You can quickly get a taste of writers’ styles in an anthology and then dive into their longer works if interested.

Anthologies are especially great suggestions for readers looking for new favorite authors. You’ll also see character development, setting, and all the other aspects of a complete story.

Short stories are much more manageable in terms of time and you’ll still find a complete story with beginning, middle, and end. Short stories are also a great route for readers who don’t have a lot of stamina, meaning they can’t sit down and read for a long period of time or don’t often finish books. Anthologies, as I mentioned, are written by a number of different authors, while you’ll typically find short story collections written by one author. Anthologies compared to short story collections is not too different, except for one major factor. The often are based on some kind of theme, whether that’s very specific or vast is up to the editor and authors. But, first let me back up a bit and explain what I mean.Īn anthology is a collection of short stories written by different authors all published together in the same book. An author's note about gender identity (that names some resources but lacks direct links) is appended.I’m really excited to share this book list with you today! I think anthologies are a great way to introduce readers to A LOT of writers in a very non-threatening way. The book also helpfully gives Ana some room to breathe and think over her gender identity rather than requiring certainty out of the gate, and readers will be glad to see her nearest and dearest treat her coming out with love and kindness. Sass, himself a figure skater, fills the book with knowledgeable detail about skating, and the fact that it's an intensely gender performative sport (there's even passing reference to a routine wherein Ana's gay coach seemed credibly in love with his female partner) makes Ana's issues especially immediate. Hayden's comments about gender and pronouns lead Ana to explore her own identity and determine that she's nonbinary-but how can she tell Hayden she's not who he thinks, and what does being nonbinary mean for her skating? Ana (who opts to use she/her pronouns even after coming out) is a sympathetic narrator, and the book treats her errors fairly as she drifts from her best friend and essentially uses Hayden, with appropriate hurt and pushback from both. When she hears that Hayden, a new student at her rink, is a trans boy she's drawn to him and ends up in a friendship with him wherein she passes for a boy. 4-7Īt twelve, Ana is the reigning junior figure skate champion, but moving up to the next age level is proving difficult she especially dislikes her new choreography, which is uncomfortably girly for very not-girly Ana.

Aj sass