Listening to the audiobook was an experience especially with the different narrators. A good narrator can make or break the story and bring the characters to life.  And with the different authors you experience their different writing styles. 

I'm all for including pop culture in a story but there's a good way to do it that doesn't leave the story feeling dated. And sometimes it came off a little try hard when incorporating phrases and trying to tackle certain social justice issues. I wish Black kids could be free of having to always have activism all up and down their stories. And I say this as someone who loves to use my platform to speak out. A lot of teens are not trying to be activists. They just aren't! And they shouldn't have to. I didn't start becoming more active until college. 

Nic Stone's story in particular was jampacked full of messages it was trying to convey in a short amount of space. There was a scene where the boy's inner dialogue was commenting on breastfeeding in public that felt so forced. 

Tiffany D. Jackson's story was broken down into parts throughout the anthology and I enjoyed it. I thought it was perfectly balanced. Tammi and Kareem had a fun dynamic and the narration was perfect for those sections. It was easily the most memorable story of this collection for me. 

Ashley Woodfolk's story was a cute Sapphic story. The chemistry between the girls sold their connection for me. And the family dynamic included at the senior living facility added some heart.

I can't even remember Dhonielle Clayton's story beyond two childhood friends being at a library. 

The narration for Angie Thomas' story was so bad I can't even really share my thoughts on that one because it was a struggle to follow along. It follows Southern kids visiting NYC for the first time on a trip and the accents were dreadful! The main character's Southern accent was bad and then there was an equally horrible attempt at a Jamaican accent. Whew! I can't tell you if the story was good or bad because the accents were distracting. 

Nicola Yoon's had a Jamaican lead who I believe was related to the Jamaican character from Angie's story and this was another case of bad accent. There was no Jamaican voice actress available? This story was cute enough and I liked how heavy the cultural aspects were and how Grace was adjusting to her life in America. 

While this anthology boasted big names in the industry I don't feel like romance is everyone's lane here. And I don't think all the authors were suited for the short story format. Anthologies are very hit and miss and I usually go in expecting to like about half of them. I think romance anthologies are even harder because you have a short amount of space to sell a love story. The chemistry just wasn't there with most of the couples for me to connect. And in a collection boasting about it's love stories that chemistry is everything. The stories weren't very memorable either. Mostly this collection thrives off being from big name authors. There were no stories in this to really keep you running back for more.