The depth and breadth of the stories in this anthology is remarkable. The one that sticks with me the most is "The Alumni Interview", although they are all excellent. I enjoyed reading about sixteen from so many different perspectives. It also made me think back to my own teenage years and all of the things that I leaned along the way. Some of the stories also made me miss the people I hung out with then. Although I still see some of them, I haven't heard from others in years. Aaahhhh, nostalgia. :-) ( )

Apparently a girl's sixteenth birthday is supposed to be the be all to end all of all birthdays. It's supposed to be the year when your life begins. When everything of interest starts to happen to you. The cute guy right by your locker will finally notice you and your kick-ass boobs. The meanest girl in school will finally bow to your awesomeness and you'll get the chance to be a total bitch to her. It's supposed to be the year you look back at and think "Man, those were the days. The sneaking out, the making out, the doing of drugs...God, how I miss those days!!!" Of course, then you have the other scenario. The year in which you get your heart broken for the first time. The year you realize that actually getting your license and getting a car means paying gas. The year you realize life sometimes just blows no matter how old you are. My sixteenth year....was nothing like either of these scenarios.

The angst filled sixteenth year was something that I avoided. It was actually very anti-climactic. Not to say that nothing of interest didn't happen. It just wasn't very book or movie worthy. I seemed to avoid all of the major drama associated with being sixteen. Does that mean I'm lucky that I didn't get to go through the angst? Or unlucky because being sixteen wasn't extremely memorable to me and I therefore don't have any hilarious antidotes or earth-shattering, wrist slicing, drama to talk about? I don't know. What I do know is that I get to relive my 16th year vicariously through Sixteen.

Not being a fan of short story compilations, I was surprised that I loved Sixteen and raced through it. There's a story in here for everyone. You want something angsty read The Grief Diet. You want something in the vein of all of the other cheesy '80's movies read The Perfect Kiss. You want something that makes you think back at those days when you thought nothing embarrassing could ever happen to you because this is in fact real life and not a movie, read Cat Got Your Tongue?.

Sure there were a couple of stories in here while were not really clunkers, they were not as great as the rest. It's inevitable with a short story compilation. But still, the majority of the these stories were amazing and brought me back to my high school years and the angst that goes along with it(just because my 16th year wasn't that memorable doesn't mean my 17th wasn't...). I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to revisit the feeling you had when you were sixteen or just to laugh at the rest and think "Thank God that didn't happen to me!" ( )

The stories in this anthology are well written and run the gamut from funny to heartwrenching as the authors explore a range of feelings. Teens and adults will enjoy and relate to these tales.