I'm so glad I was approved for this ARC of The Memory Thief through Netgalley. I read it as soon as I got my ecopy - a short book is exactly what I was in the mood for.

I was first drawn to this book because of the absolutely stunning cover. It's also a stand-alone fantasy (we all know how rare these are!) in a dystopian world where memories can be bought and stolen.

The beginning was confusing, I felt like there was a lot of information thrown at me in just a few pages. But all of that quickly got sorted out, and I rapidly started enjoying it. This book is very fast paced, and at one point, all the twists seemed to be resolved too quickly. That's when I started enjoying it a bit less. The romance felt predictable and a bit forced, the world building and timeline mixing together in a way that I couldn't make sense out of them anymore. I was also confused by the many characters, with similar names too 😅 When I finished the book, I realized there was a glossary at the end (which would've been very useful to understand the first few chapters), but being an ebook, I hadn't noticed it before.

Overall, it was a good book with interesting elements, but it fell a bit flat for me. 2.5⭐

The Memory Thief is set in a world where memories can be exchanged or bartered so to speak. It's an interesting idea for sure and I wish I could have loved it.

The book did a lot of things ok and very little actually good. While it was entertaining and quick, I can already feel myself forgetting the details of the story, as overall it was extremely shallow. This shallowness comes through most in the world building, where while we do get a lot of it, none of it is fully fleshed out (though it seems like the author is building up to a sequel?) It leads to a lot of ‘woah’ moments that never actually come back around, threads left dangling, and general vagueness about the world in general. I can’t actually continue to ponder the book and the world it’s set in and what the ending means for the characters but I don’t have any frame of reference to understand it, no setting to fully place that ending in.

The plot itself was another thing that intrigued me at first but slowly lost its luster.

I must say that the cover is gorgeous!! Well done to whoever designed it. This book has a very interesting premise but unfortunately it just didn't work for me. I do think, however, this book will appeal to the young adult crowd. The idea of the book is very creative and I think a lot of people will love it even though I didn't.

The Memory Thief
By: Lauren Mansy

4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Synopsis:

In the city of Craewick, memories reign. The power-obsessed ruler of the city, Madame, has cultivated a society in which memories are currency, citizens are divided by ability, and Gifted individuals can take memories from others through touch as they please.

Seventeen-year-old Etta Lark is desperate to live outside of the corrupt culture, but grapples with the guilt of an accident that has left her mother bedridden in the city’s asylum. When Madame threatens to put her mother up for Auction, a Craewick tradition in which a “worthless” person’s memories are sold to the highest bidder before she is killed, Etta will do whatever it takes to save her. Even if it means rejoining the Shadows, the rebel group she swore off in the wake of the accident years earlier.

To prove her allegiance to the Shadows and rescue her mother, Etta must steal a memorized map of the Maze, a formidable prison created by the bloodthirsty ruler of a neighboring realm. So she sets out on a journey in which she faces startling attacks, unexpected romance, and, above all, her own past in order to set things right in her world.

My Thoughts:
Darkly adventurous; Full of twists and turns, great character development, and world building. Easy to follow storyline, single POV. Creative and original magical system!! Everything you want in a YA fantasy book!! This book has it all, your heroine, your villain, your romance and best friends, etc. Etta is strong, resilient, and smart but will that be enough to save herself and her loved ones from the murderous madame?!
Ever wonder what it would be like to be trapped in a memory? Living in a groundhog day inside your mind? This story takes a dive into the psyche and just how touchy the memories we have are...

I cannot believe that this is Mansy's debut novel...it is way too good to be a debut novel! Through her engaging prose and vivid world that she creates, you cannot tell that she is not a seasoned author.

One of the things I loved most about this story is how well she sets the backdrop of this land with 4 different kingdoms where there are Gifted who may steal and transfermemories through touch, Ungifted who cannot, and Sifters who can steal and transfer memories through sight. Julietta lives as an Ungifted, though she is truly Gifted, to hide from those she betrayed to save a loved one. The theme fits well with dystopian but is also quite unique. I have not read any novels that play out quite like this or with the same setting and plotline.

I also really enjoyed the characters. I felt like there was a lot of character development and the dynamic characters really made them enjoyable and interesting. Julietta started out guilt-ridden, scared and defeated, but throughout the book, she begins to change and also helps change those around her. She has made many mistakes before the story begins, which really makes her an intriguing character, but the reader really gets to see the guilt they have brought and watch as she must learn to forgive herself as she seeks for forgiveness from others she has wronged. She is fiercely loyal and protects those she cares about at all costs and I loved Reid as I felt he did the same. Their personalities paired nicely together and I loved watching them get to know each other and become closer through the novel.

The writing was really superb. I love how Mansy worded things and I also thought the plot was spot on with plenty of engaging surprises along the way. I'm usually pretty picky about many authors' writing style rubbing me the wrong way but I could not find a fault here. I started the book and could not put it down. It absolutely absorbed me into the story and I could not let go until I found out what happened to the characters I began to love more and more. I am really excited to see what Mansy writes next and will definitely be keeping an eye out so I can snatch up her next book too! She's a new up and coming author that I would not want to miss!!

