The book Blackout contains interconnected stories by authors Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, and Nicola Yoon. It’s about a series of Black young adults who find themselves in various parts of New York City during a blackout, and its theme is love and finding/being true to oneself.

The stories are all young adult centered, so it’s a good read for high school. In fact, I was supposed to read this book back in January, but things got away from me. I was given this book with a bookshelf that someone was giving away. When I heard the high school I work at was reading the book as part of a book club, I wanted to read it, but–yearbook deadlines and other things got in the way. With more time in the summer, I was able to devour this fast read.

I would rate the stories as PG-13. They are all centered on love (of all types and genders, with nothing explicit in any of them), and they are all sweet and end happily. The young people in the stories often notice or comment on the grandparents’ generation and how the stories of how grandparents met are told time and again, inspiring the current generation. What I enjoyed more than the love stories was the message that people should be true to who they are, and that’s when true love happens–when we stop pretending to be who we are not.

I don’t want to give away spoilers, but some examples of plot in the book – there are two characters competing for the same internship, there is a big party in Brooklyn that many characters are attempting to reach despite the widespread blackout, there is concern for the elderly in their group home during the blackout, there are concerns about how we change when we either go or don’t go to college. I enjoyed how the stories were interwoven so that it felt like they were all happening in the same time and place, but at the same time each one had its own voice and personality. I don’t have a favorite necessarily–they were all slices of life and highlighted the importance of individual stories, and they are geared toward the turbulent years of young adulthood, especially as high school is ending.