A group of young people are trapped in hospital during a pandemic that wipes through the population, leaving just them, alone and isolated. It's not a 'survival' novel though. No gangs of thugs attack them, nobody comes near them. It's a huis clos, with just our five characters.

The novel is structured by each day they live through, in parallel with flashbacks of scenes in the past. Hard to say more without spoilers.

The Memory of Animals is a beautifully written, lovely novel, albeit with a sad setting. It's moving and full of emotion, while being quite down-to-earth in its language and structure and overall storytelling. I would say that the style never gets in the way of the story!

You'll fall in love reading this book. With an octopus, rather surprisingly.

I'm left not quite sure how I feel, but a little bereft.

London has been swept by a new virus - the Dropsy virus - and as a means of escaping her current reality and coping with the grief of losing her father, Nefeli (Neffy) decides to volunteer for a vaccine trial. Whilst Neffy drifts in and out of consciousness following administration of the vaccine, the city around her goes to ruin and the hospital falls silent. Upon waking, one of the remaining volunteers allows Neffy to use a device (the Revisitor) which forces her to confront her past.

Fuller does an excellent job of capturing Neffy's internal struggle, showing her grief, guilt, and sense of isolation in a way that feels authentic and relatable. However, I feel the development of the other characters was lacking slightly. I would have liked to have learned more about them and <spoiler> what happened to them following their arrival at the house in Dorset </spoiler>

The story unfolds in a unique way. We see snippets of Neffy's past through her use of the Revisitor alongside two strands of her present. One of these strands is letters she is writing to a mysterious "H". I found these letters intriguing at first but towards the end of the novel, I failed to see their purpose.

Overall, "The Memory of Animals" is a compelling, alternative apocalypse novel that will appeal to readers of several different genres!

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Penguin General for this eARC!

In a dystopian global pandemic, a young woman volunteers as a guinea pig for a new vaccine. Between past memories and present waiting to be rescued, we find out more about her life and her love for aquatic creatures.
A lot of topics and timelines, and octopuses.

I’ve been a Claire Fuller fan throughout her earlier books, so I was looking forward to reading this one. While I thought it was an interesting premise and a topical read, I found I was slightly disappointed that it didn’t live up to the quality of her earlier works.

The main character, Neffy, is taking part in a vaccine trial in the midst of a pandemic. The novel covers her experience of the trial and how it goes wrong, the interaction and conflict of her fellow trial subjects, her life and career in marine biology prior to the trial, fear of the pandemic, and eventually, what happens when she and her cohorts decide to leave the safe environment of the lab/hospital. All potentially quite good and interesting.

But Fuller has used 3 different devices to relate the story: the real time experiences of Neffy and the others in the hospital, letters from Neffy to an octopus she was responsible for in her last position and her experiences with what I’ll call a flashback machine, which enables her to relive her previous, mainly family experiences as an observer. This felt like too much to attempt in a relatively short book, and therefore, none of these devices had enough time to really establish themselves and work to make the book a more enriching experience. The idea of writing to an octopus (called H) sounds a bit surreal, but in fact it could have been a very meaningful device to convey what Neffy was thinking and feeling and to progress her growth as a person. The sequences with the flashback machine, which was owned and oddly brought to the trial by one of her fellow subjects, added a lot of background, but didn’t do as much to develop story and characters as it might have.

If she had used only two of the three, the hospital experiences and the letters to the octopus for example, Fuller could have developed the story, the characters and their thoughts on what was happening to them with more depth and meaning.

Otherwise the book had the feel of something written for a YA audience. Most of the characters seemed to be only superficially developed and quite immature. Neffy herself started off as a character who acted young for her age (28) and was somewhat irresponsible in her career and life choices. Part way through the book her actions took on the character of someone more mature and grounded. This was more a sudden change than anything that was obviously a development of her experiences on the trial or of the flashbacks and consideration of her past.

Overall, the book was interesting (especially because of the pandemic theme), but with some moments of frustration for the reader.

I love the way Claire Fuller writes and she is so well-suited to this genre. This was a compelling, propulsive and wonderfully imagined novel, filled with suspense, intrigue and moral complexity. Riveting.

