This is a story about memories- but don’t worry, they can remove the ones you don’t want.

If you’re a Taylor Jenkins Reid fan who loved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, this is the book for you. It features the airy, SoCal setting, beautiful pros, & compelling characters with interweaving narratives… but with an edge of exploration. I don’t know what I expected going in, but the depth of the human connection and the concept of empathy through memory struck me as both beautiful & heartbreaking. Also, there’s so much hope to get found here- even in the basic premise of a successful treatment for Alzheimer’s, or exploration of those we love being able to live on in us.

Thank you so much netgalley & atria books for this eArc! Sorry I’m late to the party, but ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ !

How beautiful is this cover?! Not going to lie I was definitely influenced by it but unfortunately I left feeling disappointed. I think I feel asleep on three separate occasions trying to read this book. 😬

The Shimmering state follows Sophie and Lucien, two young adults living in Los Angeles and dealing with different struggles. They both end up in recovery after an experimental memory drug warps their lives.

Liked:
-Atmospheric drug scenes
-Interconnected characters & reveals

Disliked:
-S L O W
-Extremely detail heavy with little dialogue
-Felt so long

If you like a slower paced, atmospheric read this would be perfect for you! The experimental drug aspect and recovery was fascinating!

Can you live someone else's memories? What if you could relive your own memories? The Shimmering State sets out to answer those questions and takes us to a near future LA where a prescription is created for memory-loss patients to take and be reminded of their life. But when the drug hits the black market, it takes over parties and beyond, creating addicts looking for life and inspiration beyond their own lives.

The Shimmering State follows two artists as they enter rehab and receive experimental treatment for their addictions to the experimental prescription drug. Much like the title suggests, the story often felt like it was shimmering between states and jumps between characters was sometimes unclear or confusing. But by the end, it all came together, not necessarily giving us answers to all our questions, but giving us closure and insights into the importance of finding inspiration within your own life.

To see and feel someone elses memories. it sounds dreamy, like connection on another level but also terrifying. this book is like when you dream and are aware that you're sleeping (if that makes sense),
the idea of a pill to isolate memories to help with medical conditions sounds incredible, the thought of people abusing it- mind blowing, reading about-magical.
there were times i wanted more of the therapists story but i loved how all the characters were connected. how two fought to try and remember what and who they lost including themselves. the more days that pass since I finished this book the heavier it hangs on my mind. i have so much to say and yet feel like i cant find the words.
i just - <3

Happy to include this novel in the August instalment of Novel Encounters, my regular column highlighting the month's top fiction for Zed, Zoomer magazine’s reading and books section.
Full review feature at link.

Unfortunately, this book was a DNF (did not finish) for me. I thought the premise was brilliant and I was excited to read it. The writing is beautiful…exquisite. However, the pace is painfully slow and I simply could not stay interested in the story.

I really enjoyed the concept of this book and a lot of the writing was beautiful. Yet I struggled through the last 25%. It got so repetitive with little plot being added. If it was about 50 pages shorter I would have loved it.

This author is one to watch for her descriptive writing and depth. If she releases another book in the future I would check it out.

I loved the premise of this book! The plot was super interesting and I loved how it moved back and forth through time to give context to the characters as they made their way through Mem treatment. Very unique!

This was a pretty interesting read. I decided to give it a try when it was announced as the Belletrist book of the month. The story is about a drug called memoroxin, mem for short. It is a drug used in Alzheimer treatment to bring back memories of the person taking it. However, people are abusing it and using it to escape their lives and see through the lives of others. If you liked Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, you will probably like this book.

Such a good book, it was everything I expected and more. This book was a lot but in the best way possible with well developed characters.

First things first, The Shimmering State is an exceptional debut novel. I'm always in awe of authors who hit it out of the park on their first time up. (Well, maybe not the first time, but the first time being published at least.) Meredith Westgate is a talented writer. Her descriptions of sights, sounds, feelings, and people are insightful and beautifully written. Additionally, the concept of this novel is creative and fantastical. It takes the reader to a near future where a drug, Memoroxin, has been developed that allows a person's memories to be uploaded and manipulated into the form of a pill. For someone with Alzheimer's or with PTSD, the promise of this new drug is immense. In the first case, a person can retrieve memories lost to a hideous disease. In the latter case, a soldier's memories can be manipulated to remove the horrifying things he/she experienced during war. But of course, the world is peopled by humans who always find a way to turn a good thing into something malicious.

