The Collectors: an Anthology

I was super excited about this because it's full authors I'm familiar with, which almost never happens with anthologies for me. Just like any other anthology, there were stories that I LOVED, stories I felt good about, and stories that were just ok. I averaged my ratings for each story out to get the rating and I feel good about it. The overarching concept of “Collections” was really intriguing and it was cool so see how each author put their own spin on what it is to be a collector. I was pleasently surprised by some of these stories, because I rated them higher than any book I had read from those authors and it gave me hope that I would really enjoy something by one of them if I gave them another chance. My absolute favorite story was Play House by Anna-Marie McLemore, which isn't surprising because I've really enjoyed all of their books that I have read in the past. In the introduction, A.S. King says that she told the authors to “get weird” and I feel like Anna-Marie went the most weird. Overall though, all the stories were entertaining and all the authors did a great job of flushing out the characters in their short stories.






Thank you to Penguin Young Readers Group, Dutton Books for Young Readers, and NetGalley for providing me with an eBook copy to review.

I (like many, I imagine) was a lil surprised when this won the Printz this year but you know what? I should have trusted AS King. This is a banger anthology. I think my fav was Cory McCarthy's “Misery Museum.” And I also loved King's introduction about why she's fascinated by collectors/collections and what kind of power they have

Alas, my personal pattern of better luck with short story collections written by only one author continues. Unsurprisingly, I loved the Jason Reynolds story. The Penelope/Odyssey take in the first story was an interesting starting point. I think those are my pros.  They were all a little darker than I was hoping. A few had pretty blatant messaging. The ‘collection/collector' as theme could get pretty loose in application. 
 I'm glad I finally tried something written (editor and one of the contributors) by A.S. King, but my concern that her writing (based on others' description of her previous books) would venture a little too far into the surreal for my enjoyment seems to have been borne out by this experience. I got some of what I think she was hoping to convey, but it was a struggle. 
⚠️ SA, Child abuse, Alzheimer's