Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell - Review

I bought this book in the children's and YA book shop in Retford that I visited over Easter with my friends. We each had a gift voucher to spend so all bought books, which is always a joy. I got this and two others. I picked it up in early July which was actually a really stupid time to pick it up, because a lot of the stories are Christmas themed or winter themed, so it would have been cute to read it in December. But never mind, I enjoyed it anyway!

There are nine stories in the book, but the first two are Midnights (which I've read) and Kindred Spirits (which I've read twice) and which I reviewed in one volume here back in January. So I didn't bother reading those two again. I went straight in with story number 3, which was SO good, I loved it. It's called Winter Songs for Summer and it's about a girl at college who breaks up with a boy and plays Tori Amos over and over again, and the guy who lives below her, Benji, makes her a mix CD so that he doesn't have to listen to Tori Amos anymore. The two of them become close. Rainbow describes Benji as a 'different type of love interest' to what she usually writes I guess, and I agree. I loved him. 

She says The Snow Ball was a prototype for Slow Dance, which I read and reviewed here, and I can see where she's coming from. I liked it. The next story, If The Fates Allow, features Reagan, who was apparently in Fangirl, which I read and LOVED before I started this blog. I don't remember Reagan but I really liked the story, especially as it uses Covid and the pandemic lockdowns as a backdrop. The Prince and the Troll was perhaps my least favourite of the stories, mostly because it's a fairytale and I am not that keen on that. 

Mixed Messages was really good, focussing as it does on older women - like I myself am getting towards - so I liked that a lot. Snow for Christmas is about Simon and Baz from the Carry On trilogy, which I didn't love, but I did really like this story because it was cute and Christmassy.

The last story, In Waiting, is very meta, I loved it. It's about a character waiting in the wings, with her whole life and world set out. She lives in a world where characters wait - some only for a day or two and some for literally years. I really liked this, especially as a writer myself. I know what it's like to have some characters hanging around for a long time!

In all I'm giving this book four out of five. I really liked it and liked being immersed into Rainbow's worlds again.