Lucien is the first character we meet. He is a photographer who is haunted by memories of his mother who recently died by suicide after battling cancer. He was a devoted son, but in the last minutes of her life, her mother reached out to him and he ignored her call. Lucien has now relocated to LA, ostensibly to care for his grandmother, who is lost to Alzheimer's. She's been prescribed Memoroxin, and Lucien realizes he could have his mother back in his life if he tried just one of her capsules.

The second primary character is Sophie. Sophie is a beautiful ballerina just cast to play the lead in a performance with the LA Ballet company. In her off hours, she is a waitress at Chateau Marmont. Every night she sees people taking Memoroxin (Mem) recreationally, and she wants no part of it. She clearly recognizes the damage it can do when taken outside of medically-prescribed dosages. Unfortunately for Sylvie, just as in today's world women are often dosed with Rohypnol, in this future world, women are sometimes dosed with Mem for some callous man's private pleasure.

The novel alternates between the Past for each character and the Present for each. In the Present, they are both patients at The Center, a facility built by Dr. Angelica Sloane as a treatment center for patients who have abused Mem.

I wanted to love this novel, but I soon found myself skimming just so I could get to the end. I connected emotionally with Sophie, but I just couldn't empathize with Lucien at all. Maybe it's my own personal history, but I had trouble getting in the head of a young, talented man who is so besotted by his dead mother that he feels the need to take this drug to have more time with her. As I said, the writing is beautiful, and the concept is creative, but I was never able to escape into this novel.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Slow first third but it picked up by the second third and sped up for the last third. This multi-voiced novel was an interesting read that had glimpses into the past while also living in the present and walking a fine line of “how is this all connected”. I was disappointed in the lack of character closure with the doctor and her daughter, you don’t get what happens to them next in the end so it’s a bit of let your imagination roam. I appreciated that the two primary characters saw their stories through to the end of the book and both felt somewhat wrapped up by the end. Overall I found Dr. Sloane’s character to be too self serving and that there were holes in her stem of the plot line. She helped drive the course of the book for Sophie and Lucien but didn’t clearly define her role in her own life. The concept of an Alzheimer’s drug turned club drug is definitely something that could be reality in a few years. Questions that came up for me personally: what memories would i want removed if my mind was scrubbed? What would i keep? Who would be in there? Doesn’t one memory create the understanding of the next set so is forgetting really worth it? Hints of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind mixed with a rehab dramedy.

Beautiful cover and very interesting premise! I enjoyed how the story shifted between “today” and “before.” Sophie and Lucien are two patients at a rehab for people using an experimental drug, but they have no memory of what brought them there. The writing was beautiful and the plot was one of the most creative I have read!

The cover of this is amazing and I loved the premise of this book and the storyline of this memory related drug. However, the execution was not exactly what I was expecting or wanting. The narrative style made me somewhat confused and I felt detached from the characters. I will check out this author again, but ultimately it was just okay.

I heard great things about this book, and the story did seem to be developing as promised. The story was interesting, the abuse of a prescription drug meant for Alzheimer’s patients, which allows people to experience each others memories. Unfortunately I just didn’t like the writing style enough to finish the book. I felt as if I were watching the drama unfold through plate glass, there was very little immediacy, or perhaps a better way to put it is that the characters just were not engaging. There is a coldness to the narration that I could not get over. I’m sure this book is excellent if you happen to appreciate the writing style.

Set in Los Angeles, in a futuristic (?) time, The Shimmering State is the story of a new experimental drug treatment for Alzheimer's, Memoroxin, and those who fell victim to its use.
With multiple character viewpoints and changing timelines, this one was a bit challenging to navigate whose story we were following and when. It felt as if the characters' stories should have been more interconnected than they were. It was very slow moving through most of it and honestly, I didn't fully understand what exactly happened at the end.
As a whole I really enjoyed the premise and it was very well written. Also, the cover is gorgeous!

Thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

This felt a little bit like a Black Mirror episode. An absolutely wild concept that I totally got behind. Science fiction isn't my normal genre, but I loved The Shimmering State. I was mesmerized by the writing and just had to know what was going to happen. What a pleasant surprise!

