Alana Joli AbbottBesprekingen

Supporting indie publishing on Kickstarter is a good thing, right? This anthology sounded like a cool project to support. So I did. And then I started reading – almost six months ago now. The majority of the stories were mediocre at best, imo – there were the “so what?”, stories, there was uninspired writing, there were fragments instead of stories, there were the “you think you’re funny, but you are not” stories…

I ended up using the book as a palate cleanser when I couldn’t decide what to read next.

There was just one memorable story:

“Meteorites” by Anjali Patel – a retelling of Ray Bradbury’s “Kaleidoscope”. It was wise and heartbreaking, delightfully written. Why couldn’t the rest of the book be the same?

Well, at least I am done now.

*I received an advance review copy for free and am leaving this review voluntarily.*

Oh boy did I enjoy this book! Are you tired of teenage heroines? Why do the underage protagonists get to have all the fun? Do you like the chosen one trope but are tired of all the same old stories getting played out? Then, this book is for you. As a woman who most people think is past her prime it's nice to read a story with a protagonist that I could relate to that isn't a second chance romance. Don't get me wrong I love them but women past the age of 30 are able to do amazing things.

In most anthologies, there is always a couple of stories that miss their mark but in Never too Old to Save the World I enjoyed every single one. There were times I wished that a particular story would have kept going or that I hope would turn into a series, but that's one of the downfalls of reading short story anthologies. Each writer was able to put their own unique twist on the chosen one trope and no two stories felt the same, it was a breath of fresh air each time. I was so sad when I got to the last story because that meant that the book was going to end. Here's me holding out hope for a second anthology soon.

Overall, I absolutely enjoyed this book.

An interesting collection of fantastical short stories. The introduction suggests that they will not have happy endings, but this isn't entirely true. The ones that don't are the most interesting however, to my eye at least. And the story narrated by the cate takes the cake. well worth the read.½

This is a great anthology, with pieces by the two editors and several other authors—notably Jim C. Hines and Ursula Vernon. My favorites among the lot were "Launch Day Milkshakes" (Jim Hines), "Jackalope Wives" (Ursula Vernon), "as well as "Ayda and the Messengers" (Jaymie Wagner), "By the Works of Her Hands" (LaShawn M. Wanak), and "All the World's Treasures" (Kimberly Pauley). I really appreciated the older MCs in this volume, and the racial and LGBTQ+ inclusion as well. Highly recommended!

As it is the way with anthologies or collections of short stories from different authors, some are a hit and some not.
I felt I was liking the stories more as I progressed. My favorite one was On the Far Side of the Apocalypse by Peter Rawlik, I think I will be checking out what he does next. Some of the stories felt as if they ended in the middle of the premise; however, some other good ones were waiting and I am glad I read them all.

I normally tend to be fairly resistant to anthologies. (I tend to feel like I need to read every story in full for it to "count," yet the variety of authors means often one story or another doesn't work of me.) But I was sold on this almost entirely due to Carlos Hernandez's involvement. And I did not live to regret it.

Hernandez's story -- "Your Two Better Halves: A Dream, with Fairies, in Spanglish" was my favorite, as expected. The story is a choose-your-own adventure encounter with fey, with a personality quiz aspect as your story choices determine your options for the two halves of your fairy self at the end. I was so charmed by EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS. (I was half sturdy tree, half planetarium, by the way.)

That story would have been worth the price of admission alone, but I also loved "See a Fine Lady" by Seanan McGuire (a woman rides a unicorn into Target), "Or Perhaps Up" by C.S.E. Cooney (a woman takes an ill-fated river journey on a swan boat), among others. In general the collected tended to be a bit darker than my usual preferences, but I found enough delights here to be very happy with the book overall.

Like most anthologies, this has a lot of highs and lows and in-betweens. Unfortunately, I felt like there were more lows than anything while reading this, and even the highs were more like just okay stories that I found entertaining. Overall, my biggest grievance is that the overall reading level of the stories felt like YA or younger, despite the content being very adult. If this was a YA collection that would be perfect, but NetGalley has this categorized as adult. (I double-checked halfway through reading it because I genuinely couldn't remember.)

My rating is based on an average of all the story ratings, rounded to the nearest integer.

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Individual story ratings:

Quest for Tear Heaven - 2 Stars
This one just sort of seemed like it was written for young kids.

Glamour - 2 stars
I didn't care for the plot or the characters. The dialogue also wasn't that well-written, in my honest opinion.

See a Fine Lady - 3 stars
This was cute and whimsical. It was a pleasant enough read, but nothing really special about it.

Or Perhaps Up - 1 star
I honestly felt like the writing in this story was trying too hard to sound descriptive, including what I suspect was the misuse of a thesaurus. Did not end up even finishing the story as I didn't care for it.

Don't Let Go - 3 stars
This was engaging and fun to read, but nothing particularly blew me away about it.

The Loophole - 4 stars
A pretty solid story overall, but the romance aspect seemed a little contrived.

The Last Time of Master Tranquil Cloud - 2 stars
Took too long to kick off, I think a lot of the exposition could have been cut. I ended up skipping the story because I was bored in a few pages.

Your Two Better Halves - Not Rated
I decided to skip rating this one. It's a choose-your-own-adventure, which sounds fun in theory, but in practice is a pain in the fucking ass to try to read on a kindle. I don't want to rate the story poorly because of that, but I wasn't really able to engage with it in the way intended so I ended up skipping the story completely.

Take Only Photos - 2 stars
The writing felt like geared toward a YA audience, despite the main character being a full-on adult. That just didn't work for me.

Old Twelvey Night - 4 stars
Very well-written, entertaining, the perfect amount of whimsical. I really enjoyed this one.

The Seal Woman's Tale - 4 stars
The best story of the bunch. I thought this was really well-written, engaging, and the character work was just right for the length. Maybe more like 4.5 stars, but I only rate in whole numbers.

The Storyteller - 3 Stars
I'm not mad at this one, but it also didn't do anything for me.

Summer Skin - 3 Stars
I don't know how to feel about this one. The writing was decent, though, so I guess 3 stars is fair.

Colt's Tooth - 2 stars
Not a very strong ending to the anthology. I feel pretty shrug emoji about this.

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An e-ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for honest review.