Review: The Disorder Collection (Part 2)

Last month I reviewed three books from Amazon's six-book Disorder collection, with the promise that I would review the other three later. Dear reader, that day has finally come. I actually read the other books a little while ago, before my free Kindle Unlimited trial expired, but I am only just now writing this review because my previous few posts have been wholly occupied by the From & About Asia reading project. If you haven't already, I recommend going back and reading the first post I wrote about the Disorder collection before reading this one, but the choice is ultimately yours.

With that explanation out of the way, let's get into these books. As you may recall, Part 1 covered Un-girls, Anonymous, and The Best Girls, leaving Loam, The Beckoning Fair One, and Will Williams for this post. Just as in the last installment, I will be reviewing these in the order that I read them, starting with:

The Beckoning Fair One by Dan Chaon

Out of the whole collection, this is probably my second favourite story (Min Jin Lee's The Best Girls having retained its top spot since Part 1). It's a creepy, suburban gothic, almost fairytale-esque story about a boy and his teenage sister, who develops a strange obsession with a young man in their town. While I admit I'm not entirely sure what to make of the story's emphasis on the apparent danger of teenage female sexuality, I was a big fan of the story's atmosphere and generally eerie vibe. I also liked that Chaon wasn't afraid to make it a genuinely weird story, especially towards the end. It might be bizarre and even a little disturbing, but it definitely left an impression. 

Loam by Scott Heim

Like The Beckoning Fair One, Loam focuses on a group of siblings from a small, creepy American town who are somehow involved in strange goings-on. This was certainly an unsettling story, with one part in particular making me regret reading it in bed at night, but I didn't like it as much as Chaon's. It wasn't as effectively atmospheric, was quite slow to get going, and lacked a satisfying resolution. I was disinterested at the start, got my hopes up about half way through, and then felt disappointed by the end. It also bothered me a bit that [SPOILER, highlight to view] the crux of the story focuses on false accusations, including of sexual assault. Stories like this are getting to seem horribly overdone at best, and encouraging scepticism of survivors at worst. Even without that, though, I'm not sure I would have been terribly impressed with this story.

Will Williams by Namwali Serpell

This book is apparently based on an Edgar Allan Poe story which, full disclosure, I haven't read. I mention that because this story might have special resonance for those who have experienced the original, but unfortunately I do not fall into this category. Will Williams tells the story of its eponymous (and supposedly pseudonymous) main character, who is haunted from childhood onwards by a mysterious doppelganger of sorts: a boy who shares his name and gradually comes to assume other aspects of his identity. I found this story quite unnerving, which is probably a good thing, since the story is somewhat frightening. I appreciated how Serpell connected the concept of a doppelganger to social issues like the school-to-prison pipeline, which gave fresh meaning to an old trope. That said, I didn't find this story as immersive or its main character as compelling as some of the others in this series, so I wouldn't rank it as one of my favourites.

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With that, we have reached the end of the Disorder collection. While I did enjoy reading this collection, I'm not sure if I would recommend it that strongly. The Best Girls is definitely my favourite and I would recommend that as a standalone story, as well as possibly The Beckoning Fair One if you want a straight-up horror tale, but I'm not sure I would do the same for any of the others. If you already have Kindle Unlimited and are looking for something a little strange and unusual, I would say go ahead and read the collection - or at least some of the stories in it. If you'd have to purchase it though, I would say to spend your money on something else. 

Review: The Disorder Collection (Part 1)

Recently I decided to make use of Amazon's 30-day free trial on Kindle Unlimited, a service which lets you borrow as many books as you want from Amazon's selection for a flat monthly fee. I have no intention of paying this monthly fee or otherwise using this service outside of my free trial, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to read some (temporarily) free books. So, I am trying to read as many books from the Kindle Unlimited library as I can before my trial runs out.

