A review by ielerol
MEM by Bethany C. Morrow

4.0

There are a lot of ideas going on in this short book, about memory and the nature of personhood. They're ideas I've read some really good SF exploring before, so I was hoping this story would lean a little more into the uniqueness of the premise, the idea of living embodiment of memory, and what that specifically means. I had a lot of questions about the mem technology that this story just wasn't interested in answering, which is ok, I prefer that to prominent but unconvincing technobabble. At one point I worried the story would just be another morality tale about how hiding from unpleasant memories is bad for us, and while that aspect is there, it never becomes the sole focus. In the end I think the book is most successful as a character study of Elsie herself, what it has meant for her to be the only self-aware mem, how she grows and learns to understand her own nature. For that I enjoyed it very much.