Reviews

The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller

rebeccajb's review against another edition

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dark
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Unsettling 

vickyhhh's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really enjoyed this, and have enjoyed most of Claire Fuller's books so far. This was set in a covid-esque time but wasn't too familiar. I thought the sci fi / memory aspect was a bit random at first but it all ties together nicely. It had good pace, kept me hooked, and I enjoyed the world that she built in the novel. Would recommend!

hjfritz27's review

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dark sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

mmemonstre's review

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dark reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

victoriafrombookclub's review

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challenging dark emotional

4.0

rumpunchhh's review

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1.0

Not totally convinced she didn’t fuck an octopus

mayaschnake's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

jillmarlo's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

This book was kind of underwhelming overall. When I originally read a synopsis for this book, I thought the post apocalypse aspect of it would be much more apparent and therefore this book would be much more sci-fi, but I realize now that the whole virus thing is really just an excuse to cram a bunch of characters together to create interpersonal conflict and provide a basis for why this girl can go down memory lane so much. It was much more character driven and reflective than I usually read. It wasn’t bad necessarily there was just some stuff that wasn’t super well done in my opinion. Especially the ending was just so weird.
Like there’s this huge build up to realizing that the other people in the hospital locked the other participants in their rooms and sentenced them to death and then it was immediately moved past.
Also the characters were all just…weird. Like Piper and Rachel and Yahiko would fly off the rails at a moments notice and fight with each other. Rachel acted like a child sometimes, but then acted normal at others. Piper is actually insane and thinks the army is coming for her and is trying to get Neffy to sleep with Leon in order to make more babies which makes zero sense.
And then Neffy ends up having a baby anyways??
Also the whole octopus thing felt like it was supposed to be super impactful and a massive message on freedom and the balance between having freedom, but being exposed to dangers because of those freedoms, but it just seemed so silly that this girl keeps getting fired from all of her jobs. Eh I don’t know it was just like of underwhelming in many aspects. 

booklovingcatmom's review

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challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

atenderwitch's review

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I've seen a lot of reviewers touch on the disconnect of the memory machine in this book and want to argue that there was another out of place bit of science fiction in this book -- the experimental growing of organs inside of a womb???