Some of the books I have been reading during this period are those in Amazon's Disorder collection, a series of short stories and novellas by six different authors. While the individual plots vary, the stories are united thematically in that they each deal with semi-realistic but disturbing and unsettling events. I definitely preferred some stories over others, but so far they have all delivered on their promise to "get inside your head" and provoke feelings of mild to severe horror. In this post, I am going to take you through three of these stories and give you my thoughts on them, with the other three reviews coming in a later post.

Now, before I get into the individual stories, I feel the need to address the unethical elephant in the room: Amazon. Unfortunately, this short story collection is an Amazon original project, meaning that the stories are published by and primarily sold through Amazon. This is a problem, given that I consider Amazon to be a harmful and morally reprehensible company. They monopolise the online shopping market, dodge taxes, and mistreat their workers. I am normally so reluctant to promote their website on my blog that I will even censor the company's name, so you can imagine that I was unsure whether or not to review these books here. 

In the end, I decided to review these books anyway in the interests of supporting the authors, not Amazon. That is not to say that my thought process negates any harm I might be doing by supporting such a horrible company, and I can absolutely respect that some people may not want to purchase these stories due to their proximity to Amazon. It's a sad fact that Amazon's growth has become something of a vicious circle, making it harder and harder for people to avoid interacting with the company, as their market dominance grows and "ethical consumerism" becomes more and more of a challenge (especially for those of us without much money to spare). All of that said, I am very happy to hear others' perspectives on this, especially if you hate Amazon as much as I do and have suggestions for how we can avoid supporting them. 

Also, just to reiterate: the Kindle Unlimited free trial lasts a month and will run for the full 30 days even if you "cancel" it immediately after subscribing, so you won't have to pay any money. Just saying.

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With that out of the way, let's get into specifics. As I mentioned before, the series is comprised of six stories by six different authors. Although the evil A-site lists them in a specific order, as far as I can tell this is arbitrary and the stories can be read in any order you want. I am listing them in the order I read them, so you can see how my perception of each story was impacted by the ones I read before it.  

The Best Girls by Min Jin Lee

This was the book that first piqued my interest in the collection, with an intriguing plot summary and an author who I'd heard great praise for (Min Jin Lee being the author of Pachinko and Free Food for Millionaires, both popular novels). Having now read half of the books in the set, The Best Girls remains my favourite so far. It's a haunting story of gender roles and family sacrifice, specifically how they manifest in Korean culture. I thought this story was powerful and felt very real - perhaps especially because it turned out to be based on a true story. Min Jin Lee's writing is emotionally-affecting without being overly sentimental, and the twist at the end truly shocked me. 

Anonymous by Uzodinma Iweala

This story was a disorientating read, in a way I believe was intentional on the part of the author. It focuses on a Black American man who is stopped by border security upon his arrival back in US. What follows is horrific in its reality, but more so in its apparent meaninglessness and absurdity. Iweala gives a great sense of the helplessness and isolation of the protagonist, made all the more painful by the knowledge that things like this are far from just fiction for people of colour around the world. More than anything else, it is the existential horror of Anonymous's brutality that sticks in my mind.

Ungirls by Lauren Beukes

The plot summary of Ungirls sounded perhaps the most ambitious and definitely the most fascinating of the six stories, which is maybe why the result felt a little disappointing. Dealing with plot points ranging from sex dolls to prostitution to doxxing to mass shootings to Jordan Peterson-esque public speakers (I mean come on, we all know that was meant to be a Peterson clone right?), the story pulled together a lot of threads but fell just short of tying them together. I think Beukes has a lot of fascinating ideas, like the connection of the Barbie Liberation Organisation to sex doll production, but this book didn't quite do them justice. Ungirls would probably have worked better as a full-length novel or a slimmed-down short story. As it is, it sort of awkwardly straddles the two. That said, it was still thought-provoking and I don't regret reading it.

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With that, we have reached the end of Part 1 of this review. Please stay tuned (subscribed?) for the next instalment. In the mean time, please feel free to share your thoughts on these books in the comments. I would also very much like to hear your feelings about Amazon and whether we can use it to purchase books while still remaining ethical.