Claire Fuller’s debut novel “Our Endless Numbered Days” won the 2015 Desmond Elliott Prize, and her fourth novel (and the first of hers I have read) “Unsettled Ground” was, in my view, deservedly shortlisted for the 2021 Women’s Prize – I described the book as “A remarkable story of rural 21st century marginalisation; repercussions of life changing events; resilience to trauma; and recalibration of identity and relationships”.

Interestingly her debut novel was I understand effectively about a survivalist Father who convinces his young daughter that they are living in a post-apocalyptic world; and this novel features a more conventional and (in the book) genuine post-apocalyptic community while also being a pandemic novel.

The basic set up of the book is that the world is being struck by a terrifying virus that originated in Latin America (the Dropsy virus which causes a range of symptoms including organ swelling); a group of sixteen 18-30 year old volunteers have agreed (for money but in practice for more complex motivations) to participate in a high-profile trial (albeit at a secret location in London) where they will given an untested but promising vaccine, then deliberately infected with the latest strain of the virus and placed under close observation for 21 days.

The book is narrated by Nefeli “Neffy. Octopus-obsessed and cephalopod-captivated she has volunteered against the wishes of her many times divorced mother and her boyfriend (and we later find step-brother) Justin, who believe her volunteering is a reaction to her guilt about her father. Neffy writes a series of letters to an (initially) unknown “H” which punctuate the book and are mainly around her experience with and knowledge of the Octopus family – Neffy switched from Medicine to Marine Biology and worked with the animals while being highly conflicted with the way that aquariums held them in cruel conditions and researchers subjected them to experimentation.

Just before Neffy starts the treatment she becomes aware of a new and more serious variant which affects the brain and causes much more severe symptoms: Justin tries to leave the country but his plane is not given entry to its desired destination.

Neffy then suffers from a few days of confusion and when she eventually returns to something like herself, it is to find that she is alone in the facility with just four other volunteers: Leon, Yakiko, Rachel and Piper – who tell her that all the other volunteers and workers are either fled or dead and that the country outside seems to have descended into chaos with the new variant being highly fatal. They have decided to stay at the facility – Piper being something of the organiser, Yakiko raiding the facility for supplies – and hope for some form of rescue at the end of the original 21 day trial. Neffy it turns out was the only one to get the vaccine – as the side effects she suffered from it and the disease aborted the experiment – although of course now she is the only one of them who appears to have immunity.

The other complexity of the novel is that Leon has bought with him (and continues to refine) a device called the Revisitor – which is designed to enable people to revisit and live in their past memories

Neffy turns out to be one of the small percentage of people on which the Revisitor works. This device allows Neffy (who rapidly becomes addicted to it) to revisit her past memories, which given the likely fate of her family is all she may have left of them, and as a literary device enables the author (who seems equally addicted to it) to explore Neffy’s non-tentacled backstory (the tentacled part is explored epistolary) and what lead her to the clinic.

I have to say that the novel did not really succeed for me on a number of levels:

Like all pandemic novels it suffers from the fact that we have lived through a pandemic – so while scenes of abandoned vehicles from a crash where the drivers were dying from the virus worked in a pre-COVID Hollywood dystopia world I am not sure they do now – and a trial of 16 18-30 volunteers for a virus which seems to impact all ages does not seem to fit well either to what we know. I also could not really understand a virus that seems to have killed almost everyone but which the volunteers were able to avoid simply by staying inside.

And the Revisitor seems both a far-flung contrivance (not to mention the implausibility of one of the 16 volunteers both having it and seemingly able to refine it with no specialist facilities). And while its experience for Neffy is both immersive and unprecedented – for us as readers, flashbacks to someone’s past life (where we are effectively seeing the world through their senses) is simply a routine fictional conceit. And Neffy’s part story was also I felt reliant on an implausible coincidence.

The Octopus parts are well written (even if the identity of H – the letter recipient - was simultaneously odd and inevitable) and the links between the way that an octopus is both confined and subject to experiments and the world of the volunteers was promising but not I felt fully delivered – and a related discursion on individual versus group rights was never really explored.

A novel with the pandemic as a storyline could have made for a dated and stale sell but The Memory of Animals is not only beautifully written but the elements of the controversial memory technology combines to create a heart breaking but beautiful story. I had high hopes for this novel and I was not disappointed.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review

Unfortunately not a fan of this one at all. I very much enjoyed the author's previous novel, but this felt like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be. Was it a post pandemic novel, was it a dystopia, was it about family - I was very confused and it didn't really hold my interest. I'll look forward to her next though.

