I have not yet had time to read this novel before the archive date. I am looking forward to reading it and once I do, I will come back and leave a proper review!

#thememorycollectors by @neville_kim - This book was thankfully sent to me by the publisher @atriabooks 😍
This book's prologue sets the most lovely family picture, probably that Ive ever read. Just a real loving family. I was more than a little disturbed about the darkness that fell over them. I loved the premise that the protagonist Ev could feel emotions left behind on objects. I really appreciated the concept that "things" can absorb the energies around them and reflect it back to others around them for many years. There are people who claim to read objects and who knows if they are fakes or if they really do have some truth in it. Havent you ever walked into a space that felt "heavy" or conversely, gone into a room or a home that radiates happy? I have. If you've ever experienced that, I think you'd especially enjoy this book. It goes dark, so be forewarned, but the characters you meet along the way make it enjoyable and the concept is just so intriguing! I honestly would love to see the other side of all the events and revisit with those characters! Many thanks for this lovely copy, love that cover it just seems to glow in the light 😍 - I gave this review on @Netgalley and on #Goodreads I gave this a 4 star rating. Check this book out, it just released earlier this month!

I really enjoyed this book. The premise is that objects are imprinted with emotions from the people who owned them, and Ev has a special ability to perceive these emotions, even from a distance. Whether this is a gift or a curse depends on the percption. Some of the objects project joy and love, but some project anger or evil and need to be gotten rid of. The harmless "bright" things Ev sells at the Night Market, which is part of Chinatown, in Vancouver. Ev makes a meager living selling these objects.

One day Ev's life intersects with another who can also sense the emotions attached to objects. Harriet is much older than Ev, and over her life she's collected many, many objects - only she doesn't get rid of them as Ev does - she keeps them all. Harriet is a hoarder. Harriet realizes that Ev is just the right person to help her make something special of all her things - a museum of memory.

I loved the characters in this story and had a lot of fun spending time with them. The touches of magical realism made it more interesting. The hoarding aspect is something that has always fascinated me - how someone can become so attached to object they can't give anything up.

Thanks to Atria Books through Netgally for an advance copy.

The Memory Collectors by Kim Neville is a magical realism novel that revolves around the premise that objects hold memories and feelings instilled in them by their owners. I loved the concept of this book and how every object holds different memories and feelings. How true is that?? The Memory Collectors follows Ev and her sister Noemi, as they navigate life after the loss of their parents. How they lost their parents is unknown, but slowly comes out throughout the story. This kept me intrigued and wanting to know more about the sisters and their new friend, Harriet, who joins their story as another person who, similar to Ev, can sense the feelings of objects. This book takes a subject that is normally looked down upon, hoarding, and turns it into something beautiful. I really enjoyed that aspect of the book.

The characters could have used a little more fleshing out, but overall, I enjoyed this book and found the concept unique and attention grabbing. I would recommend The Memory Collectors to others, especially fans of magical realism and escapism. This book is atmospheric and immersive, which I loved.

This is one of the more unique stories that I've ever read. In The Memory Collectors, Ev has a special ability that she feels is more a curse than a gift. She is capable of feeling the emotions that people leave on objects. This book is magical and mysterious.

This story is beautiful but also heartbreaking in that the two main characters are haunted by pasts that they can't outrun and that they are burdened with no only the positive emotions left on objects but also the negative. This book made me take a deeper look at the family heirlooms and childhood items that I surround myself with.

Thank you Atria and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I am a frequent thrift store and garage sale shopper. I’ve no shame in proclaiming that a good portion of what I own was purchased secondhand. I rarely think about the fact that these objects were once witnesses to a thousand different emotions in their previous homes, although I can often tell which ones received the most love.

The idea of being able to feel previous owners’ emotions within discarded finds greatly intrigues me, although The Memory Collectors does make it clear that this can be burdensome as well. If you’ve ever felt empathy for someone else’s plight, you know how exhausting experiencing the emotional life of others can be. There is beauty and tragedy within it.

Kim Neville’s debut tells the story of two women who possess this gift. While Ev sees it as a sickness, Harriet cherishes her ability to experience the trapped emotions of the objects she’s collected. She wants to create a museum of bright memories to bring comfort to those who travel through it. She enlists Ev’s help, since they are connected through their ability, but they also have a darker connection to someone from the past who also possessed the gift and was destroyed by the negativity brought to him through certain objects .

