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speculativebecky 's review for:
MEM
by Bethany C. Morrow
Head over heels for this book. You know that feeling when you’re reading a book and you can’t quiet the internal screaming from how much you’re enjoying it? That was me the entire time I was reading MEM by Bethany C. Morrow. Wowowow I loved this book.
Morrow seamlessly blends speculative and historical fiction in this novel, which reimagines 1920’s Montreal with the addition of a fascinating technology that allows people’s memories to be extracted so they no longer experience the associated pain. This process creates a Mem, a sort of clone that isn’t self aware and exists only to experience the source memory over and over until it expires (dies.) Our protagonist Elsie is the world’s first self aware Mem; not only is she able to think and feel and form new memories of her own, but she recalls the complete memories of her source prior to extraction. The entire book is a gorgeous musing on what it means to be human, and on the wonders and pains of memory.
Coming in under 200 pages, Morrow packs so much into this brilliant novel. I was spellbound by Elsie’s story, and longed to linger with the slow unfolding of increasingly major revelations about her differences and the deep questions she grapples against, yet I was caught up in its tightly paced conflict and breathlessly turning pages. There are some turns to the story that are generally not-my-favorite (TM) but this book had me so enthralled I can find no flaw in it.
A glorious work of speculative fiction, this book would easily find a home in hearts of SF lovers, as well as literary types who enjoy books like Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go where the speculative elements intentionally push the reader into the big questions of what makes a human.
Morrow seamlessly blends speculative and historical fiction in this novel, which reimagines 1920’s Montreal with the addition of a fascinating technology that allows people’s memories to be extracted so they no longer experience the associated pain. This process creates a Mem, a sort of clone that isn’t self aware and exists only to experience the source memory over and over until it expires (dies.) Our protagonist Elsie is the world’s first self aware Mem; not only is she able to think and feel and form new memories of her own, but she recalls the complete memories of her source prior to extraction. The entire book is a gorgeous musing on what it means to be human, and on the wonders and pains of memory.
Coming in under 200 pages, Morrow packs so much into this brilliant novel. I was spellbound by Elsie’s story, and longed to linger with the slow unfolding of increasingly major revelations about her differences and the deep questions she grapples against, yet I was caught up in its tightly paced conflict and breathlessly turning pages. There are some turns to the story that are generally not-my-favorite (TM) but this book had me so enthralled I can find no flaw in it.
A glorious work of speculative fiction, this book would easily find a home in hearts of SF lovers, as well as literary types who enjoy books like Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go where the speculative elements intentionally push the reader into the big questions of what makes a human.