A pandemic is sweeping across the globe. Neffi is deeply in debt and decides to sign on the paid clinical trial for a vaccine She and other participants are to be contained for three weeks after getting the vaccine and an injection of the virus. She is the first to receive the vaccine and is very ill. She comes back to consciousness after a week and only a few of the participants are still with her and did not receive the vaccine before the staff all fled. Things look bleak outside and they decide to stay put for a bit and try to make do with their dwindling supplies hoping someone is coming back for them. One of the participants brought along a prototype device that allows users to revisit memories from their lifetimes. Through Neffi's use of this device and letters she has written to "H" we learn about her background and motivations. This is weird and different and definitely kept my attention.

The Memory of Animals is clearly a Claire Fuller novel right from the off. It's strange and interesting and dystopian with the accent being on relationships. It is what she does so very well.

Neffy is one of a handful of volunteers to try a vaccine that has been developed in answer to a pandemic that causes forgetfulness in the beings it attacks. However as she enters the hospital to either receive the virus and vaccine or a placebo it seems that the virus has mutated: the forgetfulness is now accompanied by brain swelling, bloating and death. No one knows how virulent it is but as Neffy comes round from being infected she realizes that she and her fellow volunteers are in a very bad predicament.

The story follows their fight to continue, make decisions as to how to survive and Neffy is given the opportunity to revisit her past.

As always with Claire Fuller's work she concentrates on human behaviour during a crisis. She seems to do this without making anyone seem inhuman or even superhuman. Everyone in the book is given choices to make about their health and their relationships.

It's certainly a new twist on a pandemic novel and the book despite the circumstances, doesn't dwell on that aspect.

Her writing is, as ever, exquisitely crafted. The story is unnerving but never over the top scary. Neffy is a fascinating character with more than her fair share of the milk of human kindness. Would that we were all that nice in a crisis.

Highly recommended to fans of Ms Fuller's work or lovers of dystopian novels or those who just enjoy a well considered, beautifully written novel.

This was an interesting take on the dystopian genre. It was well written but i wasn't so keep on the octopus bits. Still, I thought the structure was well developed and the plot took twists I wasn't expecting, which I liked.

I've been a fan of Fuller's ever since I read Unsettled Ground. The Memory of Animals has cemented her as one of my favourite authors. I love her writing and this book demonstrates how expert she is at the art.

The Memory of Animals follows 3 narratives - a group of abandoned vaccine trial participants, letters from one of those participants, Neffy, to an octopus she cared for while working at an aquarium and finally Neffy's memories from before the virus hit which gives her a solid and interesting backstory. Already it sounds very complex and convoluted but honestly, Fuller pulls this off to perfection.

This is one of the more enjoyable pandemic fiction novels I've recently read, due in part to the larger themes of human nature, grief, memory, family and the multiple storylines. At times unsettling and other times, very touching. Fuller is a force to be reckoned with and I really hope this gets nominated for The Women's Prize!! Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for my review copy!

Claire Fuller is one of those authors with the gift of page-turning writing as her new novel The Memory of Animals confirms. Like her previous books, this high-concept story hits that sweet spot between literary and reading group; always with something insightful to say about the world we live in, always hard to put down. I've given The Memory of Animals less than 5 stars only because there wasn't enough of it. I really wanted to know more about Neffy's experiences in the dystopian world outside the medical facility. I basically couldn't get enough of Neffy andwanted to see her true grit emerge as her adventure in the post apocalypse began - but this was given only as a quick epilogue. This small criticism definitely wouldn't stop me recommending the book which will, I'm sure be one of the most interesting and acclaimed novels of 2023!

