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ashleysbookthoughts's review
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
I bought this book 100% because @hellalibrary loved it and included it in her “Books that made me feel things in 2021” list. She is one of my biggest reading influences, and she was not wrong here. This book made me feel things.
We shift back and forth in time, following Sophie and Lucien before and after they are admitted to an inpatient center for abusing Mem, a drug that allows you to experience others’ memories as your own.
Throughout, I was more invested in Sophie’s story than Lucien’s, but Sophie’s was at times hard to read. I could relate to her and Westgates’s writing, particularly in Sophie’s “before” chapters, was detailed and visceral to the point that I sometimes had to take breaks. I felt Sophie’s trauma so fully. Lucien, though we spend an equal amount of time with him, I felt I didn’t know as well. Even at the end of the book, he’s still a bit of an enigma, but that works, especially since I experienced so much of the story as Sophie.
The book, though it definitely has a plot (a compelling one at that), I think is really less about the plot and more about the philosophical and ethical questions of altering memory. Like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Shimmering State asks, do our memories make us who we are? Are we fundamentally changed if we remove certain memories, even if they’re bad or traumatic? Is it worth it? Who gets to choose what we keep and what we don’t? Can you ever truly make an informed choice about something like this? What are the unintended butterfly effects of removing one person or experience from your memory?
This book made me feel and it made me think. I have a feeling I’ll be thinking about these questions for a long time.
CW: death of a parent, drug use/addiction, hospitalization, sexual assault, rape, murder, car accident, disordered eating, cancer, dementia, suicide, suicide attempt, shooting, PTSD, cutting
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness, Murder, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Car accident, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Sexual harassment, Panic attacks/disorders, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Rape, and Mass/school shootings
Minor: Suicide
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