Up All Night

Up All Night is a collection of late-night YA adventures, edited by Laura Silverman, with short stories by Brandy Colbert, Kathleen Glasgow, Maurene Goo, Tiffany D. Jackson, Amanda Joy, Nina LaCour, Karen M. McManus, Anna Meriano, Marieke Nijkamp, Kayla Whaley, Julian Winters and Francesca Zappia.

Even though (almost) all the stories are great, Up All Night is hard to read in one sitting. There are just too many coming-of-age epiphanies in one small book.  The pattern of meeting a new cast of teenage characters at a dramatic late-night turning point makes it emotionally exhausting to read this all at ones. This is a collection where you read a story — or maybe two — and then do something else for a bit.

I was already a fan of Maurene Goo and Karen M. McManus, so I was delighted to see their stories in this collection. McManus’ story, Never Have I Ever, has her signature Brat Pack-movie feel with a huge twist at the end. I wasn’t familiar with Tiffany D. Jackson before this book, but her story Shark Bait is a standout in this collection. Race, class, and believable characters facing spoken and unspoken social expectations.  I also liked the wide representation in this book in general. The teen friendgroups in the book didn’t look like teen movies used to, but it felt realistic and honest, not forced.

Up All Night really captured a variety of intense, dramatic teenage moments in this collection.