The Memory of Animals takes on the perspective of a dystopian pandemic. Neffy volunteers for a trail of a vaccine as the pandemic worsens. After having the vaccine, Neffy succumbs to the illness brought on by the vaccine, falling in and out of consciousness as the world begins to crumble. As she begins to get better, Neffy realises the world has changed for the worse and has to readjust to a new life alongside the other volunteers that have stayed behind from the vaccine trail. Throughout the days they are isolated inside, they delve deeper into each other’s pasts and explore how they survive. The book allows the reader to question the what if possibility of the pandemic similar to what we faced but at a heightened level.
The characters Fuller creates are well rounded 3-Dimensional people and we experience all types of emotions as well as their fight for survival. Originally upon reading I felt readers probably wouldn’t want to read about another pandemic, but this is pure escapism in terms of the brilliance of storytelling and emotive writing, creating tons of questions for the reader and the choices you’d make in their situation. The story has the tendency to stick with the reader and would work great as a book club choice.

This a thoughtful, complex dystopian novel about humanity and what one would do to ensure their own survival. There our echoes of our own experience of the recent pandemic throughout the book. There is also a lot of mystery and unanswered questions both for Neffy and the reader. I think this book is also about hope and what motivates us to keep going when all else is assumed lost. I found the letters to the octopus strange however I really enjoyed Neffy’s visits back to her past, which explained somewhat her need to help others when she couldn’t help her father in the ways she wanted to.

I read all of Claire Fuller’s books last year and I was very eager to read her latest novel (it’s what led me to approach Netgalley!). However, while the synopsis sounded intriguing, the dystopian genre is not one I usually go for, but this is so much more than a post-apocalyptic thriller and don’t let this departure from her usual genre put you off.

The novel is set within an oppressive medical unit, where experimental vaccine volunteers, potentially risk their lives in exchange for money and heroism. The opening gave me a feeling of slight unease, in its relative freshness and closeness to our own and very real covid pandemic. Did I really want to be reminded of the last few hellish years? However, I was relieved that on the whole, there is little horror or acute distress, and it’s certainly a fresh and unusual take on the genre.

Initially there is a bit of a ‘YA’ feel with the small group of 20-somethings isolated within the unit, bonding over their shared isolation, imprisonment and eating microwaved food. I also wasn’t sure what I thought about the fantastical ‘revisiting’ memories part, which seemed just a bit too far fetched at first, but as a writers tool, I really enjoyed how we were able to experience such poignant parts of Netty’s past relationships with loved ones. It’s through this that Netty’s character is thoroughly developed. The rest of the characters, ‘H’ aside, are rather two dimensional, but this keeps our focus on Netty as the story’s protagonist.

Similar to the ‘revisiting’, the interspersed letters ‘to H’, the octopus, provide an engaging interjection of Octopus fascinating facts. They added a further surreal dimension to the novel, but this swiftly moved to pure enchantment for me, appreciating the Netty’s deep love and connection with these marvellous, unworldly creatures. I even went onto Google Octopus facts to enlighten me further. The shared experiences and analogy between the tanked octopus, the theme of entrapment and the units’ caged experimental vaccine rooms, certainly do not go amiss.

This is a novel, less about the future, and more about the past, deep and everlasting loves, the pain of grief and what is means to be truly free. I’m so grateful for Netgalley allowing me to read this truly wonderful book and I can’t wait for Claire Fuller’s next.

This is another book about an apocalyptic virus and how the survivors struggle to stay alive but, unusually for this contemporary sub-genre, it is also about octopuses and a woman’s chaotic memories of her upbringing in Greece.

Neffy has joined a group of people engaged in a risky medical trial designed to find a vaccine against a new virus which is infecting the world’s population. The members are required to be vaccinated and then infected because there is little time. They will also be isolated and closely monitored but, in the event, things do not go to plan and the virus spreads virtually unchecked.

Much of the book is about Neffy’s relationships with the group of people she has been closeted away with as it transpires that she is the only one to be vaccinated because the trial was abandoned as unsuccessful – the others who were vaccinated died!

That makes for difficult relationships and decisions as the world grinds to a halt. It then emerges that another individual has been involved in the development of a kind of time travel machine which allows people to revisit their memories. The prototype does not work with everyone but it does with Neffy allowing her to explore her memories of Greece as a child and her relationship with her father and his new partner.

That’s a bit of a confusion and there are also a series of diversions into the lives of octopuses. Neffy was once a marine biologist but has become a lover of these complicated and highly intelligent animals – setting one free from the aquarium caused her to lose her job.

