<b>"Is love beauty?"
"Yes. But not always beautiful."
</b>
A collection of stories contemplating human existence, relationships, and the pain of loving and living and leaving divided into seasons.

Overall, sadly more misses than hits. I think this was too chaotic and melancholic for me. It felt like a brain vomit, but also sometimes a cathartic experience?

Notable mentions:

<u>SPRING</u>

<i>The Wish Bridge</i>
This is a story about the guardian of a bridge that appears with every full moon who is able to grant wishes.
This has the biggest case of miscommunication, unrequited or misplaced love, and murder as a backdrop to a persistent wanderer who can't make up his mind who wants the guardian to wish for herself.

<i>The Audit</i>
The Life Audit pilot program uses the latest AI technology to determine a person's capacity for accumulated lifetime wealth which is given as an up front as a loan before the age of 30 where the person must work to pay it back.

Blake satires the fear of growing older, the mislabelled freedom of youth, and the bonds between people.
Money doesn’t buy happiness.

<b>What do I want? I have all the money in the world. What do I want? What do I want? Time feels like it's slipping away from me. It's already been five days. I can't breathe.
</b>
<i>Sucker For Pain</i> - Not a huge fan - problematic.
Nora, an ordinary human, is adopted by an immortal cruel woman to be little more than maid, plaything and co-student for her son who is training as a witch.

This one made me uncomfortable. Not only is the nickname ‘kitty’ used, Nora is seen as a pet. This had a great urban paranormal setting, but the storyline left me feeling icky.
For a similar recommendation I adored - A Sorceress Comes to Call by T Kingfisher.

<u>SUMMER</u>

<i>The Animation Games</i>
With a boy like Bran Barza and a girl like Rhosyn Viteri, sparks were no doubt going to fly— but this is no tale of ordinary love. Rather, it is a twisted story of murder, revenge, and obsessive, toxic love.
Think the currently popular serial killer romance book ‘Butcher and Blackbird’, but with haunting reanimations.

<i>To Make A Man:</i>
A story about a being which seemingly isn’t human and the fighter who she confides will die in one year unless he changes.

<b>Repetition is the beast of captivity, habit the tyrant of awe. He would have traded euphoria just to keep her, to make her the subject of his tedium. To live a colorless life in the shade of her bones, in the sound of her breath, knowing and eternally recounting the monotony of her details until he ground himself down to nothing, never learning or experiencing another beautiful thing,
</b>
<i>Monsterlove</i>
What the heck?! What. No. Just no.
What did I read?
My least favourite by far.

<i>Fate and Consequences</i>
Guy Carrington’s thread of fate was mistakenly cut which finds him meeting Hades’s and suffering in the Underworld.
Do we deserve our fates? What determines our actions?

<i>Sous Vide</i>
Cooking for demons.

<b>I don't get how people can say that money doesn't buy happiness. Because my whole life revolves around money. It has to! That's the system I'm plugged into! You know? You can't be happy without money, because in order to be happy you need choices, you need freedom, you need the ability to think and dream and wonder and you just simply cannot do that if you spend all day and night thinking about how you'll pay your next bill.
</b>
<u>WINTER</u>

<i>A Year in January</i>
Using Craigslist to find a roommate may have been a terrible idea, but it finds her January. January is odd for sure, but very endearing.

This was one of my favourites! This reminded me of the book Beautyland!

<b>I explained that I'm more like a place than a thing; I have seasons of poor weather, tourist seasons, El Niño or Santa Ana winds. At my foundation I am always the same, but atmospherically there can be issues.

“Transcendentally it's an issue of work product."
"What type of work?"
"Well, the canvas is me, I suppose? But the debilitation of creation is such a competing factor."
"Shouldn't the not-knowing keep it interesting?"
“Yes, I think so? But it's also quite exhausting," I said, referencing where I lay on my bed.
</b>
Thank you to Tor for providing me the arc in exchange for a review!