There were a couple of stories I really enjoyed and many that I couldn't get into. I just wasn't sure that the collection as a whole would capture young readers. I really loved the concept and theme though! Thank you for the opportunity to read and review it!

The Collectors: Stories is an eclectic "collection" of short stories written by nine award-winning and bestselling young adult authors. Based on a prompt from author A.S. King, each story features a collection of some kind: a non-binary teen who collects things from other people's collections; the teen who, along with his friends, collects experiences trying to "go vertical" skateboarding in 1970s California; the demon who collects people who wish an experience would go on forever; and more. Some stories are strange and some are other-worldly. All are intriguing. I didn't like every story, but I found them all thought-provoking and interesting.

The first two stories I read were very disappointing so I decided to put this aside and I don't think I'd come back to it. There are much better collections out there.

The Collectors: Stories edited by A.S. King features some heavyweights of YA publishing. The list of authors in this anthology is star studded. This anthology is chock full of weird, interesting stories. I found myself not entirely understanding the content or message of each story but appreciating it for what it was. I can see someone reading this book and really having a lot to discuss and digest.

PLAY HOUSE BY ANNA-MARIE MCLEMORE
The opening story to The Collectors is Play House by Anna-Marie McLemore. Their story is quite a banger. It follows a person named Miranda who lives with her mother and father in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Miranda’s father has to go away for work for a few months, so it is just Miranda and her mother who is incredibly beautiful. Men start to show up and hang out at their home, but they have to be nice to the men because they are brown in a white neighborhood. During this time, Miranda starts a collection of aprons. There’s a magical realism twist and wow, this story was impactful and interesting.

THE WHITE SAVIOR DOES NOT SAVE THE DAY BY RANDY RIBAY
The White Savior Does Not Save The Day by Randy Ribay is written in a mixture of screenplay format and prose. It is about a girl named Perdita Padilla who collects everything related to the canceled White Savior TV show. This story is well paced with some unexpected twists and valid messaging that’s super obvious. I liked it though – the formatting was interesting. I was not able to guess what was going to happen. It made me want to check out more from Ribay as well.

TAKE IT FROM ME BY DAVID LEVITHAN
David Levithan’s Take It From Me features an unnamed narrator who is non-binary who has a collection that started when they were 6 – made up of items stolen from other people’s collections. The story deals with the compulsion to take, the thought process. Then the narrator meets K, falls in love, and learns about K’s collection of doubts. This was an interesting story — I liked how in depth the characterization was as well as the level of growth experienced in just over twenty pages.

RING OF FIRE BY JENNY TORRES SANCHEZ
Ring Of Fire by Jenny Torres Sanchez is about Lucia who loses her mom when she is 9. She finds a matchbook in the hallway of the hospital and lights a fire at home. There’s also references to Johnny Cash – as her mom loved Johnny Cash. So, then the story becomes about how she comes to grips with what happened in her room years ago and the why of it – being why she lit the fire. This was an interesting story but a little hard to follow.

MUSEUM OF MISERY BY CORY MCCARTHY
I think that Museum Of Misery by Cory McCarthy was the most unique story in The Collectors. There isn’t a character it follows, but it goes through a museum and different exhibits on misery. It’s illustrated and not told in prose and ultimately has a message about being yourself and not a bigot. I appreciate this for how different it was. Also, it was a super fast paced, visual story.

LA CONCHA BY E.E. CHARLTON-TRUJILLO
La Concha by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo was different. It is about this character who keeps jars in her closet and the jars are of all kinds of things. She has a mom who is dying on the inside and totally checked out, a step brother and a step father who has a good appearance but is a terrible person. This story… I don’t know how to describe it, but it really made me think.

