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Liana Liu

Författare till The Memory Key

3 verk 129 medlemmar 9 recensioner

Verk av Liana Liu

The Memory Key (1636) 72 exemplar
Shadow Girl (2017) 53 exemplar
Shadow Girl (2017) 4 exemplar

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This was a rather fascinating book mainly because of the concept and the thoughts it provoked in me, but the plot and the characters didn't satisfy me.

In this world, a lot of the older generation had been struck with a disease causing them to lose their memories, and as such, most people now have memory keys to preserve memories. Just like the real human brain, the chips make these memories harder to recall over time. There was little other information given about this world--while it would assumedly be in the future, people still go to the library to use the internet, which implies that it's more of a today type setting.

Our main character, Lora, had her mother die five years prior to the beginning of this book, and she laments this loss daily. She finds that as she loses the vivid memories of her mother she once had, she almost loses her mother again, something that many people can relate to. But one day, she bumps her head and the part of her key that affects her ability to recall memories gets screwed up and all of a sudden she can basically relive her memories.

What strikes her is the memories she has of the night before her mother's death when some strangers showed up at her house. However, I don't understand why this wasn't a big deal to Lora at the time. It seems like she's always been looking for a way her mother could have survived, so I'd assume that a younger Lora especially would have fixated on these events.

More interesting is her interactions with her friends Wendy and Tim after her key is affected. She can recall times she was angry with them and relive them directly, and she finds that her anger is just as fresh after going through these memories. This made me think of the human ability to forget as almost a gift.

I found that the plot became overly complicated. There were a lot of characters who had been friends with Lora's mother and who had been journalists using her mother as a source and who had been her mother's sister's husband an I never quite became invested enough to make a map of them all in my head. The final few chapters especially I kind of just rolled with instead of trying to really comprehend them.

Perhaps I wasn't as invested because Lora herself wasn't invested. She uncovers a pretty sinister plot but throughout the book, her focus is ONLY on her mother. I get that her mother is obviously an important character in her life, but I got kind of annoyed with her for being so self-centered and narrow minded. Honestly, Wendy should have been a lot more annoyed with Lora's actions than she was.

I did very much enjoy the idea of how memories function and how they could be used and abused, how they could be uploaded and stored, how brains could encrypt them in their own fashion, etc. I enjoyed the thoughts the premise provoked in me. But really, I could have read a one page philosophical paper summarizing the premise and been as satisfied and saved myself from dealing with the overly complicated plot and with Lora's single-mindedness.
… (mer)
 
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whakaora | 6 andra recensioner | Mar 5, 2023 |
PopSugar '15 #31--Book with bad reviews.
 
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VanChocStrawberry | 6 andra recensioner | Apr 2, 2018 |
Review By: Sarah W (11th grade)
Grade Range: 9th grade and up
Genre: Mystery/ Supernatural/ Suspense
Literary Merit: Good
Characterization: Good

Mei has a troubled family life. With her delinquent brother and mother in denial, she has a lot of responsibility, especially since her dad left. She loves children and has always worked with them, but this year is different, this year she’ll be working with them as an academic tutor, not a babysitter. Mei is going to be going away for the summer with the Morisons to tutor their little girl Ella in their huge vacation home. The kind of money Mei is surrounded by in these short few months makes it feel like she’s taking a vacation to an entirely different world. The pay is amazing, she gets to stay near the ocean, this job seems like a dream come true! But, the Morisons are strange. Why does Vanessa, the mother, care about whether or not Mei is superstitious? Why doesn’t little Ella seem to have an opinion on anything? And even more than that, why does Ella’s older brother, Henry, have to be so awful to Mei? During this summer Mei’s life will change dramatically, between her own family drama, the Morisons’ family drama, and Ella’s weird, robot-like, behavior, who knows whether or not she’ll be the same person she was when she left her small home in the middle of the busy city. Read to find out.
Liana Liu’s novel, Shadow Girl, had many amazing qualities and a quirkiness to it that you don’t see often. The novel had a mysterious atmosphere with little to no complex sentences, making it a very easy read. One of the best parts of this novel was the amazing character development with Liu’s characters. Mei grew a lot during the novel, starting out very one-sided about many different topics, and using her experience in this household to get a broader perspective of the world. The Morrison siblings also evolve well. Henry becomes less closed off and we finally see him as a full emotional character instead of just a bully, and his love for his sister makes him a very realistic well-rounded character. Ella also starts out very closed off emotionally, but we can see her open up to Mei more and more as time goes on. She starts having more opinions about her classwork and shows interest in things other than her mom’s opinion. I also really enjoyed the pacing of the novel, I felt like there was just the right amount of suspense and knowledge to have you craving for more. One of the biggest problems I had with Shadow Girl, however, was the ending. I felt it was very abrupt and left too much that we didn’t know. What happened to Ella and Henry? How is the grandpa? The relationships in this novel seemed to end rather suddenly, and I feel that because of all that happened in the book this didn’t give the reader the necessary closure they needed. Through it all Shadow Girl was an interesting read, and while I enjoyed it, it’s not something I would read twice.
Recommendations: Anyone who wants a quick thriller to read between books.
… (mer)
 
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SWONroyal | 1 annan recension | Feb 28, 2018 |
First of all, thank you to the author and goodreads for providing me with a free copy of The Memory Key.

There is a lot to love in this book. An awesome main character (who even works in a library! How cool is that?). A plot with twists that kept me guessing and occasionally gasping out loud. Awesome use of flashbacks. A sort of near-future dystopian setting that raises all sorts of questions about privacy.

But I think my favourite part of the book was the whole memory loss thing.

So, the premise of The Memory Key is that there's an illness like Alzheimer's but contagious. A number of years back, it swept through the population and, in an attempt to deal with the widespread memory loss, scientists invented the memory key: basically, an electronic chip that creates and stores memories.

These memory keys are great, if a little creepy... except when they malfunction or are removed. At that point, you're looking at extreme memory loss and difficulty creating new memories. Basically, like a devastating case of dementia today.

And the way characters deal with that memory loss happening to their loved ones? That was depicted so well.

When my grandfather developed Alzheimer's, I wasn't prepared for the amount of anger I'd feel. Anger at the dementia? Sure, I saw that coming. But I never guessed I'd be angry at him.

It doesn't make sense -- it's not the person's fault, it's not like they want Alzheimer's or are deliberately abandoning you by forgetting things -- but it happens. A little twinge when they forget your name, another twinge when they remember someone else's.

So, when I saw characters react to another's memory loss with frustration and resentment, my first thought was, Wow, that's a little insensitive.

Followed immediately by, Oh. Wait.

This book... I don't know, it got it. I wish I could send a copy back in time for my thirteen-year-old self -- firstly, because it's a fantastic book, and secondly, because it might have helped me deal with memory loss in my own family.

This was a really enjoyable read. I hope Liana Liu publishes more novels -- I'll be first in line.
… (mer)
 
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bucketofrhymes | 6 andra recensioner | Dec 13, 2017 |

Statistik

Verk
3
Medlemmar
129
Popularitet
#156,299
Betyg
3.1
Recensioner
9
ISBN
6

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