Book Review: Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell
Published: November 8th 2022 by Pan Macmillan
Rating: ★★★★½ (4.5)
Genre: Young Adult // Contemporary, Romance
Quick Thoughts: Homely, bright and oh-so-nice. This anthology was pure magic at work.
About The Book:
Rainbow Rowell has won fans all over the world by writing about love and life in a way that feels true. In her first short story collection Scattered Showers, she gives us nine beautifully crafted love stories.
Girl meets boy camping outside a movie theater. Best friends debate the merits of high school dances. A prince romances a troll. A girl romances an imaginary boy. And Simon Snow himself returns for a holiday adventure.
It’s a feast of irresistible characters, hilarious dialogue, and masterful storytelling, in short, everything you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell book.
First Thoughts
It seems as though most of us in the bookish world will have either heard of Rainbow Rowell or read one of her books at some point. She was one of the first “popular” authors I grew up in the YA community knowing of and I remember absolutely devouring Fangirl. So it seemed like a no-brainer that, given the chance, I would reawaken that old spark in me that was fond of her books with this new gem.
My Review
The first thing I felt when I started reading Scattered Showers was happy—I could literally feel myself smiling as I remembered just how comforting and inviting Rainbow Rowell’s writing is. We first meet Mags and Noel in Midnights, which was one of my absolute favourites in this anthology. It takes place at New Years, hence, the midnight aspect. Even though the story was, of course, short, I absolutely adored the friends-to-lovers trope that came into play. Then, in Kindred Spirits, we meet Elena, Gabe and Troy, who are waiting in line to see a Star Wars movie. This was such a cute story and seeing other people passionate about something, being genuine fans of it, is always so heart-warming—this was also one of my favourites! (And of course, I totally shipped Elena and Gabe. Grumpy x Sunshine for sure.)
Not long after, we delve into my favourite in the entire collection called Winter Songs for Summer, where we meet Summer and Benji. Summer’s going through a break-up and Benji is her downstairs neighbour who makes her mixtapes to cope. This made me swooooon. I adored it. In The Snow Ball, Libby and Owen are the best friends that had me wondering will-they-or-won’t-they. And in If The Fates Allow, we meet Reagan (from Fangirl) who is visiting her grandpa for Christmas after the Covid pandemic shut everyone apart, and her steel-heart warms for neighbour, Mason. I definitely loved this story. The Prince and the Troll and Mixed Messages weren’t favourites for me, but were good reads, and of course, Snow For Christmas revisits iconic Simon Snow (I haven’t read Simon’s initial story, but the little story was sweet.) In Waiting came as a bit of a hallucination, with characters Anna and James as characters-to-be that had been written, by an author (I think) but not made it to their full story yet. It was a bizarre one, but really interesting.
Overall, Scattered Showers was homely, bright and oh-so-nice. I felt at ease reading each and every story, the characters truly feeling like I already knew them (and I guess, some of them I did.) As someone that hadn’t read anything by Rainbow Rowell in years, it was like having a coffee with an old friend you haven’t seen since school—all the warm memories are there, like picking back up after too long apart. This anthology was pure magic at work. Brb, on my way to re-read Fangirl!
About The Author
Rainbow Rowell writes all kinds of stuff.
Sometimes she writes about adults (ATTACHMENTS, LANDLINE).
Sometimes she writes about teenagers (ELEANOR & PARK, FANGIRL) .
Sometimes — actually, a lot of the time — she writes about lovesick vampires and guys with dragon wings. (THE SIMON SNOW TRILOGY).
Recently, she’s been writing comics, including her first graphic novel, PUMPKINHEADS, and the monthly SHE-HULK comic for Marvel.
She lives in Omaha, Nebraska.
More at rainbowrowell.com.
Have you read Scattered Showers?
If you haven’t, don’t forget to add it to your TBR!
Let me know in the comments or on twitter @LittleMemoirs!
happy reading!
