Reviews - The Memory Police

14.6k reviews for:

This book was strongly not for me. I did not finish it about half or two thirds of the way through. I was bored. The poignancy of the prose was lost on me-- perhaps the translation did not capture the sense of angst well enough or maybe it did so too well and the apathy of the characters failed to grip me, as apathy has a way of doing.
I was also really frustrated with the fact that characters who had "forgotten" things could still... remember them? Talk about them? Knew their names? It made it hard for me to understand the problem with the whole forgetting business. Apparently the ending of this book ramps up and is where the larger philosophising takes place, but I put this book down over and over in order to do anything else, so I guess I'll never get there.

maddiebee's review against another edition

4.0

emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

kurori's review against another edition

3.0

I would have loved this book if it were a novella or a short story. It’s unnecessarily stretched out hence it got boring at times. I love the way Ogawa writes the serene eeriness of her stories pull me in every-time. The reason i could finish this book was because of the way it was written

luciebrt21's review against another edition

5.0

Il est difficile de finir se livre sans être anéanti par l’inéluctabilité du destin des habitants de l’île.
C’est une dystopie du point de vue des personnages qui ne peuvent pas se battre contre les forces en place mais qui subissent le nouvel ordre du monde.