A review by donie
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa

mysterious slow-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

...no matter how wonderful the memory, it vanishes if you leave it alone, if no one pays attention to it.

hmMmm I'm kinda torn about how to rate this book... The book tells a dystopian story about losses in a way that can be described as dream-like. Sometimes it was suspenseful; sometimes it was solemn; other times it was calm, be it in the peaceful sense or in the slightly eery way. The writing style was beautiful and I want to give a big applause to the translator too.

Minor spoiler for one of the things I didn't quite enjoy

is that I didn't quite like the sprinkles of infidelity in it even if I kinda understand how it happened (simply just not my thing sorry!!!)

but I was still about to give it a higher rating. However,

when I arrived to the ending part, it gave a sense of meaninglessness? emptiness? IDK WHAT WORD TO USE BUT although sometimes I enjoy stories that isn't really leading somewhere, there was just so much build up, efforts, and things done by the novelist and the old man that when I saw the ending chapter I wasn't sure how to feel. The whole story felt a little pointless, though idk if it was meant to be like that or simply my personal opinion. "But I suppose the order of the disappearances made no difference— if in the end everything disappeared anyway."

So yeahh story-wisw I suppose this is a 3.85 stars or something from me BUT i'm rounding it up because again, I loved the writing style and I'm a sucker for beautifully written proses!!!!!!