Welcome to Litsy!

As I was reading this I wasn't completely sure how I felt about it. It took a leap of faith to believe erased memories take the form of a living being. But the author nailed the ending, so I was satisfied! So often a lackluster ending ruins a story for me, so this was a pleasant surprise! Read this from @MeganAnn 's #auldlangspine list, so thanks!! And thanks to @Monalyisha

March #bookspinbingo update. I finished 11 titles.

Favorites were Spinning Silver, Songs in Ursa Major and MEM (tagged, also a March #roll100 pick) all 5 ⭐️ reads.

#bookspin was R‘Jaal‘s Resonance - Ruby Dixon is always a great read. I loved being back on the Ice Planet.

#doublespin was The Lightkeeper‘s Daughters which was in my stack from mom category.

Icebreaker was a #booktokmademedoit read for #nsr23 ⬇️

Mem is set in an alternate history where scientists have discovered a way to extract memories from your mind. These mems are shells of the person in which they just relive the experience. Except one - Dolores Extract #1 can think and speak for herself. The story follows her life when she is recalled to the 'Vault' of mems after living on her own for years. It's an interesting story but I felt like some things could have been explained more

While the theme/idea is interesting (sci fi take on preserving your memories, good it bad, by extracting them out of you in the form of a human-like copy of you), the plot felt jumbled & jumped around making it difficult to follow despite being so short.

February plans!

“If people are imperfect enough to destroy their minds, perhaps they cannot perfect the procedure that allows them to do so.”

I wanted to love this but I just kept getting lost. I found most of the characters very flat. The winding storyline was confusing. I finished it but it was just ok.

I have been trying to read this book for over a month, and I think it's time to call it. I like the premise and there is nothing wrong with the writing, it's just not grabbing me.
Maybe another time.

I picked this one up last year on audiobook and couldn‘t get into it. But, grabbed it on a kindle daily deal and read it in two nights. A great companion read to The Memory Police.

"I was cautious over the safety of a practice whose advertised purpose had changed too many times. Real people, it seemed, were less skeptical. They appeared always too trusting of easy pleasures."

This intriguing little book got off to a slow start, but ultimately ratcheted up the tension. It reminded me in some ways of Never Let Me Go (with a dash of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). A young woman in an alternate early 20th century Montreal has her own thoughts and feelings, even though she is a mere memory shed by her "real" owner. TW for grammar purists: dangling participle on page 9; just one though, so don't panic.

“If people are imperfect enough to destroy their minds, perhaps they cannot perfect the procedure that allows them to do so.”

My review: 🤯😳😰🤭🤯

Novella with original take on the issue of what makes a person a real person. Our memories, good and bad, are who we are, and even if they‘re erased, they never leave us.
If anyone has read this, I‘d love to discuss the ending!
Thanks to the lovely @HotMessJess for sending this to me!

This slim novella is very nuanced. I was drawn to the premise, hooked by the psychological repercussions of creating the Mems, and found myself enjoying every page. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Explanation for missing star below.

Somehow, this quote put me in mind of break-ups. So, I‘m sharing a picture from my first (& really, only) big heartbreak (long past). It‘s a vulnerable thing. Here you go. #ihaveliterallynosecrets #oversharersanonymous

Seriously though, I feel like this would be a good book for someone to read who was going through the dissolution of a relationship. You are not *a* memory or *a* feeling. When you‘re done going through it, you‘ll be strong. 💪🏻

This book makes me wish I was *studying* Literature still, instead of just reading it. I‘d dedicate time to a comparative reading of it alongside “Frankenstein.” The scientists in “Mem” — a speculative novel set in 1920‘s Montreal — are not reanimating a corpse but they *are* birthing a creature with something dangerous at its core: a memory, attached to a passionate, vehement (often traumatic) emotion - extracted from a person & made flesh.👇🏻

Bethany Morrow, casually describing exactly my type of fiction:

“One of the most rewarding aspects of writing speculative fiction is infusing magic and whimsy (and, of course, devastation) into a world not always unlike my own.”

P.S. I‘m not taking my tree down (yet or maybe ever*). You can‘t make me.

#NewYearWhoDis

My husband‘s away, touring briefly with his friend‘s band (taking photos & video for them at a video game conference they‘re playing in DC; livin‘ the nerdy dream) — so it‘s just me & my #NewYearWhoDis list all day today. 💕

Please, take a moment to admire my new mug, which I received in the annual Secret Santa that my college friends & I still manage to keep alive. I died when I opened it. It was the “party never” that really got me. 😅🥳❌

All packed up & ready to return to work. Sort of. 😭

At least I have my first #NewYearWhoDis book to keep me company! I‘ve read the first couple of chapters & I‘m liking it so far! The concept is cool: it‘s sort-of reminiscent of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” & sort-of reminiscent of “Westworld” but set in the 1920‘s & totally its own thing.

It‘s mere hours until the official start of the #NewYearWhoDis reading event! Here‘s some sparkle & a fat stack to get you pumped up!

I‘m looking forward to reading a good chunk of these, @ladyneverwhere 🎉!

