This was my first venture into Oates work, and what a first book to read!
I was hooked from the first story. I loved the mixture of moving, touching stories to downright creepy and eerie ones.
Highlights for me were Great Blue Heron, The Drowned Girl and Crawl Space.
This collection of short stories has really fed a fire in me to read more short stories, also to get everything in Oates catalogue.
A huge thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with this gem of a collection.

Dis Mem Ber and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense is another cracking collection of stories from JCO. I enjoyed every story in this collection. JCO has written numerous collections of suspense and mystery stories and this is one of her strengths. She can write cracking stories when she’s going at full throttle like she is in Dis Mem Ber and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense. I enjoyed the variety of stories and the fact they were quite different and equally enjoyable. My top picks were Dis Mem Ber, The Crawl Space, The Situations and the hilarious yet unsettling Welcome to Friendly Skies! I loved this collection and would highly recommend it.

Review posted on my blog

I have always had a great appreciation for Oates' writing. The fact that she writes so much at such a high quality amazes me even more. However, her stories don't amaze me as much as her writing does.

This book is a collection of short stories all containing a mystery at the heart of each story. While not a fan of horror, I do love good mystery and gothic stories. But all of these had more horror and weirdness to them then I prefer. There is some humor, but it did not sit well with me in these stories.

The stories also have another thing in common besides the fact that they are horror, the stories all have females as victims of something. It might be themselves, another female, the unknown. I had hoped to read about women showing their strength; however, these stories leave a lot to the imagination.

Rating: 2 stars = It was ok.

Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for this free copy.

This collects together seven short stories by JCO, all published elsewhere in 2016. The first six work together very well, reflecting and refracting themes of violence and diseased minds in family or neighbourhood settings. Images of dolls' faces reappear, often in different contexts, adding to the atmosphere of unease and menace - sometimes for explicit, often for more oblique reasons. JCO's trademark twisting of the 'ordinary' ('It's an ordinary evening. (But why then was she so frightened? The ordinary does not provoke fear.)') reappears, as do issues of the family, and 'step' or quasi family relations: those marginal or liminal sites for what turns out to be an unnerving closeness.

The final story is a black and funny satire on modern air travel as JCO dissects the captain's safety announcement, that ritual from which many of us switch off: 'if the vest fails to INFLATE by way of the red tabs, it may be orally inflated by a strenuous, superhuman blowing into the inflation tubes at shoulder level, roughly equivalent, it has been estimated, to the effort required to blow up three hundred average-sized party balloons within a few minutes. Good luck with this!')

If you haven't experienced JCO before then her short stories are not nearly as rich as her novels - but these do offer a taster of her frequently macabre and unflinching imagination as well as her clean, crisp yet subtly wrenching prose.

To be posted on Amazon and Goodreads

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and author for the opportunity to read and review this book!

I'm not typically a big fan of short stories but when they are written by Joyce Carol Oates, they're hard to resist. And these are creepy, Twilight-Zone territory stories. Widows and teenagers play big starring roles in these stories and don't look for neatly tied up endings - these all leave much to your imagination. But the writing is pure Joyce Carol Oates - gorgeous!

This is the first book I have read by Joyce Carol Oates, but won't be the last. I really liked this collection of short stories. The writing is fantastic. She has a talent to make anything come alive and interesting. One thing I really liked is that I could read just a bit at a time, but not be lost. But it was a book I enjoyed and wanted to keep reading. I will indeed be reading more of her writings. She is fabulous. Read this book of short stories! You won't be sorry.

Classic JCO. Although I felt some of the stories were a little TOO strange, especially towards the end, the writing was always fantastic.

First, thank you to NetGalley (Mysterious Press) for an e-book copy of Dis Mem Ber for my enjoyment and review. I have been a fan of Joyce Carol Oates for many years, so looked forward to this new collection. I started reading at the gym, and absolutely biked as fast as I could, through the first of her 7 short stories in this wonderful collection, entitled Dis Mem Ber: the story of an eleven year old girl and her experience with Rowan Billiet, such a fast and intense read. Her collection continues at this pace – with the next six in her collection, just as fast and furious. I loved this mystery e-book series, and looked forward to more from Ms. Oates.