In the beginning, there were a lot of things about these characters - Harriet and Ev - that resonated with me, despite how very different they were. It was interesting to see how they both approached their gift. The concept Kim Neville built this story around was an ingenious one and, on the surface, it seemed like it rippled with symbolism. Sadly, I didn’t feel the inception’s promise carried on throughout the story.

I expected something that would stir emotions and pivot around magic. The magical element existed, but the emotional component fell flat for me. Most specifically, I’d anticipated warmth in the development of the museum plot line, but that was more a device used to bring the characters together. I do wish more energy had been put into the healing aspects, instead of other branches of drama.

I don’t think this was a bad book. It didn’t give me what I was looking for and that mainly boils down to preference, although I think expecting to have a less indifferent response on my part is fair, given the premise. It does take an unexpected path that may fully captivate many readers out there. I will sit on the sidelines and cheer them on if they love this. I don’t always need to be one of them.

I am immensely grateful to Atria Books and NetGalley for my digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

The Memory Collectors is available now!

Neville’s story is fiction at its finest with a splash of magical realism. Even though there is a hint of sorcery, her tale isn’t that far fetched. I connected with this story because I believe that possessions exhale energy on a daily basis. There are reasons why I surround myself with things that bring me joy (thanks Marie Kondo), but that is not always the case for everyone else. Evelyn and Harriet narrate the story in alternating chapters. They are not the warmest or fuzziest characters on the block and their stories unveiled the truth one chapter after another. Neville is a beautiful writer who flawlessly captures her character’s anguish and grief. Emotions are high in her book and they bled into my reading experience page after page, leaving me wanting more. The pacing of The Memory Collectors fascinated me. The slow and steady start attracted me to the story right away. As I settled into this mesmerizing tale, the momentum began to pick up. Before I knew it, this contemporary fictional novel with a hint of fantasy turned into a suspenseful and gripping story that had me on the edge of my reading seat. And finally, let’s not forget the supporting cast that not only compliment our leading ladies, but have their own story to tell. A big shout out to Owen the artist, Noemi (Evelyn’s sister) and Brett (who I need to know more). The Memory Collectors was a pleasant surprise that left me a very happy reader.

This was a truly magical story that took on a more mysterious twist than I anticipated. A special type of magic that lives in objects and can help or harm you. I loved the quirky characters and the secrets they each held. Highly recommend.

Ev can feel the emotions left behind on belongings and thinks most of them should be destroyed. She'll sell harmless ones at Vancouver's Chinatown Night Market. Harriet hoards thousands of these objects, making her neighbors feel sick. She needs Ev's help to make a museum out of her collection, especially when the last person they know who had Ev's gift had spiraled out of control in response to objects. While they want to make sure that never happens again, the darkness is reaching out once more.

Ev and Harriet have different outlooks on these emotion-laden objects. Ev calls them stained, and Harriet calls them bright objects. The two connect by accident, and it's a fortuitous meeting; Harriet is hoarding the objects she finds and is about to be evicted. Creating the museum out of positive energy helps Ev learn how to deal with her gift, but Harriet feels like she's losing the connections she had with the emotions and memories. On top of that, Ev's younger sister is back and tends to push Ev out of her comfort zone too far too fast.

There's a heartbreaking reason why Ev was so scared of her gift, but she's got a very strong talent with it once she allows herself to use it. She can be personable with others more than she thinks, even if her sister is the social one. Their relationship zigs and zags, and I have a hard time getting a feel for Noemi or her motivation. I feel sorry for Harriet, weighed down by her own memories and the memories of others, and Ev is constrained by her fears of becoming like her father.

This all comes to a head in the final quarter of the book, which has a claustrophobic feel to it. Mountains of memory-laden objects are piled, they're all trapped, and secrets are laid bare. It's a physical and emotional maze to wade through, and the reader is along for the ride. It ends with a bittersweet sense of closure, where the characters are all free of the past at last. I loved the quiet rhythm of the ending, especially after the emotional climax of the story. It's a fascinating concept and a great story to read about.

