Tell Me An Ending - Jo Harkin

Sci-Fi

Rating: 8.5/10

This ingenious novel takes place in a world not unlike our own, with one rather significant, and potentially alarming, difference.

People can have memories removed, with either some vague knowledge of having made the choice to do so, allowing the specifics to become abstract, or having every thought and thread of the memory erased entirely.  Then something goes wrong, those that had the full erasure are having traces, small glimpses of people or events that they cannot make sense of.

The author follows this thread through the narration of Noor, who is the head of the aftercare team at the clinic responsible for this delightful mind meddling procedure, as well as four one-time patients as they struggle to understand the traces suddenly bombarding them.  Turns out there was a flaw in the procedure, shocking right? And now the company is offering to restore the memories before they regenerate themselves with potentially immeasurable consequences.

As the story unfolds, we have no idea of what it was that our characters went to such lengths to escape but we are quickly invested as the author allows their stories to entwine.

In addition to offering up exceptional speculative world building and extensive character development, the author gives us plenty of philosophies on memory and ethics to consider.  Many of which can be summed up with this quote…

Ponder This…

“A man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through these stories; and he tries to live his life as if he were recounting them.”  Sartre.

Book Pairing(s): Scarecrow Has A Gun by Michael Paul Kolowsky, Sevendown by David Whitton, Severance by Ming La