Arc Review - Expected Release date August 2, 2022

This story focuses on how memory plays into our day to day life, and what the effects of being able to look back on those memories after the fact would be. You’d pick up on details that your focused mind missed the first time: Like what was the person in the background wearing, did you run that red light before the crash or was it green like you thought, did Scarecrow have a gun in the movie The Wizard of Oz, or most importantly WHO KILLED YOUR WIFE!

I really like the premise of this book, as someone who’s had issues with memory over the years i thought the concept is really interesting that technology could unlock those memories. However the delivery fell a little short in my opinion. At times it was graphic for the sake or being graphic, and for me the ending while realistic fails to really say anything about memory to the characters. Actually there is basically zero character growth for any of the characters except for maybe (view spoiler) making much of the story seem pointless. It’s also presented as a mystery whodunit story but there are no clues or red herrings along the way, which makes the reveal less impactful and somewhat unsurprising.

The writing itself is decent, particularly for an author that is using a non-standard sentence and story structure. The narrator does a good job of bringing the characters to life, and in my opinion audio is the way to experience this book.

This review sounds more negative then I really felt about, the story was fine I think the ending just didn’t do it for me personally, some people will enjoy it. I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Audiobook received for free through NetGalley

This book was a bit dark but once I got into it it was hard to put down. Interesting perspective and I’m so glad I listened to it.

This was an ok book, but not what I was expecting. I was expecting more of a dark and twisted story and was left wanting more from this.

Elements of the narrator were good, but some of it, such as the laughter, was not well narrated! The writing was good and was really interesting to listen to.

The concept of the story revolving around the mysteries of memory was really cool and so interesting. The concept seemed to promise one thing but it was slightly under-delivered I found.

It was still an enjoyable listen, but just not quite what I was expecting from it.

"A copy of a copy of a copy" - isn't this how the series of all the memories start with?
For eg: As a child, we see the first perspective of what eyes are by looking into a mother's eyes. All the eyes that follow (other humans, animals, teddy bears) are merely correlated with the 1st memory - in transit creating more versions of the 1st one.

The book has an interesting perspective of Sci-Fi upon our memories and the lives we live. It will make you question what's real & what's not? In our past did things actually happen the way we remember it today? OR is it just a narrative that we were told over n over again - until it felt like an actual truth?

I am glad I was patient with this book & did not DNF it. I was about to: because the 1st half of the book was too slow-paced with me & nothing was really making sense.

This could probably be one of my few books with divided ratings:
Plot: 4/5
Pace: 2/5
Character development: 3/5
Novelty: 3.5/5
Reading experience: 2.5/5

Overall: 3/5

This was a solid read. The Mystery side of the story as well as the Sci Fi side of the story could both have been examined deeper but the definitive highlight foe me was the philosophical debate about memory and its importance in shaping out existence. This book pairs extremely well with another book I have recently finished titled “Tell Me An Ending” by Jo Harkin which also takes a deep dive into the role memory has on a someones entire personality and overall being and asks how a person would change if certain memories were deleted from their mind. Reading both of these novels within a few days from each other has been fascinating. I recommend this for any sci fi or mystery fans out there.

Thanks to Netgalley and Imbrifex Books who sent me an ARC audiobook of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Scarecrow has a gun by Michael Paul Kozlowsky.
Narrated by David Doersch.
Never trust other people's memories, and watch out for your own.Sean Whittlesea was there when his wife was murdered. He saw the light leave her eyes. He held her dead body in his arms. He knows he wept, but he cannot recollect a single other detail. Tormented by the tragedy, Sean relives the horror over and over again. As he struggles to recall what really happened, his imagination serves up an endless chain of scenarios. The truth, however, remains hidden in the vault of his memory, and the key is nowhere to be found.   Nearly two decades later, Sean, now remarried and a father of two, wins a bizarre contest hosted by his eccentric boss. The prize is the Memory Palace, a state-of-the-art black box that purportedly allows its possessor to relive every moment he has ever experienced, playing out all the memories on a screen.While the small machine at first appears to be the answer to the mystery surrounding the death of his wife, it instead upends Sean’s life. He pushes his family further and further away as the Memory Palace forces him to confront harsh realities and difficult questions that he lacks the strength to face or answer. Spiraling downward, Sean encounters increasingly harrowing challenges that force him to realize that his memory is not the only thing at stake. To recover the truth about his past, Sean must fight for his very life.
This was a good audiobook. I liked the Narrator. Great story and characters. Different. 4*.