An excellent collection of short stories! I love Oates' talent for telling deeply unsettling stories that stay long with you after you're finished reading. Some recurring themes are women and violence against them, the rivalry between siblings, and death. She effortlessly combines the mundane with the mysterious and magical and delves deeply into the human mind. But beware! What you find there is definitely not beautiful. I also like her straightforward style with its elliptic sentences that are nevertheless rich in detail and which create a very realistic atmosphere. If you like neatly wrapped-up stories and lots of answers, you should stay away from this collection as there are open endings or just lose ends the reader has to tie up. In my opinion, that leaves room for interpretation and makes for an unforgettable reading experience.
In short, you don't read Joyce Carol Oates to have a good night's sleep, but to wake up. Read the stories, take a look at those around you, then turn your gaze inward, and feel the apprehension at beholding the same disconcerting character traits and storylines that creeped you out on the page in yourself and those around you.

I received a copy of this collection of short stories through NetGalley in exchange for sharing my honest opinion.

I have been a JCO fan for quite a number of years now, and I love how her writing draws you in...just in time to shock you. Her writing was no different with these short stories, and I really expected nothing less.

These stories are ideal for individuals that are either already fans of Oates, or those that are looking for something to read during short increments of time like sitting in a waiting room. Some of these stories are a bit gruesome with a lack of in-depth details, some are surrounded by an air of humor, and others are just a little strange. It was a great read all in all!

Dark, questionable and slightly disturbing is what came to mind when I read the description of the book. I did not find that any of the stories met or even came remotely close. The endings made you feel like something was missing. Like the end of the story was still untold. It left you wanting. It was if the author took you to the end of a cliff but then left you there. The best story, unfortunately, was the first, and it went downhill from there. Conceptually the ideas were great, however, the follow through did not live up to the hype. It was not a bad read, but it wasn't a great read either.

This is a collection of previously published stories, that are both dark and delightful. My favorites were as follows.

In my opinion the best was definitely saved for last, as I laughed my way through the final story “Welcome to Friendly Skies” while thinking yes I have flown on this over booked plane, no seat left for you? stuff yourself in the overhead compartment. A dark satire that filled me with dread and giggles.

I also enjoyed the first story "Dismember" though poor Jill should have chosen a better role model.

"Great Blue Heron" was an amazing story of fear and grief culminating in a satisfying twist at the end. "Heartbreak" is what happens when Stephanie's jealousy of her sister gets the best of her.

All in all a good solid collection that is well worth a read.

This is yet another must-read collection of short stories by my favorite short story writer. Her style is literary, yet her mystery and suspense are every bit as gripping as Stephen King's. She has captured the voice of the teenage female acting as either a protagonist or an antagonist. The first five stories are written from teenagers' points of view. The fifth and sixth are equally effective from a put-out adult's POV with the last being down-right funny. Each story is insightful and entertaining. Candidly, this is not an unbiased review, I read Ms. Oates whenever I stumble on new publications with her moniker attached.

This short collection of stories was a hit or miss for me. Mostly I found the writing lovely but a couple of the stories didn't seem to go anywhere.

Joyce Carol Oates writes unforgettably disturbing stories and this collection is no exception. The title story in particular demonstrates her ability to reveal the darkness inside us all.

Brilliant collection of newly published JCO short stories, I gasped in horror while inhaling Favoritism (only 4 swipes long on my Kindle!) and laughed non-stop through WELCOME TO FRIENDLY SKIES! I loved the symmetric pairing of Dis mem ber and Heartbreak being two different stories about a young girl enthralled with her older male cousin: Jill damaged by Rowan in the former, and then Hunt falling victim to Steff in the latter. Similarly, The Crawl Space and Great Blue Heron are both about widows, whose wholly authentic and overwhelming grief manifests itself in varied yet miraculous and diabolical ways. The Drowned Girl is about the psychological unravelling of a college student, consumed by obsession and paranoia.

I have always marveled at Oates's ability to invoke such terror in her writing; she appears so calm in photos, she's from rural upstate New York, and lived many years in the midwest. So much of her subject matter seems ripped from tabloids, I hope the debilitating mourning she writes about so artfully here is more evidence of her mastery at research, than personal suffering.

These stories!
I love Joyce Carol Oates. I think she's so like another of my faves, Stephen King, in that their short stories are the most remarkable works I've ever read.
I hadn't read any of these previously published works before, and really liked them all. Actually, "Heartbreak" is the best short I have read in years, and "The Drowned Girl" is one of the most haunting.
I have long admired Joyce Carol Oates, and these stories are wonderful reminders of why.