Week 6: Analytical

Meet Cute by Jennifer L. Armentrout, Dhonielle Clayton, Katie Cotugno, Katharine McGee, Kass Morgan, Meredith Russo, Sara Shepard, Nicola Yoon, Ibi Zoboi, Julie Murphy, Jocelyn Davies, Nina LaCour, Emery Lord.

95-106

Meet Cute is a collection of short stories about people meeting each other. Each story is written by different authors who all have different styles. The point of views, tenses, and topics all vary in each story.

The first story, Siege Etiquette is written by Katie Cotugno. Cutugno's style is different from most writers. The story is written in second person using "you" instead of the more normal "I". Cutugno does this to make the story more realistic and a relatable. The story is also in the present tense to make it seem like everything is happening right at the moment. The short story takes place during a party. Everyone is hiding from the police and the main character, Hailey goes to hide in the bathroom. She ends up getting stuck in the bathroom with a classmate she never actually spoke to. She says how everyone treats her differently because of something that happened but also mentions how he doesn't treat her like everyone else does. By the end of the story, the reader learns how Hailey's parents died the previous year due to two of her classmates drunk driving. Cutugno uses point of view, present tense, and suspense to keep the story interesting.

The second story, Print Shop, is written by Nina LaCour. Lacour uses a more normal approach to writing by writing in the first-person point of view. She also writes the story in past tense to make it seem like it already happened. One interesting aspect of the writing style is how LaCour has Evelyn's love interest be referred to as "you". She may invoke more emotion in the readers because of this. The short story is about a teenage girl named Evelyn. Evelyn works at an old-fashioned print shop where she takes calls and assists customers. Her boss has her handle a customer complaint over the phone where she meets Lauren. By the end of the short story Lauren and Evelyn meet and seem to like each other. The story ends on a positive note and really wrapped it up nicely.

The third story, Hourglass, is written by Ibi Zoboi. Zoboi writes in the first person in the present tense. The story is about a girl named Cherish. The main focus of the short story was her friendship with her best friend Stacy. Stacy betrays Cherish and she loses that friendship. The story only turns into a romance on the last page. Cherish decides last minute that she wanted to go to prom and she meets her love interest in the dress shop. The story ends kind of abruptly and it lacked the romantic feel. Zoboi took the story in a different direction than the other short stories in the collection and that's what made it stand out.