Such a dearth of short stories exists in the YA genre that I was tickled to see that Megan McCafferty put together a collection of short stories from the likes of Sarah Dessen, Jacqueline Woodsen, David Leviathan, and others.

And some of the stories are quite strong. Dessen opens the collection with the story "Infinity," putting forth perhaps the best writing I've seen from her yet. Jacqueline Woodsen's "Nebraska 99" stands out as the strongest voice and perhaps strongest story of all, portraying the life of four teenage girls who still hope and dream of a promising future although they're mothers. David Leviathan and McCafferty herself also deliver in this collection. Steve Almond, unknown to me until now, also presents a solid story--"The Day I Turned Chickenhearted"--that will propel me to seek more of his writing in the future.

Others fell short of the bar. Carolyn Mackler, Ned Vezzini and Sarah Mlynowski show promise in their stories, albeit they feel a little heavy-handed at times, as if they're catering to the stereotypically dense teen reader. Vezzini's is creative--a boy earns an undesired trip to a brothel for his sixteenth birthday--yet feels ungrounded in the beginning.

As a whole, the collection isn't consistently strong. Pick and choose the stories carefully.