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Emily May's Reviews > The Memory Collectors
The Memory Collectors
by
by
The Memory Collectors is popping up in sci-fi recommendations but I'd say it's more of a character-driven mystery. Either way, I really enjoyed it. It was gripping and surprisingly moving.
The science is probably the weakest aspect of the story as it is not very well-explained. It requires a pretty big suspension of disbelief to accept that a person's consciousness travels back in time without their body and, obviously, requires you to accept that consciousness is something that can be separated from the body. But if you don't think too hard about this, the story is very enjoyable.
We follow four perspectives-- Elizabeth, Logan, Andy and Brooke --as they make a time travel jump to their pasts. These four are broken in the present, in different ways, and long for one blissful hour in a time before their lives were irrevocably changed. But their one hour in the past inexplicably turns to two, three... and suddenly they realise they are stranded back in time. Naturally, they begin to wonder what surely all time travellers would wonder: can they change what happened?
Meserve sets it up well by having each one of these characters be in some way sympathetic and/or relatable. Elizabeth's grief for her son is palpable; Logan's thrill-seeking personality feels imprisoned in his body after the accident; Andy's heartbreak over the woman who ghosted him will be familiar to anyone left wondering why? after a relationship has ended; Brooke's estrangement from her beloved family after making a terrible mistake is painful.
It soon becomes clear that these four stories are intertwined in ways none of them could have predicted and I really enjoyed uncovering each layer of this mystery and seeing how it was all interconnected.
One negative is that I was never 100% sold on people spending five figures to go back to a random time in the past, with zero guarantees that they'd even arrive in a time before their lives changed. Super rich people, for sure. But would you really save up all your money to take such a huge chance? I dunno. I wouldn't. But I guess I'm not much of a gambler.
The science is probably the weakest aspect of the story as it is not very well-explained. It requires a pretty big suspension of disbelief to accept that a person's consciousness travels back in time without their body and, obviously, requires you to accept that consciousness is something that can be separated from the body. But if you don't think too hard about this, the story is very enjoyable.
We follow four perspectives-- Elizabeth, Logan, Andy and Brooke --as they make a time travel jump to their pasts. These four are broken in the present, in different ways, and long for one blissful hour in a time before their lives were irrevocably changed. But their one hour in the past inexplicably turns to two, three... and suddenly they realise they are stranded back in time. Naturally, they begin to wonder what surely all time travellers would wonder: can they change what happened?
Meserve sets it up well by having each one of these characters be in some way sympathetic and/or relatable. Elizabeth's grief for her son is palpable; Logan's thrill-seeking personality feels imprisoned in his body after the accident; Andy's heartbreak over the woman who ghosted him will be familiar to anyone left wondering why? after a relationship has ended; Brooke's estrangement from her beloved family after making a terrible mistake is painful.
It soon becomes clear that these four stories are intertwined in ways none of them could have predicted and I really enjoyed uncovering each layer of this mystery and seeing how it was all interconnected.
One negative is that I was never 100% sold on people spending five figures to go back to a random time in the past, with zero guarantees that they'd even arrive in a time before their lives changed. Super rich people, for sure. But would you really save up all your money to take such a huge chance? I dunno. I wouldn't. But I guess I'm not much of a gambler.
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Reading Progress
January 9, 2025
– Shelved
February 25, 2025
–
Started Reading
February 27, 2025
–
Finished Reading
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I just noticed that the setting of the current timeline (and maybe the past too?) is where I lived when I was in high school. I wonder if the location in the book has any resemblance to the real location. I guess I’ll have to read it to find out!
Tracy wrote: "I just noticed that the setting of the current timeline (and maybe the past too?) is where I lived when I was in high school. I wonder if the location in the book has any resemblance to the real lo..."Yes, it's all set in Ventura! I don't know Ventura that well but I lived in LA for seven years so I definitely recognised some of it.
I requested the arc, not sure I’ll get it but added it to my TBR.