Objectively, this is a fantastic collection and will do wonders for most readers, especially fans of YA contemporary. I gave Fresh Ink a 3.5 of 5 stars on Goodreads. Make me a collection like this, only with fantasy and sci-fi stories, and I’ll be skipping through the streets. While I appreciate and recognize the importance of every single one of these perspectives, I think I found some of these harder to stay focused on simply because I’m not huge on contemporaries. The majority of these were amazing reads, but a few did fall short for me. We definitely need more books like this.Īs far as my own enjoyment of the stories goes, I’m a bit mixed. It gave a platform to voices that are typically overshadowed by straight, white, cisgender protagonists that we have more than enough of. Every story made an impact, and in that sense, this book achieved what it set out to. Fresh Ink takes on police brutality, gentrification, diversity in cosplay, coming out, immigration…and so, so much more. One shots are a start, but we can’t end it here. The stories themselves tackled a number of topics that, in truth, are deserving of entire novels. We need realistic representation for all people. This book makes strides on that count, and I hope it impacts creators to broaden their casts of characters. Giles writes in the beginning about the importance of young readers being able to identify themselves in stories, and in the modern era, it’s hard to deny the importance of representation in media. I’ll start by saying that I’m so glad this book exists, as it’s an incredibly important one.

It’s a bit hard to review a collection of so many pieces, but I’ll try my best to do this anthology justice.

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