Thank you NetGalley for the advance audiobook copy of Scarecrow Has a Gun by Michael Paul Kozlowsky in exchange for an honest review.

I found this book to be very interesting and very intriguing.

Sean tragically lost his wife to a home invasion that he can't seem to remember at all. Sean is later invited to the Widowers Club by his rich boss. In the Widowers Club there are several challenges, some simple and some deadly to compete for mystery prices. Years later Sean is moving on with his life, he has a fiance and daughter when he suddenly wins one the the competitions and wins a mysterious memory box. With this box he can see all his memories. He becomes completely obsessed with this box and spends all of his time replaying his life and losing sight of the life that he has. One day he finally replays the memory of his wives murder and is shocked to see what actually occurred.

I am not typically into SIFI type books but I enjoyed the premise of this book,

Thank you Netgalley for the advance audiobook copy of Scarecrow has a Gun by Michael Paul Kozlowsky in exchange for an honest review. This was a really interesting book. It's amazing how much of our identity is tied to our memories, and they are not always accurate. How I remember a past event is different than my sister or someone else, even though we were both there. Our experiences and therefore memories are different and shape us differently. But what if you could watch past events without the skew of our perspective? Would it change who you are and how you behave? This book delves into that and got me thinking a lot about my memories. Very interesting.

What you think you remember is it reality or is your minds eye playing tricks on you. This book made me question reality of what I think I remember especially in dreams. I really enjoyed the book it really made you really think. One of the things that kept popping into my brain throughout the book is when police go out and interview people who witness a crime and a lot of times its hard to get accurate information. What people remember what they saw can be different from one person to another when they both witnessed the same thing.

The main character Sean enters into a contest to win a box that will show him his memory. He wants to win because he wants to remember how his wife was murdered. This is a mystery to him until this contest. Sean is remarried at this point and the story takes him down a path that may not bode well for him with his memories.

It was a quick read and I really enjoyed it for it made me think about my own thoughts and memories. I would recommend the book. The narrator was fantastic.

The plot had a lot of potential but somehow I couldn't connect with it. The protagonist was a little too self centered for my liking. Even though he could do a lot for his son, but he did not. He could only find fault in his wife. He was the shittiest father to his daughter. And for all his misgivings, he would somehow blame his unresolved issues with his previous wife's murder. He could do so much better than just get consumed by the memory box.

The ending was unsatisfactory and rushed in my opinion.  It felt as if within last 15 minutes his all issues were resolved without giving us a proper believable explanation.

The only saving grace was the uniquel plot. Also  not to forget, here were some really good points and lines put forward by the author and it really showed how thoroughly the author has researched for and thought about the topic of 'memory'. The narrator also did a very good job.

Maybe if I had liked the protagonist I might have given it one more star.

I thank NetGalley for the ARC audiobook copy for my honest opinion.

This had such an interesting premise but... it did not work for me. For me, the interesting premise was the only good thing about the book. This gives Black Mirror vibes with the mix of technology and psychology.

Why it didn't work for me:
- I felt like this was so much telling and not showing and the characters, even the main character felt so one-dimensional. The flatness of the characters made it hard to even care about the story. I was always interested in the premise but I would get bored because the characters were so flat that I didn't care.
- The way the women were written, wow it was cringey and so unnecessary. Like what was the point of describing Josie's body? Like that?
- The twist or the big reveal... like what was the point of this long book for that reveal? I have seen other reviews comment on how this could have been better as a short story and I 100% agree. This book isn't even that long but it still felt so unnecessarily longer than it had to. I think that if it was a short story or novella, that reveal would have felt more impactful. But because we had to go through so many memories, that reveal felt more like... so that's what it is?

I had high hopes for this book because the synopsis was unique, the excerpt was very intriguing, and it had a mystery involved! But I must admit that after the first 30 minutes of this book (the only interesting part of the entire book) I quickly got bored. And I mean BORED.

We are following Sean who lost his wife some years ago whom he had a son with. He's now remarried and fathering another child. The premise is that he was the only witness to his wife's murder and has no recollection of what happened that night. There is this man that trials widowed men and if they win, they become very successful and off to a better life.

This sounds like a good plot in theory but what it amounted to was a shitty father who neglects his children and wife to go on this wild goose chase to find out what happened to his dead wife. But he discovers NO clues until he finally relives the memory in the last hour of this story. What was the point of the other 9 hours then????

I found this book to be EXTREMELY repetitive to the point where I tuned out and didn't care half the time. We get it. Memory is malleable. We get it, memory can't be trusted. We understood after his first use of the memory box. So what was the point of the other 20 memories he reviewed and noticed nothing was as it seemed??? It was so pointless.