Title: The Memory Collectors
Author: Kim Neville
Genre: Fiction, magical realism
Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Ev has a mysterious ability, one that she feels is more a curse than a gift. She can feel the emotions people leave behind on objects and believes that most of them need to be handled extremely carefully, and—if at all possible—destroyed. The harmless ones she sells at Vancouver’s Chinatown Night Market to scrape together a living, but even that fills her with trepidation. Meanwhile, in another part of town, Harriet hoards thousands of these treasures and is starting to make her neighbors sick as the overabundance of heightened emotions start seeping through her apartment walls.

When the two women meet, Harriet knows that Ev is the only person who can help her make something truly spectacular of her collection. A museum of memory that not only feels warm and inviting but can heal the emotional wounds many people unknowingly carry around. They only know of one other person like them, and they fear the dark effects these objects had on him. Together, they help each other to develop and control their gift, so that what happened to him never happens again. But unbeknownst to them, the same darkness is wrapping itself around another, dragging them down a path that already destroyed Ev’s family once, and threatens to annihilate what little she has left.

This was an odd book. Maybe quirky would be a better word, but either way, it’s unusual. It’s different, but the way Ev and Harriet see the world, the way their minds work, made for fascinating reading. No matter what Harriet tries to tell herself, she’s a hoarder. And reading about the hoarder house was moderately terrifying. Marie Kondo she is not. This book is also not light reading—there are heavy, sad topics and dark emotions all throughout, but it is also very intriguing.

Kim Neville lives in Canada. The Memory Collectors is her debut novel.

(Galley courtesy of Atria Books in exchange for an honest review.)

(Blog link live 3/24.)

This book was unlike any book I have read - and I loved it! I found that it started slow, but was well worth sticking with, the 2nd half of the book was difficult to put down!

Ev has a secret ability, she can feel emotions left beyond on objects. She sells the harmless, good emotional objects in Vancouver’s Night Market. Ev believes her powers are a curse, until she meets Harriet. Harriet is an old woman with the same powers, however she hoards thousands of objects in her home, making her neighbors sick. When Harriet and Ev meet, they decide to create a museum of memory out of Harriet’s collection. Together, they learn to control their gift, instead of fear it, based on the dark effects the gift had on someone they both knew in the past. Will this gift wrap itself around another member of Ev’s family before she can stop it?

This is a beautiful, heart wrenching novel about buried secrets and how the past has power over us, the objects surrounding us and the relationships that we build.

Thank you to Netgalley and Atria Books for my advanced reader copy.

Thank you to Atria books for sending me a copy of this book! In The Memory Collectors, we have two main characters: Harriet and Evelyn. Harriet is, for lack of better words, a hoarder. She collects things, and has houses full of stuff. Evelyn also collects things, but she also has a unique gift. Her gift is that she can sense the emotions and memories that are associated with different objects. These objects range in everything from happiness to anger and grief. Evelyn and her sister, Noemi, have experienced a traumatic event in their childhood. I don't want to give too much away because that is a big revelation in the story, but let's just say that when it is finally revealed, your heart will break for Evelyn and her sister. Evelyn and Harriet are supported by a couple of complimentary characters, Owen and as I mentioned previously, Noemi. All four of them end up coming together to help and support each other. This was a very interesting book. There were parts of it that I liked and other parts that I found a little confusing. I loved how Evelyn and Harriet were different, but they were also the same. You got the sense that they both had had hard lives, and that both women were suffering from different events from their past. Mostly, they were introverted recluses who pretty much kept to themselves. I also thought the idea of objects having emotions was interesting. It is no secret that we, as humans, especially Americans, are often attached to materialist, tangible items. I know I can be at times. One thing I have learned about people who are labeled as "hoarders" is that they often have an event, or series of events, that have triggered the compulsion to hoard. I thought this book was an interesting look at that intimate side of things, and the author definitely portrayed it in a way that makes the reader sympathetic to the main characters. There were some parts throughout the book that I felt were a little slow or seemed to drag on a bit. This is definitely a slow burn book that is mostly character driven, in my opinion. All in all, I thought this was a beautiful story about the thing, and memories, that we collect.