Thank you net galley for the advance reader copy of this novel. The r kept of buying and selling memories in this book was very unique. There was good world building in this fantasy novel but could have been even more developed. The slow romance of Etta and Reid was well done. Overall a good YA fantasy.

***ARC received from Blink and NetGalley in exchange for honest review, opinions are all my own. Thank you!***

This is a tough one for me because this book has a really interesting premise and there are lot of parts of the book that are very good it just never fully connects. It makes the book feel disjointed in the end.

Etta lives in Craewick, a city under a vicious ruler and memories, where the gift and ungifted live. It is in this aspect that the book really shines, the concept of the gifted. Minders and Sifters are those that can see peoples memories, not just to see but to take. The book starts strong when we are witness to an auction of memories and we get to see, not be told, what happens to those that don't fall in line. But its not just the auction, the threat of people being to take your memories or worse instill memories into you that are not your own is a threat that the author tries to weave into the book. Yet, it is done more through telling the reader as opposed to showing us. We get a very brief glimpse of the asylum, people trapped within their own memories but it is never enough to feel like a threat to our characters. It certainly had the potential to be and for a few brief pages the author does create a very riveting story. Yet, even when Etta's mother goes up for auction it feels like Etta has a ridiculously long time to fix things. Maybe thats not true, maybe its a couple of days but it feels way too long and I think that, for me at least, feel tense enough, even though the author did a good job with reminding us that Etta wasn't nothing more than to save her mother, it never felt like the pacing was as invested in it.

The mid way point is about the part where the plot begins to fall apart. The beginning was really strong, it had the threat there, the fear of the minders, the betrayal and possible consequences. Once you get to the middle part the book feels more interesting in ticking off a list of tropes than it does telling the story that it wanted to.

Maybe had it not been a stand alone and a series it would have had more time to develop into the book it has the true potential to be.

The concept behind this novel is extremely interesting: memories are a commodity that can be sold or stolen by Gifted individuals. The premise is what kept me reading, but unfortunately, some factors led me to put the book down halfway through. For a young adult book, the writing was fairly good and in keeping with YA style. The characters unfortunately felt a bit stale to me. I was hoping for something out of the norm for YA. By that I mean I wanted something different from "gifted young woman saves the country and those close to her while also falling in love with a strapping young man." Unfortunately, this book did fall into step with those tropes. My biggest gripe and the reason for giving up on this book, which I rarely do, was the relationship between the main character and her love interest. Initially, she hates him. Somehow, though, 20 or so pages later, she's in love with him. I'm not looking for realism in a YA fantasy, but this relationship was just too unrelatable and unrealistic for me.

Overall, I think I enjoyed the book. The world and the concepts are pretty cool, and I love the character development, but I felt like the writing the flow of the memories was a little off. I love the minimal romance and the growth of Etta and Reid's relationship, but the writing felt kind of mediocre. I wanted more descriptions of their surroundings, but the book was a lot more about flashbacks and action. It just didn't flow well. It was a very quick reading because of the level of the writing, but I would still recommend it based on the story itself.

What do you get when you cross Hunger Games, Divergent, The Bone Season and Forget Tomorrow? You get The Memory Thief.

The concept is rather interesting, reminding me of the aforementioned books. There are those gifted with the ability to read minds, take memories or abilities, which makes for an interesting world. But for me, the pacing was difficult and made it hard to get into the book. If anyone has read The 100, you know that you're constantly being thrown into the past which made it nearly impossible for the plot to move along. The Memory Thief does the same—it drags because you're constantly re-hashing memories. I knew the concept of the story would make things tricky to play out and SHOW the reader the past rather than talk about it, but this also slows down the pacing of the book considerably.

I enjoyed the characters, I really did, but I found it difficult to remain attached to the NOW story because we were constantly reliving things that had happened already.

The ending was where everything happened and quickly so. You learn about so much more here than what you do with the first 3/4 of the book.

It was a good read, don't get me wrong, I just couldn't get past the memories/flashbacks.

This book is set in an interesting world where memories can be traded or stolen. Cool premise. I had really high hopes for this book, but unfortunately it fell a little flat for me. When it comes down to it, I felt the story was rushed. I wish there had been more building between the characters and the tension going on in the world. It was also a little too...well...sappy. Too much happy family feelings which took away from the grittiness of the book.

I liked our cast of characters, but, again, I wish there had been more development of them. They felt a bit superficial and the relationships a bit rushed.

All this being said, I did enjoy the book overall. It wasn't a bad read, but it could have been a better read.

Loved the premise of the book. Couldn't put it down hardly. I just felt like it was one big rush to the end though. As if the author had these ideas they just HAD to get out. Honestly, the story could've used some slowing so that the reader had time to digest the twists and turns and get to know the characters more.

Cool idea for a story. I really enjoyed it, even though it's not my usual genre. Thanks for the opportunity to read it!

