March 2022 update: I've been thinking about this book for 2 months straight, so I think I'm bumping it up to 5 stars. It really resonated with me.


Original Jan 2022 review:
I really liked this, but I don't think it's for everybody, so it's getting a three star "I liked it and would only recommend to a handful of people".

The memory police begins as a novel about surveillance, but really explores the idea of boundary erosion. The main characters in the novel are frogs in a pot of boiling water, noticing that it's getting a little warmer but not worrying too much or jumping out. But jumping out would be impossible, anyway.

I really liked how this theme was complimentarily explored in the main character's own fiction, and how we got to see things go from bad to worse in these subtle but jagged ways.

This is an extremely bleak book and is very ethereal. I recommend it if you're all right with a lot of bleakness, interested in the banality day-to-day of a surveillance state, and don't mind some absurdity in your magical realism.

More thoughts here: https://youtu.be/ph6RGiTwc18