Fuller is at her best in this novel. I have read all of her stories, and am always pulled in quickly and held tight. I was less sure on this one due to the premise, but as always the characters quickly had me invested in the story. A really good read.

Warning -- THE MEMORY OF ANIMALS is not for people who haven't gotten over pandemic trauma! Claire Fuller, quickly becoming a must-read author for me, takes on the end of the world to an extreme degree, as only she can. The novel reminded me a lot of 28 Days Later and Station Eleven. Hilariously, the publisher also compares it to The Breakfast Club which strangely.. also works. But at it's heart it's contemporary sci-fi.

Neffy signs up to be a test subject for a new vaccine for a pandemic that's sweeping the world. Things go wrong though, when a new variant of the diseases breaks out when her and the other subjects are locked inside for 3 weeks. We learn about her life (she also loves octopi! And has an inappropriate relationship with a family member!) as the book goes on through some cool sci-fi contraption that another subject, Leon, sneaks in (no spoilers but it's a pretty cool plot device). It's a thrilling page-turner and also a harrowing survival story. It meanders a bit towards the end, but all in all, if you can stomach it, this is a winner. I can't wait to see what Fuller tackles next.

Unusual and immersive. This is a recommended purchase for collections where genre bent lit fic is popular.

this one was interesting... definitely felt inspired by the pandemic, though i'm not sure if it was. i fell into the story right away though, and had a hard time looking away.

thank you netgalley for the arc!

I had a difficult time with this book. I found it hard to follow, but stuck with it because of the interesting premise. I’m glad I did because the second half was much better than the first. I would read other books by this author.

I will admit I had a hard time with this book and it ended up on my DNR pile. I usually am a fan of Claire Fuller but really did not connect with this one at all.

A tender yet devastating look at survival in the darkest of times, the solace of memory and the importance of hope. Full review posted at BookBrowse: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/reviews/index.cfm/ref/pr298560

This was just not good.

There were three different threads to follow and none of them were well done and they didn't fully intertwine and we are left without answers in the end.

The writing style is overly done in a way that feels forced and ends up being boring.

Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for this free ARC in exchange for a review.

Unfortunately I was pretty underwhelmed by this book. It felt like there were three different plot lines- the virus and the characters stuck in the hospital, Neffy’s memories of her family, and Neffy’s recounting of her relationship with the octopus, H. Never do these plotlines intersect like I would expect them to, or seem connected except by surface-level threads. For example, I understood that Neffy as a test subject felt like she could relate to animals in testing. However I didn’t think this was the same at all because Neffy chose to put herself in this situation.

I was not interested in any of the plotlines or any of the characters, although I think what would have been most interesting would have been if the story focused mostly on Neffy and the octopus.

If I had something positive to say it would be that I liked the ending.

I am not generally a fan of science fiction, but Claire Fuller has been on my radar for a while, and I've been trying to read as many pandemic books as I can, so "The Memory of Animals" was a must. And I was drawn in straight from the start, when twenty-something marine biologist Neffy, recently unemployed and in need of some fast cash, volunteers for an experimental vaccine trial in the unsettling early days of what threatens to be a deadly pandemic. The book then moves back and forth between Neffy's experiences in the London clinic where she and her fellow volunteers are quarantined, and her memories of her past in Greece, among other places, which she is able to re-experience with the help of a device called a "Revisitor." Oh--and Neffy is also writing letters to an octopus, excerpts of which are included throughout the novel. It all sounds a bit strange, and it is, but Neffy is a well-developed and authentic character capable of grounding the narrative in a sense of realism, and Fuller's descriptions of the chaos and fear pervading London during the early days of this fictional pandemic feel reminiscently and uncomfortably real as well. Of the many pandemic-adjacent books I've read thus far, "The Memory of Animals" is probably the most disturbing--but also one of the best.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Tin House Publishing for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

3.75/5 stars! I was incredibly intrigued by the premise of this story, especially as we are all surviving a global pandemic in real-life. This reminded me of that Robin Williams' movie "What Dreams May Come." It is uplifting and tragic in equal measure. I enjoyed it but it felt almost too heavy at times, which led to me taking breaks during my read.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review

Admittedly, this was a strange novel. The world is experiencing a pandemic and the protagonist, Neffy, volunteers to a trial for a vaccine that may just cure the virus. However, Neffy finds herself falling gravely ill, after receiving the vaccine. When she comes to, the world has taken a turn for the worse and the hospital in which she checked in for the trial is deserted, except for four other trial participants.

Together, they strategize to ensure their survival, locking the outside world out and partitioning the remaining food supplies. We learn more about Neffy through a device named the Revisitor, which allows her to go back and revisit past events, returning to Greece for precious moments with her now-deceased father. We also learn more through her letters to a mysterious h, which provides a fuller glimpse at how she came to be a disgraced marine biologist.