Happy New Year, Littens! 😻 Hope your night is bright & your 2019 goals have nothing to do with self-sacrifice. 😉😜🥳

#istillplantoeatallthecookies

Sneaking this thin book in to boost my end of year count.

Full #NewYearWhoDis list, compliments of @ladyneverwhere 📚. The titles highlighted in red represent those I‘ve already read (see what I did there? 😆 #homophonepun). The green are the titles I want to read most.

I likely won‘t read the titles that haven‘t been color-coded (for various reasons; for instance, “Homegoing” is on my IRL book club‘s list & I have to wait to read it with them 🙄).

Thanks for creating such a sparkling gem of a list!💎

Yup, clear proof that I filled in my feedback form wrong 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️😂😂😂

Great, um, except those should be flipped. I LOVED Mem so much I wanted to make everyone I know read it. I couldn‘t get past the first few pages of Atlas. Maybe I filled out the form wrong 🤔 I don‘t get a lot of uninterrupted sleep these days 😖 Just for the record y‘all: Bethany Morrow is fantastic; I need to read more from her.

This was AMAZING. Beautiful, thought-provoking, and so well written (and read since I listened to it). I cannot praise this enough. I will definitely be looking for more from this author. Thanks to Book Riot‘s Tailored Book Recommendations for putting this on my radar.

Speculative fiction. That's what they call this apparently. I got a bit lost in places, it leaves a lot to the imagination. If you have questions about the plot you'll have to answer them yourself. Very nicely written short read and quite fascinating on the whole, I'm still thinking about it a week later.

The first few pages are confusing, what the hell am I reading? Then click, your brain starts to work and you're in, you can't put it down but you have to. Why do I start books so late in the evening?

It's not a good sign when you reach the end and double-check to make sure you didn't miss a chunk or misunderstand that it is not the first book in a series. I kept thinking the book must have more coming because it set up the story and character on an intriguing premise about an extracted memory fragment who becomes her own being. But then it sputters along and just ends. It read like a long pitch proposal that had not developed into a novel.

I signed up for @bookriot ‘s Tailored Book Recommendation service and I‘m really excited to read my recommendations! This is the first pick and it sounds really interesting.

Impressive debut novel that imagines an alternate past in which people have managed to extract embodied memories. Dolores Extract No. 1 defies expectations from her inception. More than just a Mem, she questions her nature, the right to ownership, and what it means to be an individual. The novel is short almost too sparse at times. I wish some themes had been explored more, but it‘s a promising debut.

Must be good. Named after the airport code of the greatest city in the world.

What if you could extract your memories? Just remove the ones you don't want. Would you do it? Now, what if those memories were exact copies of you, living but forever locked in that point in time? Told from the viewpoint of a unique Mem (memory) who has somehow gained sentience, this short speculative fiction novel set in the Art Deco period is a delightful story that makes you think about how we define what's real and what's not.

Mem is a lovely book. Though very smart and considered, it‘s ultimately driven by emotion and the sort of spontaneous realizations that happen when one least expects it - the kind one looks back on as having a “before” and “after”.

Loved this one! The idea of creating living memories to forget pain of the past is so original. A very quick read but worth it!

Stopped by one of my favorite indie bookshops (Bookstore 1 in Sarasota) while a couple packages came in the mail. I love having so many books-in-waiting.

"Why is memory this way? Why isn't it content to hurt you just once? Why must it remind you of all the times you've been hurt before?"

Found this on my library app during my grudging "wish this were Libby" browsing this morning. It's a sci-fi novella about the ability to extract memories and placing them in "holders" that look like the person they come from. A curious idea for sure.

"I am Elsie, Harvey Parrish, not Dolores. And I am an epiphany."

Gorgeous.

Some amaretto and a good book 👌 #mem

#morningcoffee ❤️

For such a short book it left me with a lot to think about. Set in a world where people can extract memories that then become their own beings called Mems. Most mems are just shell like reflections of their source but Dolores One is able to think and feel and make memories of her own. This book covers questions about humanity and memory in under 200 pages.

Afternoon reading.

Loving the book under the jacket. Fancy! #goodlookingbooks

I enjoyed this concise, thoughtful, well-written historical science fiction novel that asks what it means to be human. Recommend if you enjoy literary scifi.

This novella packs a lot into a slim volume. Much in the same vein of “Never Let Me Go” it explores the question of what makes a person. Additionally, though, this book explores memory, how it shapes us, how it helps prepare us for life ahead, and what we become without it. I liked the writing style and the early 20th century setting. 5⭐️ The ebook is available on Hoopla.

I'm back from vacation and getting re-organized with life stuff, but here are the 4 books I'm currently in the middle of! Ideally I'd love to finish all of them within the next week or so.

On page 50 of this 184 page book, intrigued but still puzzled. I feel like I should understand better than I do this far in what the central question or problem is.

This weird little novella presents a world where people who need #help forgetting can elect to have a memory extracted, where it then spins off into its own person and is kept separate from the rest of the world. Think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind meets Westworld 🤯 I loved Morrow's philosophical approach to our concept of memories, good or bad. Save this for a rainy day when you can open it up and read to the last page 🖤
#heyjune

Novellas and giant bags of Kettlecorn.

#thanksscribd