thereadingraccoon 's review for:

Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin

4.5

dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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Book Review: Tell Me An Ending by Jo Harkin

Tell Me An Ending is a science fiction novel about the effects that deleting traumatic memories have on a group of people including patients and clinicians. 

In Tell Me An Ending Jo Harkin paints a portrait of a group of people interlinked by a desire to erase traumatic or unwanted memories by a popular clinic. The rules are pretty simple. They can’t erase anything criminal they’ve done, it can’t be an old memory and all the evidence that they had the procedure is completely locked down and private. The former patients never even knew that they had it done at all until a recent lawsuit forced the company to reach out to each client and offer a reversal. This book follows an emotionally closed off therapist for the company, a husband suddenly faced with the fact that his wife secretly had the procedure, a former police officer that is haunted by an incident he know longer remembers, a college student that is forced to re-trace her own footsteps to figure out what she’s hiding from herself and a young man drifting through cities around the world with no idea who he truly is. We stumble along in the dark with all the characters until what they really deleted is revealed. 

Tell Me An Ending gives us a glimpse of a future that isn’t that impossible to imagine and asks the question of whether the risks are worth it. Are we still ourselves if we only remember good things? Do we learn anything about the world or who we are if we delete the bad? Are our negative experiences so deeply ingrained in us that even if we chemically erase them they find their way back to us? 

I really enjoyed how each character was given their own personality and felt authentic. There were moments of darkness and tragedy but also bits of humor and wit. I really felt empathy for all the characters and could see why they took the actions they did. The clinicians also felt like they were doing good but the entire book brings up the idea of whether we often hurt more people (and ourselves) with good intentions.

I highly recommend this thoughtful and entertaining novel that explores the “what if?” of memory erasing

4.5 stars