Title: Rats
Author: Marlee Jane Ward
In: Kindred (Michael Earp)
Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect)
My Bookshelves: Contemporary, LGBTQI, Romance
Dates read: 7th April 2020
Pace: Fast
Format: Short story
Publisher: Walker Books
Year: 2019
5th sentence, 74th page: She pings her card against the reader and the doors open for us with a burst of warm air.
She’s one of the Rats, those who live by their wits. But, on one of her adventures Up Above, she runs into a beautiful girl. One that she could just enjoy spending time with. Then all hell breaks loose as the Feds capture her friends and family…
This is the first short story in the Kindred collection. It is beautiful, simple and completely sweet. It is also a little different to what I expected with a whole new world created in the few pages of story. The fact that it’s also an LGBTQI+ lead who happens to be homeless… well, this short story deals with many minorities in a fantastic and entertaining manner.
There were so many things that I just loved about this short story. Smany of which I can’t quite figure out the words to describe… and many of which I just thoroughly enjoyed in and of themselves. This is a fast-paced, high action story in which falling for another girl isn’t that big a deal. It is about the first instances of attraction, rather than insta-love and I thought that that was fantastic. That instant attraction and need to know more about a person, without actually being in love with them is something that I really don’t think gets enough attention in many romances.
I can’t wait to read onwards in this collection. If this is the start of a collection of short stories… I can’t wait to see what the rest are like!
Earth and Skye 
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