Reviews with content warning for Violence - The Memory Police

This book is so sad but so heartwarming. It’s such a beautiful take on trauma, memory, and existence with a larger context of mass manipulation and dystopian police brutality. Something about the book to me was really heart warming about just people living their day to day lives in unfathomable consequences. That being said there’s like super minimal plot, but if you want to read it for the vibes, definitely do so!

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junheechuu's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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larazager's review

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I went into this book expecting SO MUCH, but it just left me feeling so disappointed. It made me so confused because people are supposed to be forgetting things, for example photographs, but when someone mentions them (like R did) they can still vaguely recall them. That’s not what forgetting is…

Also the thing with the music box… It takes the main character and the old man some time to figure out what it is, because it had disappeared and they couldn’t remember it. But even a while after they listened to it and saw it, a while after them not seeing it anymore, the main character still talks about it and talks about how she can perfectly remember the whole melody. How is that even possible if the music box is disappeared and she supposedly doesn’t remember anything? It makes no sense. How are they able to hear the music from the music box, but are not able to smell the perfume from the perfume bottle that had disappeared?? It’s a huge plot hole, and it makes zero sense.

The main character also made me infuriated with her behavior because she acted so stupid at times, which was the main reason why I DNF-ed this book.

Like she drank the tea at the headquarters even though she knew it might be poisoned???

She also did absolutely nothing worth mentioning (which I guess was kind of the point?) except for hiding R, but even that seemed so random and rushed to me, because literally no one except for her knew that he remembered things?? And he just threw his life away. The novel she was writing was also atrocious and her main character actually made me want to throw the whole book away.

I was SO excited going into this, but now I’m just so disappointed. I did like the style of writing though, and I enjoyed the way everything was narrated in this sort of hazy light, just like the main character was perceiving the world around her. But for me personally, this book just lacked depth and A LOT of world-building. Maybe I will pick it up again someday because I do really like the concept of the book, but I just think it was poorly executed. It’s a shame though, because I really enjoy Ogawa’s writing.

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pamshenanigans's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

“But the laws of the island are not softened by death. Memories do not change the law. No matter how precious the person I may be losing, the disappearances that surround me will remain unchanged.”

A sci-fi dystopian novel that doesn’t rely on action and plot twists. Reading The Memory Police is like listening to classical music: it has short and balanced melodies that slowly introduce the small island where things just disappear, it has bright and dark contrasts that emphasize the island’s inhabitants’ resiliency against the disappearances and the Memory Police itself and how they still manage to live their lives as normal as they can.

As mentioned, this isn't the type of dystopian novel that is action-packed and has the usual formula of “abusive governing body + rebels sworn to overthrow the said government”. Not also the type of dystopian novel where you can nitpick the world-building and the mechanics of how it came to be a dystopian world. It’s the kind that just accepts whatever it cannot control nor change and just shows the different effects of destruction that come along its way. While there are rebellious citizens, their actions are for them and their family’s safety and freedom, not for fighting back the abusers. It shows both hope and hopelessness of the people, violence and finding love and family amidst it.

I love how it just slowly breaks your heart as more things disappear towards the end. Another detail that I loved is how the MC is a writer and is in the middle of writing a novel despite everything that’s happening and how her novel is a fictional reflection / juxtaposition of what they are going through.

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tomasalbanez's review

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dark emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.0

A bit too devastating to be read on covid times, but a really interesting look into what makes us go on or not.

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