The Memory Collectors by Kim Neville is a truly fascinating story featuring some of the most creative magical realism I have ever read! The title of this novel alone draws you in - how intriguing! Memory collectors? Sounds spooky and fantastical. Well, it's a little bit of both. I am not quite sure exactly what genre this book belongs in because it crosses over a few - magical realism, contemporary fiction, mystery, definitely some suspense, family drama, women's fiction and sci-fi/fantasy... This is a diverse story that builds slowly but keeps you interested the entire time. 

I was so intrigued by the concept and stayed invested in the characters. Who are these special people, will they find peace, will they heal, how will their magical powers help others? I loved how this book tied into so many emotions and ideas about how things and objects influence our daily lives. 

I highly recommend reading this story for some fantastic escapism!  

Thank you, NetGalley, Atria Books, and Kim Neville, for a copy of this book for review! I love it.

The Effects of Memory on Two Women’s Lives

Ev dumpster-dives for treasures to sell at the Vancouver Chinatown Night Market. She has a special talent that is both a gift and a curse. She can feel the emotions or stains left on objects. Good emotions are pleasant to feel, but there are dark memories also. Her family was destroyed by this gift and she fears it will happen again.

Harriet is a hoarder. Her apartment is filled with treasures both bought and found. She feels happy surrounded by her treasures, but her neighbors have a different reaction. They are being made ill by the escaping emotions and they want Harriet to do something about it.

When Harriet and Ev meet, they recognize the potential to help each other. Harriet wants to do something good with her treasures and Ev can help, but there’s always the shadow of a darker problem.

This is an imaginative plot. The story is told from the point-of -view of the two characters. We’re able to hear the thoughts of both women and understand their relationship to things and their fears and hopes. This gives the plot an intimate feeling. We think we can understand both women.

The book starts slowly. We learn about what drives each woman, but it goes on too long. The action doesn’t pick up until the end. I enjoyed the mix of fantasy and reality, but but found the slow pace made it rather difficult to maintain my interest.

I received this book from Atria Books for this review.

Perfect for fans of The Scent Keeper and The Keeper of Lost Things, an atmospheric and enchanting debut novel about two women haunted by buried secrets but bound by a shared gift and the power the past holds over our lives.

Happy Pub Week to Kim Neville! And thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for gifting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I have to admit that initially, I was not a fan of this book. The introduction was a little slow and hard to follow, and because our two main characters Ev and Harriet are more reserved and standoffish, it was hard to feel attached to anyone in the story.

However, as things progressed, I really became invested in the story and was captivated by the magic system that was treasured by Harriet and a curse to Ev. I think the dueling viewpoints made the story more unpredictable and throwing Noemi's secretiveness into the mix felt like a wild card that would change the whole trajectory of their journey. Reading this book made me reflect on the items in my life and what experiences they might project if they were 'stained'. The concept itself is so creative and made for a beautiful story that left me wanting more by the end. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and getting to know the characters and watching their relationships change and grow. I will definitely be looking forward to future writings from Neville, as she is a beautiful storyteller.

Kim Neville’s debut novel The Memory Collectors is an intriguing and unique read. I love the cover of this magical realism novel—it exudes the feel of the novel. The book synopsis reminded me of Paula Brackston’s The Little Shop of Found Things, but very quickly, it is obvious that the stories follow a much different path!

All the characters are flawed but yearn for normalcy. The main characters and narrators, Harriet and Evelyn, share an ability to feel or read the emotions of objects. Through their dual points of view, told in multiple timelines, readers learn of their deeply emotional and tragic histories and their current paths. One is a hoarder/collector of objects that emit strong emotional energy. One finds them and sells them to survive. One views her ability as a talent, and one views it as a curse. Their histories color their views and their present lives. Beyond these two characters, the flawed secondary and tertiary characters deeply add to the story. Owen, who turns found objects into art, is the catalyst to Harriet and Evelyn meeting. Evelyn’s sister, Noemi, is a bit of an enigma, but she is also a key to both Harriet and Evelyn’s epiphanies.

