Reviews

A Universe of Wishes by Dhonielle Clayton

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bbroiles's review against another edition

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5.0

Every story was written so tight and full of magic and emotion and feeling. Every story was like a punch to the gut.

lesserjoke's review against another edition

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3.0

I love how works like this aim to spotlight authors and characters of under-represented backgrounds in literature, but for me as a reader, the YA sci-fi and fantasy stories in this collection are generally more good than great. As refreshing as it is to see so many protagonists who are queer and/or POC taking center-stage, largely from #ownvoices writers of the same identities, I don't know that this ends up being the finest showcase for them overall.

It's less uneven than most genre anthologies, at least! In fact, there's just one real dud among the lot, which is also the lone entry that seems to star a straight white cis person: The Scarlet Woman by Libba Bray. I understand that the Gemma Doyle trilogy does have some diversity in it -- I only ever read the first novel, and that was a while ago -- but there's little on display in this odd tie-in tale, and I'm frankly quite flummoxed as to its inclusion here.

On the brighter end of the scale, I'd highlight Tochi Onyebuchi's Habibi, a magical realist piece about two prisoners in solitary confinement on opposite sides of the world who discover they can somehow pass messages back and forth, Anna-Marie McLemore's Cristal y Ceniza, a Cinderella retelling with a Latina heroine and a transgender prince, and Zoraida Córdova's Longer Than the Threads of Time, a dark romance (and loose Rapunzel riff) featuring an all-new cast within the bounds of her existing Brooklyn Brujas series. These titles wholly live up to the promise of the book, but there's a bit too much of the solid-yet-unremarkable packed in around them.

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sarahdeutsch's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

questingllama's review

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mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

estanceveyrac's review against another edition

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5.0

All of it was very good. I guess I would say that I'm a bit too familiar with almost all the authors in this anthology & I hope WNDB will keep using the visibility the organisation has gained to release anthologies with unpublished or underpublished writers as they did with previous anthologies.

That being said, it was a very very good anthology, almost all the stories were excellent.
Tochi Onyebuchi's story was very moving. I was reading it at the laundrymat & then it sat with me while I came home to fold my laundry & as I came accross an old T shirt from the 2014 protests for Gaza, I had the same internal debate I've had for a while about the state of that T shirt & whether or not it can still be worn but I fold it with the others, because it's not just a T shirt or at least the only T shirt I know can get people arrested just because they are wearing it.
I don't want to end a book review on talking about my laundry, but I can't think what else to say.

emilyyjjean's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional medium-paced

3.0

A good collection of fantasy stories written by diverse authors. Most of my favorites I read super fast, and I really wish they wouldn't have been short stories. I really connected with the characters and the plot, and I felt like I could read a whole novel!

My favorites (in no particular order)