Genre: YA

Whether or not you believe in fate, or luck, or love at first sight, every romance has to start somewhere. MEET CUTE is an anthology of original short stories featuring tales of "how they first met" from some of today’s most popular YA authors.

Readers will experience Nina LaCour's beautifully written piece about two Bay Area girls meeting via a cranky customer service Tweet, Sara Shepard's glossy tale about a magazine intern and a young rock star, Nicola Yoon's imaginative take on break-ups and make-ups, Katie Cotugno's story of two teens hiding out from the police at a house party, and Huntley Fitzpatrick's charming love story that begins over iced teas at a diner. There’s futuristic flirting from Kass Morgan and Katharine McGee, a riveting transgender heroine from Meredith Russo, a subway missed connection moment from Jocelyn Davies, and a girl determined to get out of her small town from Ibi Zoboi. Jennifer Armentrout writes a sweet story about finding love from a missing library book, Emery Lord has a heartwarming and funny tale of two girls stuck in an airport, Dhonielle Clayton takes a thoughtful, speculate approach to pre-destined love, and Julie Murphy dreams up a fun twist on reality dating show contestants.

This incredibly talented group of authors brings us a collection of stories that are at turns romantic and witty, epic and everyday, heartbreaking and real.

Meet Cute is an adorable anthology of stories I felt were personally written for me. I didn’t actually know the book was coming out until like mid-way through last year. That in itself isn’t entirely odd in of itself but like for a book that just screams RASHIKA, clearly, I should have known about it. Shout out to my friend Holly who saw the book at ALA in June and thought of me even when I didn’t know Meet Cute was a book I needed.

I digress though. I don’t really want to review this anthology. I can wholeheartedly say it was worth the read and that I didn’t dislike any of the stories. There were maybe 2-3 that didn’t do much for me but even then, I did not dislike the stories. This is an anthology packed with stories written by amazing authors and for that reason alone, it should be worth the buy/read.

What I DO want to do is share one of ~my~ many meet cute stories. Also just as an FYI, I personally don’t feel a meet cute has to be romantic or even has to go anywhere? There is just a certain thrill to meeting new people in fun ways and that is where I stand.

ANYWAY.

So.

Winter Break 2014

I was fresh out of my first term in college but unable to go home for the winter break for a multitude of reasons. Instead I spend that winter hopping between the homes of friends and living out of a suitcase for 5 weeks.

After having spent 2 weeks in the homes of two different friends, I was on my way to my final destination for my winter adventures. New York City. The Big Apple. What have you. It was going to be my first time in the city that never sleeps and I wasn’t even an adult yet. I was going to be taking the 20 hour train from Chicago to New York all by myself but first, I had a 5 hour layover and not much to do during those 5 hours.

If you’ve spend some time traveling, you will know that train stations are nothing like airports. Layovers are not nearly as interesting at train stations even in bigger cities. Food places start shutting down around 8:00 PM and there just isn’t much to do. No free wifi, no charging ports no nothing. Just you and your thoughts as you wait for boarding to begin. Trains, unlike airplanes, also don’t serve you meals which really sucks when you’re going to be on one for 20 hours. I decided I might as well feed myself before I boarded and get some snacks for the train ride. I found myself craving fries and the train station I was at just happened to have a McDonalds where I could grab some fries.

I am not sure how it happened but somehow, while I was waiting for my fries, I found myself talking to a complete stranger whose phone had just died. Maybe he approached me first or maybe I just saw he was panicking and decided to reach out to him since I had a portable charger. I knew traveling could be stressful and wouldn’t wish a dead phone and no way to contact your family when over 2000 miles away from home on anyway. We found ourselves walking back down to the lounge together and found out we were going to be taking the same train to the same destination.

I’ve now long forgotten the name of this once-friend but somewhere out there is a now-stranger who I shared a long train ride and many stories with. Who knew you could meet people at a McDonalds?

How do you define a meet cute? Have you had any meet cutes? 😉