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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
This book is set in a dystopian future where every citizen is equipped with a "Mindbank" that controls their memories. China is the victor of a war and now controls the U.S. There is no back story as the book is told in random memory vignettes.
There was nothing wrong with the book - it just wasn't my type of book.
In a future dominated by the Qin Empire, the Mindbank technology allows for memories to be recorded and transferred, so you can experience the memories of others. This turns memories into a commodity, so they can be bought, sold, and traded. They can also be edited, erased, and banned, which is part of how the Qin Empire maintains their control. A man inherits his mother's memories, which includes many banned ones. He knows when the government censors catch up with him, he will likely be killed.
The bulk of the book is made up of these banned memories. The author calls this a constellation novel, and the memories can be read in any order. The various memories include: a diplomat's son who plays chess with an orphan, a writer who befriends a watchmaker, an armless swimmer who competes for the country, a mother who cooks a pot of stew for her sumo wrestler son. Each memory was an engrossing story in itself, but also raised larger questions: why was this memory saved? why was it banned? how do they connect to each other? I really loved this one, minus the author's slightly heavy-handed message at the end. The memories themselves were rather subtle, and I wanted more subtlety in how it wrapped up as well.
The bulk of the book is made up of these banned memories. The author calls this a constellation novel, and the memories can be read in any order. The various memories include: a diplomat's son who plays chess with an orphan, a writer who befriends a watchmaker, an armless swimmer who competes for the country, a mother who cooks a pot of stew for her sumo wrestler son. Each memory was an engrossing story in itself, but also raised larger questions: why was this memory saved? why was it banned? how do they connect to each other? I really loved this one, minus the author's slightly heavy-handed message at the end. The memories themselves were rather subtle, and I wanted more subtlety in how it wrapped up as well.
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Thank you to NetGalley for an Advanced Reader's Copy of this book. All the thoughts below are entirely my own.
The premise of a world where our memories aren't even our own was truly fascinating to me!! That concept of the memory bank and how it could be used for good or evil was interesting to read about. This is a book that leaves you thinking!! I will say there is a lot of jumping around in time and in writing structure, which could lead to a confusing reading experience for some people. Overall, though, I think the social commentary on surveillance states and living under fascism comes across loud and clear throughout the entire novel!!
I want to add that I really enjoyed the multiple narrators for the audiobook; they brought this story to life.
The premise of a world where our memories aren't even our own was truly fascinating to me!! That concept of the memory bank and how it could be used for good or evil was interesting to read about. This is a book that leaves you thinking!! I will say there is a lot of jumping around in time and in writing structure, which could lead to a confusing reading experience for some people. Overall, though, I think the social commentary on surveillance states and living under fascism comes across loud and clear throughout the entire novel!!
I want to add that I really enjoyed the multiple narrators for the audiobook; they brought this story to life.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Death, Genocide, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Alcohol, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Classism
Prefacing this with that I DNF'd at 31%. The concept of memory sharing seemed interesting as hell which is why I requested the ARC. When I got it, I'll be honest. It took me a while to even get through the first portion. The boy at the beginning is giving a message to everyone letting them know the memories he was sharing were from his mother; that he wanted to share them all before they were edited and/or removed for being illegal banned memories. The book is apparently a collection of connected stories all related to different banned memories.
While the story I read was the Arc, it jumps through POVs too much. One chapter will start talking At you, or the Qin Audience, in 2nd person. "For the next minute, listen to my voice as we prepare you for your upcoming experience." The next paragraph will shift to 3rd person as it tells you a small story and slowly shift into using first person pronouns for the descriptions before another page goes by and its suddenly referring to you - the reader/Qin audience - again. It's personally very disorienting.
After that chapter, we're given a "viral memory" and then another message from the boy at the beginning. I don't believe we ever meet the same characters twice aside from the boy with no name from the beginning; I believe that's a downside of these types of stories. The collection of stories aren't long enough to give me any connection to the characters aside from one that I don't even have a name of that occasionally pops in to talk directly to the reader/audience. It makes me less likely to enjoy the story, the characters are a spill of water. I know nothing of them and therefore their struggles and such aren't enough to make me concerned or find a way to connect with them. Perhaps I'll try to re-read this later and I'll adjust my review then but for now, it's not gonna be finished.
Thank you Netgalley for an ARC of this book.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
While the premise of the Qin Empire, the Mindbank, Memory Capitalism, and memory censoring is fascinating, there is very little said about how all of this works. Given it was this premise that drew me to the book, I was disappointed.
Instead the book is comprised of a series of vignettes - memories. They are all told in the first person. At first I thought they were all of the narrator’s mother’s personal memories. However, there are two memories featuring young women about the same age, so they can’t possibly belong to one woman. I found this very confusing.
Were these memories his mother collected, since they didn’t all appear to be her own? And if so how did she manage to acquire them while evading the censors? So many questions!
That said, I am in the minority given the 4 rating on both Storygraph and Goodreads. Obviously, this book wasn’t meant for me. Yiming Ma is a good writer who knows how to paint a scene that’s easy to see. So I can understand how readers with a more literary appetite enjoyed this book. I really didn’t.
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
In this sci-fi dystopia, a man receives a dangerous inheritance from his mother: her memories. These memories follow various people at different times in their nation’s history. It’s sweeping, imaginative, and dark, yet hopeful. These Memories Do Not Belong to Us is about the power of storytelling and how it works as a tool of resistance.