Girl Meets Boy: Because There Are Two Sides To Every Story edited by Kelly Milner Halls is a YA anthology centered around the theme of relationships. The authors featured in the anthology paired up and each took on one side of a relationship. There are six different relationships in the anthology.
Girl Meets Boy
The biggest strength of Girl Meets Boy is the diversity of the relationships. The first pair of short stories written by Chris Crutcher and Kelly Milner Halls details a toxic relationship between a pretty boy and a dangerous girl. This was my least favorite set. Luckily Joseph Bruchac and Cynthia Leititch Smith team up to trite about two kids on a Native American Reservation who find unlikely love in each other. James How and Ellen Wittlinger write about teens meeting off line for the first time. Rita Williams Garcia and Terry Truman take on an interracial couple. Terry Davis and Rebecca Fjelland Davis write about love in small town America. Finally, rounding out the anthology, Sara Ryan and Randy Powell write about a transgender teen seeing an old friend again. So as you can see, lots of different types of relationship scenarios play out.
Unfortunately, as with any anthology, not all of the short stories included were mind-blowing. For example, the first set of stories by Chris Crutcher and Kelly Milner Halls feature such unlikable characters. Maybe people will resonate with those damaged characters, but I couldn’t wait to get to the next story with a healthy relationship. Probably the best set of stories was the pair by Terry Davis and Rebecca Fjelland Davis which managed to pack multiple issues, strong voicing, and romance in a short span of pages without being TOO MUCH.
If anything, Girl Meets Boy edited by Kelly Milner Halls is a strong sampler of some of the more notable and acclaimed voices in YA literature today, so it’s a good starting point for checking those authors out. Also,  Girl Meets Boy certainly has a wide variety of stories. None of the pairs felt the same to me and it just goes to show that there are all kinds of relationships that teens get into.
Disclosure: Received for review via Amazon Vine.
Other Reviews of Girl Meets Boy: Because There Are Two Sides To Every Story edited by Kelly Milner Halls:
The Book Cellar
The Story Siren
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I’ll have to check this one out; there are a lot of good authors who have contributed.
Yeah they definitely picked out a bunch of quality writers.
That’s my one peeve about about anthologies: not all of them are always wonderful! You can never end up liking every single one, and that kind of diminishes the stellar quality of the rest of the book, remembering those earlier less interesting ones. Still, I’m happy you liked some of them!
— Asher
YES! That’s pretty much exactly my feeling about this anthology. I wanted to love every story but unfortunately that didn’t happen and the story I didn’t like kind of tainted my impression of the rest of the book.
I’ve been wanting to read this one. I love the idea behind it. After reading your thoughts I’m even more excited.
On a sidenote…. that cover. I find the pose so incredibly awkward! There is no way those teens are comfortable!
The pose is bizarre and if I was one of those teens, I’d be scared of falling off the branch or breaking it.
I’m really wary of short story anthologies because so many seem to think short story = the beginning of a larger story, and that’s not quite it. That said, this sounds like an interesting idea, and I might have to take it out just because of the two sides idea.
Yes! One of the stories does feel like it could be the beginning of a larger story rather than one whole self contained story unfortunately.
I wasn’t sure about this one…tempted but I’m not usually a fan of anthologies. I just don’t get the satisfaction from short stories as I do from diving into the deep end with a novel (I’m the same way when I’m writing!). I can totally see my students falling for this book, though, so I’ll probably check it out.
That makes sense. And maybe your students would like the anthology because they don’t have to invest a whole lot in it, ya know?
Hmm, it sounds like a lot of things were going on in this book. I’m new to reading short-story collections, but this seems like a LOT. I don’t think I originally noted that it was an anthology.
Yes. There’s a ton of things that are going on in Girl Meets Boy, like it’s not bad, but there’s different types of relationships, not all romantic.
I never thougth I would like short story anthologies.. but then Zombies Vs Unicorns came along. I loved that book, I love some stories more than others. One thing I loved most was reading little snippits from Authors I had heard about but never sampled before.
I dont recognize any of these Authors though. Maybe its’ because I’m semi new to the contemporary-ish genre. That could be a good thing for me though, so I can get a feel for some different writers.
I think I will be like you though. I will want to move on to the healthy relationships. I dont have much patience for people being stuck in distructive relationships.
I agree with Heidi, those models can’t be comfy like that. He looks like he’s giving birth to her. (right now, I’m picturing her falling down and bouncing from her bungie/umbilical cord. I imagine her holding wind catchers and yelling WEEE! WEEEE! like that little pig on the commercials.)
I do realize I have issues.
Oh you crack me up. All the time.
Zombies Vs. Unicorns is good! I’m probably 1/4 through it and really enjoy it.
Couldn’t agree with you more here.
Thank you! I like being agreed with hahaha.
I feel like this is always the potential problem with anthologies, the mixed-bag results. Bummer that this set was a little disappointing! It’s nice, though, that the relationships run the gamut and add some nice variety.
YES. Mixed bag results is a great phrase to use when describing Girl Meets Boy.
Wow, I had no idea this was an anthology! I almost feel stupid, but not really because that’s what I have the blogging community for, to alert me of these things. Thanks for letting me know!
This is like…the third review I’ve read where it’s been noted that the first story wasn’t great. What on earth. Why would you open up an anthology with a weak story?
This was definitely a pretty average read to me, but there were a few stories I really liked. The online meet-up one was really good, especially from the point of view of the girl and the last one really surprised me, but in a good way. Great review :]