Mood Reader: A Genre Sampler Anthology

A wonderful anthology that I will remember for a long time and return to.

I love that these authors all came together, initially, as expressive video creators on TikTok. Their words and ideas are thought provoking, warm, creepy, weird, exciting, suspenseful, sad, loving, inspiring, and more. I wish some of these stories were longer... I've got a whole bunch of new names to look for in book stores in the future.

I enjoyed this book as an opportunity to expand my typical genres in short stories. Committing to a 300 page book in a genre you don't typically read can be daunting, but thus provides a way to try something new in about 10 pages per story.

This was such a great read. So often, short story anthologies are centered around one main theme, but Jayne and the other authors wrote what they love for this one and then sorted them by genre, creating a true mood reader’s dream book.There were so many great pieces in this book, and it would be such a fantastic read to have when you are just in the mood for a particular type of story—several of these pieces are even written in verse although there is not a poetry section! I don’t want to spend too much time describing the book itself because conceptually, it’s pretty straight forward, but I will say, I was hooked by this one from Jayne’s introduction where she describes how Mood Reader came to be, so rather than highlighting one section or author over another, I wanted to share a bit of that instead:“Amidst the 2nd year of a global panini… I turned 42. Yes! That cosmic age where all the secrets of the Universe are revealed. I got this wild idea of producing an anthology of 42 stories, see what I did there? But the catch was I’d only accept works from my tiktok author family. Because, I had found my book family and they were amazing! I was off and running. I posted about my idea and started accepting submissions. Then someone pointed out that it might be hard to market a book with no clear genre linking us all together. Well, much how we fight the algorithm and don’t let TikTok niche us, I said, Universally speaking, you can’t pigeon hole me! So I leaned into it and our Genre Sampler Anthology fell into place as if we had planned it that way all along. Of course we had ;)”Isn’t that insanely relatable? I am grateful for my bookstagram family every single day. I love how this book came to be, and I really enjoyed the sampling of so many writers—I definitely recommend this one!

I really enjoyed this genre anthology. Of course I liked some stories more than others but that's to be expected. This anthology has something for everyone. There are 42 stories in this anthology. It is broken up by genre. The genres included are  Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Mystery , Meta (which I've never heard of before), Family & Children, Literary Fiction, Horror and my favorite Romance. So as you can see there's a lot to choose from. You can read it as a whole or you can pick and choose based on what mood you are in. I liked how the content warnings were listed in the table of contents as well as at the beginning of each story. As I mentioned above, I liked some stories more than other. Some were way too short for me to get into, and some seemed way to long. Others pulled me in and left me wanting more and there were some that I absolutely loved and thought gave me everything I could ask for in a short story. There were a couple of stories that were written in a way that I had never read before and I loved that.Overall I really enjoyed this collection of short stories and would recommend you read it whether you are a mood reader or if you just want to sample something from several different genres.

Mood Reader is a very unique anthology. I love how each story had a different theme. And for the mood reader, this collection lives up to its name! It actually helped me out of a slump when I started reading the collection.With 42 stories, there is bound to be something for everyone. I liked some stories more than others, but overall, the collection was fantastic. There are too many great stories to highlight a few over the others, so this review is about the anthology as a whole.You’ll find all sorts of genres here– romance, scifi, mystery, etc. This collection gives you the opportunity to read a story or two when you’re in the mood for something specific. I didn’t think I was a mood reader, but I might be!I definitely recommend giving this anthology a shot.Thank you to R&R Book Tours for the free review copy. All opinions are my own and unbiased.

I've never seen such a wide range of genres in one collection of short stories, and I loved it. This was a great opportunity to explore new authors, and I really enjoyed the variety not just in the moods encompassed, but each one has a unique writing style. If you're not sure what you're in the mood to read, grab this book and open to a story and explore a little, you won't regret it!

I loved all these stories and I think it’s so amazing that the authors all met through tiktok and wanted to write this book together! I thought all the stories were very well written and reading this book had me trying other genres that I don’t normally read and loving it! I also found a lot of new authors I really like! Check this book out! I highly recommend 10/10!