Despite the slowly unfolding plot, this book is engaging. I couldn’t tear myself away from each character’s story. I was completely invested in the characters’ lives as they connected and unraveled. As a whole, there is a lot of sadness and heartbreak in The Memory Collectors. There is also hope for a better future, and ultimately, isn’t that what we all need?

Look around you, my friends. See all the objects that you’ve acquired over the years? Each object around you has their own story- where it came from, what it means to you, maybe it has a specific meaning to your life or maybe it doesn’t. The Memory Collectors follows Ev and Harriet and their unique ability to feel the emotion of every single object around them. How interesting, right? It turns out this ability can be quite dangerous depending on the feeling the object has and how strong that feeling can be. An object might give off a loving & happy feeling whereas another may give off an angry and spiteful feeling. In the novel we follow Ev and Harriet as they learn about their ability and avoid being consumed by the emotions.

I really enjoyed reading this book and it was a quick and fast read for me too. The storyline of The Memory Collectors is really unusual and I applaud Kim Neville for her creativity in writing it. This story is full of mystery, drama and magical realism. The only thing that really bugged me about this book are the loose ends with some characters at the end. Otherwise, I recommend you check this book out ☺️

Thank you so much to @netgalley and @atriabooks for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

When a young woman with a unique ability to feel emotions meets another person like her, she has to decide whether she’ll trust her new acquaintance with her deepest secrets. As the two begin working together, the woman learns to harness her ability for the good of others and herself. Author Kim Neville showcases her Canadian hometown of Vancouver in the well-intentioned but somewhat faulty novel The Memory Collectors.

Evelyn is doing her best to get by every day. She makes her living by selling items at the Chinatown Night Market in Vancouver, BC. The trinkets come to her by the frequent dumpster dives she does, and the items almost call to her. Evelyn, in turn, sells the best of what she finds at the market. Those pieces that feel benign she gives to her diving friend, Owen. The worst she destroys.

Because for Evelyn, or Ev, it’s literally about the feelings. She has an ability that no one else except her father shared. Ev can touch objects and sense the emotions attached from previous owners. Joy, anger, distrust, shame—all of it comes to Ev when she puts her fingers on things. She calls the emotions “stains,” because that’s how it feels: like the things of the world carry the smudges and marks of their emotional burdens.

Dumpster diving is by no means lucrative. Ev ends every month scrambling to pay her bills. It doesn’t help that her position in the Night Market is precarious at best. The people there aren’t that fond of her, and she’s in danger of losing her spot.

In other part of the city, Harriet is also in danger of losing her place. For her, though, it’s her apartment. Harriet collects items, odds and ends really, that emanate their emotions. She calls them her bright things, and they make her happy. Except the neighbors keep complaining about her bright things lining the hallways in boxes, and everyone in the building is suffering from bad headaches and vague frustrations.

Harriet knows her bright things are to blame. They carry the weight of their emotional pasts, and those feelings are leaching into the building. When she’s threatened with eviction, she starts to think about where she might take the bright things and how they could, possibly, help others.

Ev and Harriet cross paths during one of Ev’s dumpster dives, and Harriet knows Ev is the only one who can help her with her dilemma. She shares her plan with Ev: to build a museum where her treasures can live and maybe help others by drawing them into their positive energy.

Ev is skeptical that any item can have a positive impact on people. She’s seen the absolute worst that can happen in her own family, and it left her and her sister the victims of a horrible tragedy. Yet the more she talks to Harriet, the more confidence she gains about her abilities to manage the effect the stains have on her. Maybe it is possible to interact with people’s most intimate feelings and still come out feeling whole.

Author Kim Neville digs deep into the magic she’s created for the world, and the result is a well-rounded experience of that system. Ev’s interaction with the stains feels real and almost tangible. Neville will certainly have readers thinking about their own possessions and what kind of emotional impression is left on them.

The book falters in character development, however. Ev is, by far, the most well-developed person in the novel, but everyone else around her doesn’t get the same importance. While Ev frets about her younger sister, Noemi, readers don’t get to know Noemi well enough to feel that invested in her. The fact that Noemi keeps disappearing for pages at a time doesn’t help.