Linking these two narratives and the octopus commentary is a challenge and that’s a major problem with the book. Neffy’s trips into the past are perhaps envied by the other members of the group but then they envy her already for her vaccinated status. The octopus can adapt to captivity but will do its best to escape and if that is impossible it may die but even that is only the slimmest of links to the predicament of the group and the connections are not made explicit.

In the end, everything is wrapped up relatively quickly and there are some gaps in the storyline which leave the reader wondering as the story hurries to its climax. All in all, it’s a well written book by a well-known writer with strong credentials and Neffy is a sympathetic and engaging portrayal but whether that is sufficient to bind the elements together is a bit of a question.

I really like Claire Fuller's writing, and have been looking forward to reading this. It feels quite different to the other novels I have read by her, but you still feel yourself in entirely capable hands.

This one is part pandemic, part sci-fi, part dystopian thriller...everything gets jumbled along together, edging around all of those genres really, and it caught my attention immediately and held it all the way through.

I expect some people will still be avoiding anything literary that looks at the horrors we all went through in the last few years, living it having been more than enough, but this one takes the edge of our own pandemic and then throws something else in besides. And having seen just exactly what sort of things *are* possible when something like this happens globally, it's believable and relatable and unsettling. Our cast of characters in lockdown are in there of their own volition, volunteering to be guinea pigs for a new vaccine, and then trapped there when world events overtake them.

It is dark and difficult in places, but there is lightness too, and overall it left me thinking, thinking, thinking. The memory machine is a fascinating idea. I wondered where it might take me, in my mind, and what that would feel like. The octopus bits made me think of the documentary, 'My Octopus Teacher' which completely transformed the way I think of these creatures. And I really liked the main character, Neffy, and found myself completely caught up in her life - both her current situation, and her past history.

Another day, another pandemic novel. This one is worth facing that lingering Covid trauma. A new virus "dropsy" has emerged in South America and is quickly sweeping the world with increasingly contagious and deadly variants. Neffi has just signed up for a paid clinical trial with Vaccine Biopharm. She has money trouble and a debt to pay and it all involved an octopus. When Neffi wakes after being given the vaccine and the virus, the clinic is mostly empty, just a few of the trial volunteers remain but none of them were given the vaccine before the medics fled. They're a varied bunch and Neffi is uncertain of their motivations and agendas. Terrified to leave the clinic and risk catching the variant that has decimated humanity they eke out a survival on the dwindling food stores. Meanwhile Neffi learns that one of her companions has invented a machine that allows the user to re-enter their own memories and experience them again, an addictive way to escape the current horror and confront the past. All the while Neffi writes to H of her love of octopuses and the events that led her to the clinic and the trial.

Claire Fuller has created a really compelling story here. She knows exactly when to give information and when to withhold it. The characters spend most of the novel trapped inside the clinic but Neffi's early insight into what is happening outside throught news belletins and the unsettling things she can see through her window create an excellent atmosphere. The fact that she misses the worst of the calamity and must piece together exactly what has happened is very effective. The way that her present links into her past through her revisiting of memories could have been an over-stretch but it creates a brilliant dual narrative about duty, responsibilty and family and the difficult nature of scientific experimentation. I am a huge fan of octopuses, so Neffi's fixation on them was an element I enjoyed. The three parallel narratives, the present pandemic, Neffi's memories and her letters to H weave together into an original and fascinating narrative that is a welcome addition to a burgeoning genre.

‘The Memory of Animals’ is a powerful, enthralling read that weaves together three narrative strands to create an impressive whole. Much like the octopuses that Neffy cared for in aquariums, the main characters are effectively imprisoned in a medical research unit after a savage pandemic has wiped out most of the population. The sense of captivity is emphasised by the contrasts between the sensory deprivation of Neffy’s post apocalyptic existence cowering indoors and the rich experiences from her past that she is able to live again through the Revisit apparatus that is the brainchild of Leon, a fellow survivor. I loved the sensory overload of the revisited scenes from Neffy’s past and there’s an incredible emphasis on tastes and smells throughout the novel. I also learnt a lot about octopuses. In a week when I have read articles about scientific research into man’s ability to communicate non-verbally with dogs, pigs and monkeys, Neffy’s interaction with octopuses was equally intriguing and credible.
Thanks to Net Galley for the privilege of getting to read this captivating novel in advance of its publication.