An e-ARC was provided by the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions remain my own.

-5 stars

A very fun and intriguing read. Hope wakes up at Copeland-Stark’s new sanctuary for folks needing treatment for mental health, memory loss and addiction. This book has so many twists and turns. It keeps you guessing about who you can trust? What’s real and what’s not? This book is multiple POV, which I felt added the extra depth and mystery to the storyline. The synopsis is short for a reason, I think it’s best to go into this book knowing as little as possible.

Format: Kindle
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Liked it, absolutely recommend it!

This book…is…whoa.

You will embark on a thrilling journey through The Wilder Sanctuary, where Hope Nakano's life takes a tumultuous turn as she awakens in a medical facility with a year of her memories gone…just erased. The story dives deep into the unsettling concept of implanted memories, blurring the boundaries between truth and manipulation.

Grounded in reality, the story prompts the reader to question the reliability of their own memories while they root for Hope and the other characters as they navigate a world filled with uncertainty.

As Hope delves further into the mysteries of The Wilder Sanctuary, the plot morphs from a gripping medical thriller into a chilling psychological drama. With meticulous plotting that keeps you eagerly turning pages…be ready for the ride.

The Mechanics of Memory is a tantalizing, mysterious, frightening, and above all, tender book.

In the first chapter, we meet Hope and her partner, Luke, and Charlotte, Luke’s daughter from a previous marriage. Everything seems quite normal. Until.

In the next chapter, Hope is suddenly in a memory recalibration facility, for lack of a better word. A fancy prison? A fancy asylum? It’s certainly not clear, but the residents have been told that they did something terrible which they have forgotten and the goal is to recover that memory so they can move on. It’s as though everyone (except the celebrities in rehab for their addiction of choice, who are the cash cows that keep this elaborate facility afloat) has suffered a terrible trauma and now have such severe PTSD that they can’t remember what happened.

If only it were that simple. As the story unwinds, we learn that this place is literally an experiment in memory creation. And Hope and her friends are collateral put up by memory scientists, or more likely, mad scientists, in order to further their own memory research.

That’s it in a nutshell (no pun intended). I can’t begin to explain how Hope unravels the web she’s in. What I will say is that I loved this book, but it’s definitely not for everyone. It’s a fabulous read but it’s by no means light. The reader has to enter a world they can’t understand, literally becoming one with the characters who are in a world they don’t understand. The writing is superb, as is the character portrayal and the scene setting. I could not put it down.

Highly recommended.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley. I look forward to reading more from this author.

I'm obsessed with this book. This was one of the top novels I was looking forward to reading in 2024, and it lived up to all the hype...and then some. Mechanics of Memory follows Hope Nakano into Wilder, a California mental institute specializing in memory, where Hope is trying to recover a year that is missing from her life. Searching for the truth about her past and the man she loves leads her to more questions: namely, what is really going on at Wilder? Spellbinding writing with wry, witty, and beautiful observations, Audrey Lee spins a mind-bending psychological thriller with a twist you won't see coming. Think: Blake Crouch caliber, literary execution. This book will suck you in, keep you up past your bed-time, and have you thinking about it long after the last page is turned. HIGHLY recommend.