The memory thief is an inspiring story of hardship, and the battle to recover from that. You follow the story of Jules aka Etta how she trapped her mother in a coma, gave her father up and killed 3 friends. I was unable to put this book down, every page inspired more ! The author does an incredible job of creating the picture for you so you feel like your right there alongside them. I loved the ending very happily ever after but it was perfect after the trail and tribulations everyone had to face. Would recommend to anyone !

Sifters. Minders. Ghosts. Shadows. Hunters. Hollows. I really enjoyed this book. I LOVED the idea behind it. Memories being used as currency, bribery, ammunition and more... what a scary thought. I like that for the most part it has a good flow and it was easy to follow. I hit a few plot twists and couldn’t put it down! The twists were well done and didn’t leave me confused or over saturate the story with useless filler.

The only thing I didn’t like was the anti climactic ending. I liked HOW it ended but I felt the way we got there was rushed.

I received this book from @netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I can honestly say that I can’t even begin to imagine having to use my memories and experiences as currency. Or have someone use a bad memory to hurt me mentally or emotionally. This to me is worse than physical pain.

I received a netgalley copy in exchange for an honest review.

I personally was not able to connect with the writing style of this book. I felt it a bit juvenile and repetitive. I noticed on multiple occasions that certain things were repeated and it kind of annoyed me.

The story was fine. The pacing was good except the ending felt super rushed. The wrap up was too long and kind of unnecessary.

The characters also felt kind of flat. There wasn’t much character building through the story. At one point, Etta just learned something new about someone she should hate and then automatically accepted it and moved on. It didn’t quite seem realistic.

Overall I think it would be a good book for younger YA readers. The older ones I don’t think would connect the same way the younger readers might.

I received an eARC of this from Net Galley in return for an honest review.

This book was painful to read. I wanted to DNF it so badly but I stuck it out to see if it got any better. It didn’t. The writing isn’t horrible, but it uses a LOT of colloquial sayings that made it boring and unoriginal. It was also somewhat confusing, we would suddenly have flashbacks or see memories and the transition was so jarring it took me out of the novel. It was also annoying when the author would repeat the same exact memory later on in the book, seriously just give us a quick reminder of the memory if you want us to recall it, don’t give it word for word again!

This book also didn’t have much of a plot, well much of an exciting one. I suppose the main character walking around a lot constitutes as a plot right? And can I mention how everything was just handed to her?! She literally did nothing. They call her a hero because she took someone’s Gift as they died and it merged with her own to make her unreadable which her unreadability (sort of) saved the day, but it was mostly her dad’s sacrifice and her grandpa’s army. Yeah so this book wasn’t really that exciting. I was so confused at what was going on in the final fight, it wasn’t very well described because as I understand this mind fighting Sifters can just drop people with a look while most Gifted can just touch you and steal/take memories. So the final battle shouldn’t have been that bloody would it? Apparently not because somehow all the buildings were destroyed except one but we saw none of it because our amazing main character was knocked out.

Yeah sooooo I kinda didn’t enjoy this book and I basically tortured myself by pushing through. Should’ve saved myself the time and DNF’d at 40%...

"The Memory Thief" draws us into a world where memories can be bought or stolen giving their new owners different skills and abilities. The main character Etta receives a notice that her mother is up for auction and has to return to the Shadows to make a deal with her old crew and enemies.

This book drew me in with the memory auction and the desperate hunger. However, after the auction the book started to let me down and fall apart.

The biggest issue I had was the pacing. It becomes very clear where the plot needs to take us and for the first third of the book it does fine with things progressing at a steady rate. But once Etta reaches where she needs to go I felt that the pacing speeds up and doesn't make sense anymore. The romances did not make sense to me nor did the alliances. Once both of these happened the depth to the story and the characters was lost for me.

This book was average for me and I already have forgotten about it. Luckily I kept notes and I could follow them to remember exactly what happened in this book. I think the idea of this story was awesome but it just had pacing issues.


**thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

I really liked the premise of this book. It is a very unique and interesting concept. It was however, a bit hard to read and follow at times by the fast paced flow of the book- I feel like if some aspects of the story were more developed with further information and scenes, it would really help the reader to be follow along and get lost in this world.

Well, well, well...It’s the happiest, fairy tale-iest dystopian fantasy that you ever did see!

Seriously, it’s Disney dystopia.

There’s plenty of mayhem along the way, and a few sad moments to remind you What We’re Fighting For in this particular realm, but I do believe this is the least bleak book I’ve encountered in the genre.

And I can’t decide if that makes it schmaltzy or refreshing.

The basic concept regarding the theft and repurposing of the memories of others is actually pretty clever, and I have to admit it was nice not to have to feel as distressed as one normally does when reading dystopia.

The book reads quickly and harbors some traditional fantasy elements which, as someone who isn’t all that fond of pure dystopia, I found pleasing.

Thought the characters are largely common stock types and in many cases feel too good to be true, you’ll like them anyway, and the plot moves well enough and has decent enough twists that it’s still enjoyable even if the wins seem to come a bit too easily for our heroes.

A light, easy read for those who prefer their dystopia with a hearty helping of Happily Ever After.