Also, the book alternates between Ev and Harriet, yet Harriet’s past is mostly a mystery. Some key facts are never revealed, and others are explained with a few sentences that become the taglines for Harriet’s life. Ev’s dumpster diving friend Owen also doesn’t get his due. In early chapters it seems as though Owen and Ev are close in age, but later chapters contradict this assumption and overall readers never get to know much about him either.

One of the highlights of the book is the depiction of Vancouver. Neville brings her hometown alive, and readers will be clamoring for a visit. That and the magic system in the book will keep some readers engaged to the end. I recommend readers Borrow The Memory Collectors.

It's always been true that objects can hold certain memories for us, good or bad. It's also a fact that some people are more sensitive to things than others. Kim Neville has combined these two facts and created an original and imaginative debut novel about two of these sensitives, who pick up on the emotions and stories held by various objects.

Evelyn is a young woman in her early twenties who has always had what she calls "the sickness". She can read the emotions of objects that have been "stained" by their previous owner's serious emotional connections to them. Her family was destroyed by the dark and dangerous power of holding on to "bad things". As a result, she tries to have as little connection with things as possible, even wearing gloves so she doesn't touch anything. Her apartment is nearly bare except for a bed, a small table and a chair. She holds herself apart from people as well, because people just make no sense to her. Despite her efforts, her mind is constantly bombarded by the emotions of the things around her. She makes a sparse living by selling things at a market that she has found in dumpsters, "safe" things she knows people will be drawn to by the emotions they contain.

Harriet, an older woman, is also a sensitive. She, however, lives much differently than Evelyn. An heiress who has lived her entire life alone, Harriet collects everything she can. Her home is stuffed to the gills with her treasures. Seeing Ev at the market, she offers to buy everything Ev has for sale, but Ev refuses to sell anything to her. When Harriet questions "why?" Ev states that she's dangerous, she collects indiscriminately, and the muddled emotions spill out of her home, making others sick. Harriet becomes intrigued by this perspective.

The two women are brought together by their mutual acquaintance, Owen. Harriet wants to turn her home into a memory museum, filled with items that will make visitors feel good, and fill them with happiness and joy. She hires Owen and Ev to help her cull through her collections, putting like emotions together, and placing the dark and dangerous items someplace safe. Though it's a wary alliance, the two women come to appreciate each other and through each other learn more about their gift. "Harriet's enthusiasm has infected Ev, and she's glad. For the first time in fifteen years, she isn't afraid of her own skin, afraid of touching things. For the first time, at least on good days, like this one, she can imagine a life outside of day-to-day survival."

Ev doesn't realize there's another sensitive nearby; this one absorbed by objects containing negative energy who is deliberately leading Ev and Harriet into danger. Whose power will be stronger? Who will survive?

This is an interesting read, and an impressive debut for the author. I rate it 3.5 stars rounding up to 4 stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for allowing me to read an e-copy of the novel. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The Memory Collectors by Kim Neville is a novel following Ev and Harriet, two women who have the ability to register the feelings that linger on objects. Harriet is the older one of the memory collectors who collects as many objects as she can, but her vast collection of items is now starting to ooze and influence the feelings of the neighbors in her building. In contrast, Ev avoids as much contact with objects, living in an empty, brand-new apartment to cope. Instead Ev curates items to sell to afford her apartment, living in a precarious financial situation. When Harriet discovers Ev digging through her items after Harriet's neighbor discards her items, the two discover they have the same ability. Although Ev tries to run away, Harriet tracks her down and hires Ev to curate the items in her apartment to create a museum for healing.

This was a lovely premise and reminds me of the The Scent Keeper, however I have not read that book to compare. I found it very interesting how much of an effect the objects had on everyone in this book and it made me consider how the items in my life may affect me and when I may be holding onto items that are not positive anymore. I loved the amount of growth that happened in the characters and how they were able to balance each other out. I also liked that Harriet originally thought she would be teaching Ev, but quickly realized that there was much she could learn from Ev as well. This book was a breeze to read and had me flipping the pages. The book has dual perspectives from Ev and Harriet and also includes some flashbacks that relate to Ev's trauma. The pacing slowly unfolded for most of the book but had a fast ending that I think could have matched the pacing of the rest of the book a bit better. Regardless this was a sweet book that I would recommend to anyone curious about this premise!

Many thanks to the publisher Atria Books and Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.