I was fortunate to receive an advanced copy of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Shimmering State is the story of Lucien and Sophie, and their addiction to Memoroxin, a drug which enables people to experience their own memories. Lucien is a photographer who has recently moved from New York to LA to assist in the care of his grandmother suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Sophie is an aspiring ballerina with the Los Angeles Ballet Company. Lucien and Sophie "meet" each other at The Center, a rehabilitation center where they are treated for their addictions with the very drug that they become dependent on. When Lucien suspects he has met Sophie before, the reader gets a glimpse into their complicated history and their lives before Memoroxin gripped them.

The plot and subject matter was original and interesting, but the book was very slow-paced and at times seemed rather disorganized. It was difficult to connect with any of the characters and I actually found the majority of them pretty unlikeable. Overall, I found the idea of Memoroxin and its uses very intriguing but was underwhelmed upon finishing this book.

Everyone always talks about finding a cure for various diseases, but in the beginning, often only the good is looked at without considering the way those treatments may be abused and/or ultimately cause harm in some way. In The Shimmering State, we explore a fictitious prescription drug called Memoroxin, or “Mem” for short, meant to treat those with Alzheimer’s by extracting their memories into a pill form which sedates them when taken and makes them relive those memories.

Throughout the book, we see two patients struggling in a rehab center after taking this drug illegally…one by choice, the other without consent. We also get a glimpse into a doctor who truly believes I the treatment plans of the rehab center and helps people wipe their memories clean and return back to their lives. (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, anyone?)

While I love the theme of the book, there were parts of the story where I wanted more. Sophie’s experience with Mem gets very dark and sinister and I had some questions about where the heck those memories came from (yes they were illegal and from “the street” but the original owner of the memories…how and why were they taken?! So many questions). I needed her story in general fleshed out more. She had so many bumps in the road, until she didn’t and that’s never fun. Also, with Dr. Sloane, she made some very ethically questionable choices and we got to see some remorse, but then not much as to how she handled it after.

I loved the ethical questions it provoked in me (Could extracted memories be used to prove things or make convictions? In which case, how can we be sure they weren’t altered by the user? Remember when Dumbledore saw an altered memory?! Could this be used like the Penseive for thought organization and focus?!) If anyone wants to talk about the abstract surrounding all this memory stuff, I am here for it!

However, with this book, I was left with a few other questions as mentioned above but overall, that didn’t detract too much from my overall enjoyment of this book

One of the most inventive and singular debuts I have read in a long time- I inhaled every crumb of this iridescent, sensitive novel. I have seen ample comparisons to Black Mirror in other reviews, but for me if I had liken The Shimmering State to anything, I’d say it’s a mix between Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

Cerebral, with a whisper of romance and dystopian sci-fi, the story is told primarily from the perspective of three characters: Dr. Sloane, founder of the Center, a rehab facility for people who have abused the new drug “Memoxorin” - a medical time capsule that floods the user with the pill’s stored memories approved for use in psychiatric treatment of trauma, depression, and Alzheimers. Lucien, a photographer and grieving son, who makes the move from NYC to LA following the loss of his artist mother to help take care of his ailing grandmother. Sophie, a dancer on the cusp of the type of success that would allow her to quit her serving job at the Chateau Mormont and leave all the wide-eyed tourists and leering Hollywood executive clientele behind.

Westgate’s prose is a swirling sensory delight, much like the opalescent Mem pills that serve as both the central hero and villain of the story. The novel is told through two alternating timelines “Before” and “Today” detailing the tragedies that led Lucien and Sophie to the Center, and the work that’s done to shed them of their cycle of Mem abuse and emerge “healed”. Westgate raises fascinating ethical questions about trauma and memory - are we truly better off scrubbing our most horrific moments from our minds? At what cost?

Dr. Sloane’s arc was perhaps my favourite of the three central characters, detailing the fine line between wielding and abusing the god-like power to alter memory. While the Center was surely founded on altruistic foundations, in reality lines blur and Mem as a medical treatment proves to be controversial at best, prone to fatal flaws at worse.

This was one of my favourite reading experiences of the year so far (Atria keeps knocking it out of the park for me!) and I am now dedicated to manifesting a Charlie Kaufman or Yorgos Lanthimos film adaptation.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.