POOL BANDITS BY G. NERI
Pool Bandits by G. Neri is set in the 1970s in California. It follows Gio and his group of skateboarder friends who come up with this idea during a drought. They are going to case their neighborhood houses, look for houses with pools and neighbors who are out of town and then skateboard in the pools for the awesome drops and tricks. Of course, this backfires spectacularly. However, I liked that this story had friendship and the mistakes of youth and while long, was very compelling.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR HOME BY A. S. KING
Okay, so, We Are Looking For Home by A.S. King, I need an analysis from someone significantly smarter than me. This story follows Jasper Miller and forty million I don’t know people? Followers? Ideas? It just mentions a forty million who say mean things to a kid who is LGBTQ and who get in trouble at school and try to impact Jasper Miller, a high school kid who falls in love and experiences heartbreak. It is very existential and smart and like I said, I need someone smart to tell me the meaning of it all. This story was very well written.

A RECORDING FOR CAROLE BEFORE IT ALL GOES BY JASON REYNOLDS
Leave it to Jason Reynolds to write my favorite story in an anthology. A Recording For Carole Before It All Goes is about a teenage boy, Carroll, and his grandmother, Carole. Carole loves the letter C and so the important people in her life have C names – her children, her grandchild and even the middle name of her son in law. Carole has Alzheimers and this story is about how Carroll is recording different things about his grandmother and her life to help her remember. It’s touching, sweet, and a testament to love and family. This story is one of the shortest in the book but I think carries the biggest impact.

SWEET EVERLASTING BY M.T. ANDERSON
The closing story of The Collectors is Sweet Everlasting by M.T. Anderson. This story is about a demon who collects people when they wish a moment could last forever and the demon encases the person in the moment forever. The story goes through different moments in time that have been collected. It’s quite grim and also quite weird. I liked it.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin for the e copy of this collection. Unfortunately I didn’t like this collection as I thought I was going to. It was one of my most anticipated books and while reading it I thought of DNFing it multiple times. But I persisted for the sake of giving all the authors who contributed to this work a chance. Some stories were okay, some were not my jam, and only one story I liked which is “Sweet Everlasting”. I don’t know what that says about me but I am sure there is a wide audience for this.

The Collectors: Stories anthology is a marvelously strange and uniquely curated collection that showcases a diverse range of tales. Each story within this anthology is a standalone masterpiece, distinct in its narrative and thematic approach. What sets this collection apart is its ability to seamlessly bring together these disparate narratives into a cohesive and compelling whole. The anthology's strength lies not only in the individual excellence of each story but also in the artful cohesion that binds them together, creating an immersive reading experience that resonates with both diversity and unity. For readers seeking an anthology that offers a journey through various genres and styles while maintaining an overarching sense of unity, The Collectors: Stories is a truly exceptional find.

This is a very strange collection of stories that I'm ultimately glad I read. The Collectors is an anthology about people who collect, and why they collect, and what they collect. However, each story is so unique that you'd honestly never be able to tie them together as a collection of collector stories without the title and introduction from A. S. King. Some of my favorites were Cory McCarthy's story, Anna-Marie McLemore's story, and David Levithan's story. Please definitely look at content warnings prior to reading this book.

#TheCollectors edited by @ASKing is a collection of stories, each more unexpected than the last. I loved the opportunity to sample the work of many authors; the variety of story formats; and the way the concept of collection was perpetually reinvented. Enhanced by the bonus of each author revealing their own collections at the end. I expected each story to be about “the collection”. Instead, the collection in each story often served as a slight of hand directing attention away from the primary conflict. While there is great diversity in the stories, ranging from early California skateboarding to a jealous demon's collection of moments, these stories are largely linked by grief or trauma resolved through self actualization or self empowerment. Jenny Torres Sanchez’s Ring of Fire & Cory McCarthy’s Museum of Misery were standout stories for me. Jason Reynolds’s, A Recording for Carole Before It All Goes broke my heart in a deeply personal and intense way. I am revisiting King’s We Are Looking for Home because the commentary is so dense. I recommend this collection for #HighSchoolLibraries and #TeenLibrary collections. Thanks to #Netgalley for the opportunity to review this title.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Teen for an eGalley and finished copy for my classroom.