The ending of this book??????? Sean is gone for who knows how long, with the memory palace, and returns to a family that is happier than before he left. Clearly they are better off without him. And how was everyone so cheerful to have him back? I don't have a clue. And why did Sean start acting like a husband and father all of a sudden? It was clear you didn't care about them at all. You hurt your daughter because you forced her to use the memory palace??? Your son drinks and gets high and you don't do anything to help him??? Your wife asks you to stop using the memory palace and you ignore her??? You were absent from your family's lives because you were so absorbed by the past.

Was I surprised that Sean was involved with the murder of his wife? Not at all. I even predicted it. Did I care the slightest? No, I just wanted this book to be over with already.

I read and enjoyed the nonfiction " Remember; The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting" by author, Lisa Genova. Ms. Genova is a neuroscientist, earned her undergraduate degree from Bates College in biopsychology and holds a PhD in neuroscience from Harvard. Hmmm ~ Impressive ~ Right?

I was rather sure that this sci-fi story wasn’t going to deal a lot into science but it had me curious.
It does have a bit of a subtitle
Never trust other people’s memories, and watch out for your own.
Story deals with the lies we tell… even to ourselves.
Our narrator is trying to deal with his past and the truth of the ‘Widower’s Club’.

Although I was curious, I soon found I wasn’t sure this was going to work for me. I hung in there and glad I did.

Want to thank NetGalley and Imbrifex Audio for this audio eGalley. This file has been made available to me before publication in an early form for an honest professional review.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for August 2, 2022.

I received this book from Netgalley as an ARC Audiobook. I gave this book 4 stars, as my overall impression of the book was positive. Let’s start with the cover. My first impression, having not read the synopsis of the book, was that the book was a mystery / thriller starring a detective. I was under this impression due to the title “Scarecrow Has a Gun.” I was not correct in the slightest. The title is actually an obscure reference to the fact that in the movie Wizard of Oz, the Scarecrow at some point in the film has a pistol, but that nobody seems to remember this fact. This reference is so obscure, that until the author made reference to it in the last 25% of the book, I had no idea. And even when the character in the book explained this reference, I am still not 100% sure I understand it in the context of the book — maybe that memories are not what they seem? That reality is not what we remember? I wasn’t too impressed either with the cover image itself. I think it is supposed to be a picture of the memory palace, but when I compare it to the cover of e.g. Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King, which is another book about a mysterious box, then the cover of Scarecrow Has a Gun seems rather dark and does not draw the eye. Based upon the cover, I’m not sure I would have picked it up at the bookstore.

Regardless, of my initial impression of the cover and title, I have to say that I really enjoyed the book overall. We meet Sean Whittlesea as he is competing for a prize in his boss’s “widowers club.” Essentially, this is a invitation only exclusive club which is only open to widowers. Every so often (and at random intervals) the widowers compete in a contest to win an undisclosed prize. After several attempts, Sean finally wins. His prize: the memory palace. The memory palace is a box that when plugged into your brain, shows you past memories. Upon seeing such memories, Sean is convinced that there is something wrong with the box because nothing is as he had previously remembered it. Unfortunately, it is all too real and what the box reveals about his wife’s death will alter his life forever.

I really liked the premise of the book: memories are not what they seem. What we actually remember is only an illusion. It made me think whether there are certain memories of mine that are incorrect, or that I am not remembering correctly. Did I really see my grandfather being driven away in an ambulance when I was four? Or is this a memory I have reconstructed from stories told by my parents?

Although this book purports to be science fiction, I didn’t really see any elements of that. To me it would have been better classified as a “mystery” or even a “thriller”. I mainly listened to this book while feeding my 6 month old baby or going for walks, cleaning the house, etc. It is an easy read and doesn’t require too much concentration. It is a great story to pass the time. The story is engaging and I definitely did not see the twist at the end coming. However, the ending left me a little unsatisfied. It seemed a bit rushed. I would have liked to have it drawn out more. It’s like we waited the entire book to find out what happened, and then in one or two scenes everything is explained and then its over.

The most interesting part of the book for me was actually the widowers club, and how the person running this club (Sean’s boss) was essentially “creating” better people so that they could benefit the company. It reminds me of certain cults. I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more regarding the widowers club in the book. I would be interested to read more books in a series about the widowers club. I wonder if the author has this in mind, or if this book was just a one off.

This book will be published in August 2022. I would definitely recommend adding it to your TBR list.