Like many students on New Year’s, the characters in the anthology Up All Night, edited by Laura Silverman, are united by one common theme: their stories happen from sundown to sunup. The 13 short stories cover a variety of genres and themes but reading one after the other can be a bit of an emotional rollercoaster.
Within the 392 page collection, readers are able to experience stories of love, mystery, of newly beginning friendships, others that are beginning to fracture, and ghost stories, all within one book. Although the genres and the stories being so different can create a feeling of disorientation, the authors’ writing styles, while distinct, make the transition from each story smoother.
Not all of the stories were complete, as a few left readers on a cliffhanger to haunt them, no resolution to come. The cover could be described as deceptively seeming to hold light-hearted contents, as well. However, several of the stories are heavier. Not only can the stories get suspenseful (especially in the horror short story Missing by Kathleen Glasgow), but some stories such as Con Nights, Parallel Hearts, Shark Bait, and What About Your Friends (by Marieke Nijkamp, Tiffany D. Jackson, and Brandy Colbert, respectively) touch on more serious topics like abuse or racism.
Diversity could be considered a theme in this book: it has diverse genres, topics, and stories—but the stories feature diverse characters as well and many are rich in representation of several minority groups. One of the stories also includes the use of food metaphors to describe characters’ physical traits which has been a point of contention for some readers, and may be something to keep in mind.
No matter what readers might be craving, it’s possible that Up All Night has something worth staying up all night for. While the short length sometimes made for a rushed story, especially when cliffhangers came right at the end of the book, each of the 13 stories bring something new, coming together to create a creative anthology with touching themes and characters.
![Students in Dance 1 are going around the world in less than 80 days as they start their world dance project. “We have designed a world dance project that allows our students to work together and investigate how the dance has impacted our society [and] the history of dance,” dance teacher Nicole Nothe said.](https://libertywingspan.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/World-Dance-Pic-1200x800.png)