When I first requested this title, I thought it was going to be an anthology of nonfiction collector stories. I didn't realize it was such a unique twist on a writing prompt for popular YA authors.

Twisted scifi pop culture fanfic come to life? Check.
Skater boys on a quest for the perfect vertical jump? Check.
A kleptomaniac who pilfers from their closest friends? Check.

Collections of memories, treasures, and curiosities - each story was uniquely crafted in this collection of collectors. I had so much fun.

The Collectors is an anthology of stories by well known young adult authors about characters and their strange collections.

I haven’t really reviewed an anthology of stories from different authors before, so here’s my doing my best.

Play House: Took me a minute to get into it, but then enjoyed it.

The White Savior Does Not Save the Day: This was okay for me - it delivered a well written story, but I don’t know how I feel about it still, even two days after reading it.

Take It From Me: I can still actively “see” scenes from this story even now. The banana stickers on the wall, the locked box of doubts - it was a vivid story.

Ring of Fire: Metaphor about grief, but was kind of left confused a little at the end.

Museum of Misery: Impactful. A big punch with little words but pictures said everything.

La Concha: I couldn’t always follow this one. I felt like there were some big pieces missing from it.

Pool Bandits: One of my favorites just because of the length these boys went to to skate. My partner is a skater and I understand that culture a lot.

We Are Looking For Home: Another story I didn’t quite understand and even in the end, I don’t know what it was about??

A Recording for Carole Before It All Goes: This was beautiful and heartwarming. I feel like everyone nowadays possibly knows someone who has Dementia or Alzheimer's. My grandmother had dementia and just passed away at the beginning of this month and these stories will always make me think of her.

Sweet Everlasting: A crazy and kind of scary concept of being stuck in the “moment they wish could last forever”

The ones I loved: Take It from Me / David Levithan, Pool Bandits / G. Neri, A Recording for Carole Before It All Goes / Jason Reynolds, and Sweet Everlasting / M.T. Anderson

Overall, there were some wonderful and great stories, and others that I just couldn’t get into - doesn’t mean they weren’t good and others wouldn’t enjoy them though!

*Thank you Dutton Books for Young Readers and NetGalley for a digital advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. There were several stories that I enjoyed but some I couldn’t get into.

Honestly, I didn't like it. It felt disorganized and not all the stories fir the theme. For example, the Jason Reynolds story, while it was beautiful and was about collecting stories, this may not be apparent for students.

Thank you NetGalley for this eARC

I find short story collections quite hard to review since it can be such a mixed bag, and this one was no different. So here is a mini review for each story:

Play House: this was my first time reading from Anna-Marie McLemore but I desperately want to get to more of their work! This story was interesting and then very suddenly very weird, all in a good way!

The White Savior Does Not Save The Day: I think as a satirical story it definitely delivered but also don’t really know how to feel after reading it.

Take It From Me: I have read a few David Levithan books in the past and have never really connected to them. Sadly this was much the same. I found the story to be too long with not enough emotional weight.

Ring of Fire: This one was really good, a story about grief told with a distinct metaphor. Simple yet very affecting.

Museum of Misery: Impactful. Important. Impressive to be able to say so much in such few words.

La Concha: this is one big metaphorical story which I personally could not always follow, but still I felt the heaviness of it while reading it.

The Pool Bandits: This was not my cup of tea. Irresponsible, horny teenage boys who want to skate and make for a truly annoying perspective to read from, in my opinion.

We Are Looking For Home: Throughout this whole story I was trying to figure out what it was about, and I failed. Still, something about it was really beautiful. It has truly baffled me but I definitely liked reading it

A Recording for Carole Before it All Goes: Very heartwarming, truthful and beautifully told. I really related to this story on a personal level and I loved it.

