A novel no doubt inspired by Lockdown, in which our young heroine is incarcerated in a hospital as part of a drugs trial which isn't completed because the world at large goes into melt-down as a result of an untreatable variant of the virus rampaging round the world. Whilst there, another participant introduces her to the Revisitor, a device which allows her to re-experience her past life, which has been full of drama and error. It's all a bit odd as a device for flashback. As are her letters to H, revealing whose identity would be a spoiler alert. Unsatisfactory, uninvolving, with too many plot-lurches, this is far from Fuller at her finest. ( )

There’s a new virus decimating the world. It’s commonly called the dropsy virus as it causes swelling throughout the body It appears to be incredibly deadly.

But there’s hope – a biotech company has devised a promising vaccine. The only downside is that it hasn’t been tried on humans yet – and with the testing including infection with the virus after vaccination, not many people are volunteering. The reward is huge; the company will pay volunteers an almost unimaginable amount of money.

Neffy, a former marine biologist with a special interest in octopuses is disgraced and deeply in debt, so she volunteers. The vaccine makes her sick; the virus challenge makes her even sicker. But when she slowly comes back to consciousness, a person provides her with food and drink. She is not alone in the world.

When she has fully recovered, Neffy is told that the vaccine trial was stopped due to the bad reaction she had. She is the only one of the volunteers that completed the trial and now probably immune to the virus. But while she was ill, the virus mutated again to an even more horrific version affecting the brain. Earth’s population seems to have succumbed. Besides Neffy, there are four other people confined within the research center who didn’t receive the vaccine. All the staff fled when the virus became really bad. There is a limited amount of food and a generator within the center that continues to work.

One of the volunteers is there because he needed money to rework his spectacular invention that can take people back inside their memories. It’s not time travel - but it is a way to revisit people and events in your memory. It only works for certain individuals and it is not reliable as to exactly what memory you will revisit. It works for Neffy and the machine’s inventor; the downside is that is highly addictive to spend time with those one has lost.

In the beginning of the end, gangs robbed, raped and pillaged and packs of roaming dogs attacked victims and tore up bodies. The four non-vaccinated volunteers witnessed these events from the windows of the secure center and are terrified to go out although now it seems deadly quiet on the street. As food runs low, they pressure Neffy to go outside to forage. The generator fails. Although there is viral protective gear within the center, no one volunteers to accompany Neffy.

Even as secrets within the center are revealed it’s clear they can no longer stay.

Apparently the author started writing this before Covid struck. Many of the scenarios such as passengers not being allowed to disembark from a airplane will bring up memories of our own pandemic. ( )

Neffy is a marine biologist with a particular fondness for octopi. She has recently lost her job, however, and is in bad financial shape. In order to earn some money, she volunteers for a clinical trial for a vaccine for a new virus sweeping the world, despite the fact that her mother and her boyfriend Justin (who is also her stepbrother) both strongly urge her not to do so.

As the novel opens, she enters the hospital where the trial is taking place and is placed into isolation. Shortly after she is purposely infected with the virus, and given the vaccine, she becomes very ill. She is delirious and out of it for an unknown period of time. When she recovers, she discovers a world that has been drastically transformed--the outside world has been decimated. She meets the other volunteers for the vaccine trial, Leon, Rachel, Piper, and Yahiko, but discovers that none of them had been given the vaccine before the staff abandoned them and the world changed. The other volunteers believe that Neffy must be immune to the virus, and should be sent out to explore the world and to look for food.

Interspersed with the ongoing pandemic tale, Neffy revisits her past, with particular emphasis on her childhood in Greece with her father, as well as her more recent past with her boyfriend. She's distrustful of the other volunteers, and feels something may have happened while she was out of it that they are keeping from her.

The book kept me interested and kept me reading, but there was nothing special about it. I loved the previous book I read by this author, Unsettled Ground, which featured unique and complex characters who always kept me guessing. Here, the characters seem to be pretty standard twenty-somethings, not stereotypes or caricatures exactly, but not very interesting or surprising. So I found this a pretty run of the mill book.

2 1/2 stars ( )

Apocalyptic pandemic novel, reportedly started before COVID. The last known humans on earth are locked up in a London hospital, during a vaccine trial. Some things we think we know we find out we don't. The lone vaccinated survivor navigates the cliques that formed while she was recovering from the bug.

Fine novel, I was interested to see the finish, which of course disappointed. Bleak subject, after all. ( )

‘The Memory of Animals’ by Claire Fuller was just wonderful. Another example of her incredible talent of bringing together unique plot, interesting unknowns, beautiful writing and well-crafted characters.

Set during a devastating pandemic, and its dystopian aftermath, we follow Neffy and a group of vaccine trial participants as they explore survival, memory, navigate morality together. There are three key threads to follow; Neffy writes letter to someone known as H — these letters are short, insightful and ambiguous at times. I found them extremely moving and drawn to them in particular. They balance intimate connection and science in a way that is, honestly, so special. Then, we have the memories of Neffy, specifically, coming of age and navigating her parents lives over time. And the present timeline, where she is barricaded in a hospital where the air conditioner is on full blast, food is limited and help coming seems unlikely. The bonds this group forms and the ways their ethics are tested is explored in a way that allows you to ask yourself, “what would I do?”.

I loved Neffy. She was such a wonderful character to spend time with. I’m so grateful to have been able to read this stellar novel. Thank you so much to the publisher, Tin House for gifting me this novel. And if you are considering picking this one up, do it! ( )