Love Hurts by Malorie Blackman

Title: Love Hurts

Author: Malorie Blackman
Publisher: Random House

Publication date: January 29, 2015
Pages: 576 
Rating: 3/5 stars 
Copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Malorie Blackman brings together the best teen writers of today in a stunningly romantic collection about love against the odds. Featuring short stories and extracts about modern star-crossed lovers from stars such as Gayle Forman, Markus Zusak and Patrick Ness, and with a brand-new story from Malorie Blackman herself, Love Hurts looks at every kind of relationship, from first kiss to final heartbreak.
 

Picking up this book, I anticipated it to be filled with stories about young love -- and it was. Love Hurts contains original stories, as well as stories taken from popular YA books, such as If I Stay and 13 Little Blue Envelopes. Authors in the book include Laurel Kate, David Levithan, and Markus Zusak. With these authors listed, I expected the book to have beautifully-written stories about love. And although they were, I felt like not all of the stories managed to capture the essence of young love. Some stories felt half-baked, and did not quite have the effect I wanted them to give. Also, extracting chapters from existing novels did not work for me. They were confusing, as the characters in them had already been established and developed, and as a first-time reader of them, I did not grasp the theme of the excerpts. 

However, Love Hurts gives readers a humorous glimpse into the painful truth of heartbreak and the heartwarming memory of young love. This collection of short stories accurately depicts the raw feelings we have experience, and will experience, while still allowing the fuzzy feeling to be the front-runner. Each writer shares his own take on love in his unique manner. The stories strike a delicate part of the heart, making sure they will be remembered.