Sweet Everlasting: This might be my favourite story in the collection! The concept was amazing, the overall message, the story telling, the pacing, which vignettes it decided to focus on, … From start to finish one of my favourite short stories I have ever read!

Thank you @Netgalley and @DuttonBooks for my e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I requested this one on Netgalley when I spotted David Levithan’s name in the list of writers, because if you know me you know that I ADORE anything he writes and I’m always trying to read any new or new-to-me books by him, so I had to read this one right? And I’m so glad I picked it up even though I don’t usually read a lot of short stories collections. It’s also made me realize that short stories are the perfect format for when my life feels overwhelming and I want to read but I don’t have the mental capacity for it, I still get to get lost in a story but in a short-bite format that is easier for me to digest at that moment.

This is a collection of 9 short stories written by 9 YA authors about collectors and their collections. A beautiful collection of weirdness. Exactly what my brain needed to take a break from life but at the same time feel firmly sat in it.

Aside from David Levithan, it was my first time reading anything written by the other authors and I have to say that this could serve as a good sample of who I’d love to read more of.

Here are my favourites out of the 9 short stories:
- Playhouse by Anna-Marie McLemore
- Take it from me by David Levithan
- A Recording For Carole Before It All Goes by Jason Reynolds
- Sweet Everlasting by M. T. Anderson

THE COLLECTORS: STORIES edited by A.S. King is a fantastic anthology. The variety of stories, authors, and collections is wonderful. What really makes this anthology stand out is its celebration of the weird. It's not "weird" in that authors wrote "weird" stories or wrote about "weird" characters. Its very concept--collections/collectors--is weird. It's going to be such a joy to use this in my creative writing classes for teens, the very ones who write about their rock collections on applications,

I so badly wanted to love this. I should have loved this. I'm a fan of many of the authors whose stories appear in this anthology, and have been wanting to read books by several of the other authors for a long time. I'm not sure if this is just a case of "it's not you it's me" or the timing was just off or what. I, unfortunately, was not a fan of this anthology. Really none of the stories resonated with me, or perhaps I just didn't quite understand them. That said, I think some of them could have been really great full length novels, which would give them more opportunity to develop the world, the characters, and the plot. The ones I was most interested in were the stories by Anna-Marie McLemore and Jason Reynolds. While I did not enjoy this one in the way I hoped, I am still interested in reading other works by these authors.

This was an interesting collection of short stories. I didn't enjoy all of them, but some were good. My favorite was probably Pool Bandits by G. Neri, followed by A Recording for Carole Before It All Goes by Jason Reynolds. I would give those two four stars.

The concept of this book is really unique and I enjoyed reading it! The stories were all also so so different from each other, which I really appreciated. My favorite stories were Play House, The White Savior Does Not Save The Day, Take It From Me, Ring of Fire, We Are Looking For Home, and A Recording for Carole Before It All Goes. These stories really run the gamut - one is about a demon who imprisons people in their bodies when they wish they could live forever in that moment. One is about a kid who collects stuff that he has stolen from other people’s collections. One is about the narrator trying to hang onto grandma and help her hang onto her memories as she becomes more impacted by her Alzheimer’s. Some of the stories are so conceptual I didn’t 100% get them even though I loved them (cough cough We Are Looking For Home). The White Savior Does Not Save the Day reads like a script of a Doctor Who episode. I really enjoyed this book, read it in one sitting, and give it a hearty 4 stars.

By the end of this anthology, I have to say I’m beyond intrigued by how the authors who wrote for this came to grow the stories I read. I have to give huge props to everyone who contributed!

For me personally, the stand out stories were written by David Levithan, Jenny Torres Sanchez, Jason Reynolds, and M.T. Anderson. They all left a mark on me when they concluded for sure!

These are great stories! My favorites are Museum Of Misery, A Recording For Carole Before It All Goes and Sweet Everlasting. The stories are all creative and fit the theme well. I would recommend this! Special Thank You to all the authors, Penguin and NetGalley for allowing me to read a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.