Overall, it is a rather grim novel, exploring the aftermath of a pandemic that left the world in shambles, as well as the faults and failures of the human race.

Thank you to Tin House and NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to Net Galley and Tin House for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. This book started off slowly. We meet Neffy as she's agreed to be part of an experimental vaccine trial, possibly the last hope as an world pandemic and chaos is happening outside. Her life is in a bit of a shambles - she's out of work and bit lost --and it seems this is the best way to get away. She's been given the vaccine and is feeling ill...and then she wakes up and finds that only a few other volunteers remain, surviving on what is left. Neffy befriends Leon who introduces her to way of visiting her past. We learn of her relationship with an octopus during her work as a marine biologist, her relationship to her parents and Justin, a love affair that had recently ended. The past, present and future begin to blur with these "revisits". We learn along with her what has happened at the volunteer center while she was fighting the virus and all the things that have brought her into this point in her life. There is a nice twist at the end. With many pandemic related stories, this time of anxiety and chaos provides the perfect backdrop to look back on one's life and process loss, grief, and consequences and connect them with how to move forward in life.

Thank you to the Net Galley and the Publisher for this Advanced Readers Copy of The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller!

Whew. This one affected me. Neffy, a struggling marine biologist, volunteers to be a subject in a medical trial to test a vaccine for a global
Pandemic. Medical personnel come and go as Neffy is confined in a room, carefully documenting how she’s faring. One day, the medical personnel don’t come to work - the other volunteers leave their rooms and start to talk and share and make big decisions. My heart was beating quite easy in sections of this book - the writing so good to elicit me feeling the fear and uncertainty and desperateness of these characters in the hospital. Fuller does a masterful job of writing with evocative beauty as these people are forming their own little society in this new world. It’s creepy and tense and lovely and odd. There are letters about octopi. Go with it. I learned a lot about them! What a great book - give it a go. Highly recommend. Thanks to Tim House Books for the advanced copy.

In this novel, a terrible pandemic sweeps the world. A small group of people are chosen for a vaccine trial in England, including our main character Neffy. The trial doesn't quite go as planned, and Neffy is in and out of delirium. She awakens to a post-apocalyptic landscape in which she and the other patients in the trial are seemingly the only survivors. Interspersed through the novel are letters to an octopus. Read this if you liked How High We Go in the Dark or Station Eleven.

This was such an interesting mash-up of genres! Pandemic apocalypse? Weird memory watcher? Musings on animals in captivity? Claire Fuller definitely created a situation that had me intrigued. While I appreciated the points it made I desperately wanted a lot more world building and would have gladly spent 200 more pages in the book with it's beautiful prose. I was less interested in the past parts. Also that cover needs to be enlarged and hung on a wall. Thank you so much to Tin House for the ARC of this one.

Loved everything about this. It was heartbreaking and lonely and beautiful. Will be buying my own copy!

It almost feels wrong for a pandemic book to be so lovely, but Claire Fuller's writing is full of beauty. The Memory of Animals takes place in a Post-Covid world where a new pandemic threatens to wipe out the entire population. Neffy has volunteered to be one of the first to receive a trial vaccination and just after she's been injected, the world seems to fall apart. Neffy and the other members of the trial find themselves confined to a hospital wing with dwindling supplies and little hope that someone will come back for them. Though we don't see much of the outside world, the author does a really great job of creating a sense of dread. The moments we see through the hospital windows are incredibly bleak and unsettling.

There was a lot going on in this little book and for the most part I really loved it. The story is told from Neffy's POV in the present timeline, but we also get to know about her life through letters she writes to H, her octopus friend, and through the memories she relives during her Revisiting sessions. I thought The Revisiting technology was interesting, especially since memory loss is one of the main symptoms of this new pandemic.

Thank you to Tin House and NetGalley for a review copy.

This dystopian read was scarily close to what could be. A second- super pandemic has hit and this story explores the after-effects of survival. Tucked away in a hospital, five 20-something’s learn they are on their own. One of the five has been working on a machine that transports the subject back into his/her memories in a vivid way. This story follows one of the five survivors through her memories and through the fear of all the unknowns that accompany their new reality. I don’t want to give too much of the story away- so I’ll leave it there. But know that there is so much more to this book. If you’ve read anything else by this author- then you know how well she writes between the lines. The things she doesn’t have to explain for you to feel them acutely.

I would consider this read a strange, disconcerting, upsetting, engaging and emotional one. I was fully vested in this one. It won’t be for everyone- but if you enjoy dystopian- then I definitely recommend putting this one on your list!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tin House for the ARC of this book to read and review. Pub day: 6-6-23