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The Collectors: Stories by A.S. King, e.E. Charlton-Trujillo, David Levithan, Cory McCarthy, Anna-Marie McLemore, G. Neri, Jason Reynolds, Randy Ribay, Jenny Torres Sanchez
Also by this author: Reality Boy, Glory O'Brien's History of the Future, I Crawl Through It, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, , Be More Chill: The Graphic Novel, Wild Beauty, The Boy in the Black Suit, All American Boys, Long Way Down, Outer Order, Inner Calm
Published by Penguin on September 19, 2023
Genres: Collections & Anthologies, Young Adult Fiction / LGBTQ, Young Adult Fiction / Magical Realism
Pages: 272
Format: eARC, Hardcover
Source: Library, Publisher
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From Michael L. Printz Award winner A.S. King and an all-star team of contributors including Anna-Marie McLemore and Jason Reynolds, an anthology of stories about remarkable people and their strange and surprising collections.

From David Levithan’s Story about a non-binary kid collecting pieces of other people’s collections to Jenny Torres Sanchez's tale of a girl gathering types of fire while trying not to get burned to G. Neri's piece about 1970's skaters seeking opportunities to go vertical—anything can be collected and in the hands of these award-winning and bestselling authors, any collection can tell a story. Nine of the best YA novelists working today have written fiction based on a prompt from Printz-winner A.S. King (who also contributes a story) and the result is itself an extraordinary collection.

M. T. Anderson, e. E. Charlton-Trujillo, A.S. King, David Levithan, Cory McCarthy, Anna-Marie McLemore, G. Neri, Jason Reynolds, Randy Ribay, and Jenny Torres Sanchez have each penned a surprising and provocative tale.

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.