I liked the premise of the book and enjoyed the flashback memory scenes. I they were incorporated well. The romance was pushed, though. Less than a few hours together, the main character has fallen in love with her companion. I think the story would benefit from the removal of the romance. There can still be a strong bond between the two and their friendship can grow, but the romance element was unneeded.

Really cool premise in a fantasy world. I love the concept of swappable memories and humans with special abilities pertaining to the mind. The author does an excellent job of interweaving the people involved and brings the story to closure in a satisfying way.

This book started strong and then quickly collapsed under the weight of itself.

“The Memory Thief” draws us into a world where memories can be bought or stolen giving their new owners different skills and abilities without any care to the lifeless husks it leaves behind when Etta finds herself starting at her mother’s notice for auction and has to return to the Shadows and make a deal with her old crew and current enemies in order to ensure her family’s survival.

This book started off great instantly drawing me in with the memory auction and the desperate hunger the characters had to take happiness from those on the blocks and it set up a great threat once the trigger for Etta’s journey is revealed but after that the story starts to fall apart.

The biggest issue was pacing. It becomes very clear where the plot needs to take us and for the first third of the book it does fine with things progressing at a rate that makes sense however, once we reach our destination, everything speeds up so quickly it no longer felt natural. Everything from alliances, romances and the way the world was structured no longer made sense organically and our main players lost all depth as they had to act out scenes that were structurally on point, albeit predictable, but hollow leaving them sounding unnatural and like they needed some sort of cheesy music behind them which completely shattered the “book end” dynamic it set up.

Finally, I have to add that I learned more about how the kingdoms, which I didn’t realize it had, and the different titles granted to the characters at the very end of the book in the glossary type section that I did throughout the story so to anyone going into this for the first time this is the only book where I suggest skipping to the end just to get a quick rundown on how it works.

This wasn’t great and it will most likely end up blurring into other books in the genre which is sad because I feel like something really cool could have happened with this idea if it was allowed more time to breathe but I can’t rate it on what it could have been only what it is which is something I won’t remember.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When the book started, I immediately thought...okay, another dystopian end-of-world type of book. And while, yes this is a good way to classify it, it was also different than others that I have read. I loved the way the Gifted’s Gifts worked and how their gifts could vary from person to person, even within the skill they had.

I would have loved to have more descriptions of the action scenes. There would be fantastic build up and then all of a sudden, it was over. I was very underwhelmed by the climaxes of the book, I would have loved more action and more descriptions of the action scenes rather than a couple paragraphs.

The book left me with a lot of questions on what actually happened because of this. I’m hoping the author will write more books that clarify some of these events more.

The book was an engaging and quick read and overall, I enjoyed it.

This was very high fantasy for me personally. I’m sure that’s just a personal preference and has nothing to do with the actual book itself. The names were too Mars for me and that makes it difficult to read.

I have been reading only series for the paat year so I was thrilled to read a great standalone novel. The Memory Thief hits all the right marks with excellent world building, strong main characters, adventure, and intrigue. If this was a series I would definitely be ready for the tale to continue!