This was really lovely! I only skipped one story, which is pretty good odds for a short story collection. I've liked Rainbow Rowell for a long time, and it was nice to revisit her, having read everything else of interest in her author library. There was an interesting mix of adult and YA love (or romance adjacent) stories. I think my favourite of the collection was the prince and the troll, which melded fairytale with social commentary. I thought it was very clever. I also really loved the ending message, when she says

"This isn't easy. This is just another kind of hard. That's all that's left now, for any of us."

. She was so right. I expected all the stories to be cute romances, and though I liked those ones too, the ones that stood out were the stories that strayed from that a bit. Mixed Messages too, I thought was quite profound. And of course, the most anticipated story of this collection featured my favs, Simon and Baz. It was cute and lovely and perfectly satisfied my expectations.