There's some books that come into your life at the wrong time. Everything about this book is something I should like but I find myself wandering at times while reading. It wasn't action oriented (which is fine) but without a more clear inciting event and hook it was difficult to get myself to want to come back to it. Overall, the ideas expressed and discussed in this novel were deeply thought provoking and enjoyable but perhaps my mind needed to be ready for the writing style and story structure.

This book wasn’t for me. From the blurb I was expecting a more action adventure type of story with less sci fi elements. I don’t enjoy sci fi as a whole so it may just have been me. The writing was too heavy for my taste and the plot too circular.

I was looking forward to this book as the mention of Indiana Jones as well as dark academia and natural disasters had me intrigued. I did finish the book but I felt like it didn’t quite live up to the pitch unfortunately. I couldn’t connect with the main character very well, she came across as quite selfish. The world itself was interesting and it was good to learn about the magic system but it felt like it took a while for anything to actually happen.

Visceral, thoughtful, exciting, and sci-fi dystopian novel about a world where memories are both a commodity and artifact to be extracted and remembered in the Museum of Human Memory. In the world of The Memory Hunters, history and the arts are revered, and certain gifted individuals or memory divers do field collections of important memories through absorbing them from found objects or specimen. They can also have their memories erased when they get overloaded. The question is what makes a memory significant and worth remembering and who gets to tell the story? The book also dives into how forgotten memories can lead to misinformation or benefit institutions. This book has strong Brave New World and The Giver feels - two of my favorite books.

The protagonist, Key - “the blessed one” is a memory diver, who is strong-willed, independent, but empathetic. Vale, as her guardian, was also fierce and interesting character foil. This was a mysterious and fascinating read at the same time, and the world building around the museum, temple, and outside world is phenomenal. Beautifully written.

Special thanks to Kensington Publishing, Erewhon Books, and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest, independent review.

THE MEMORY HUNTERS is a gorgeous, haunting dystopia that will infect your blood with its hyphae and fruit inside your heart. Tsai is a master at building romantic tension, even as revelations unfold in a cascade of "oh shit, OH SHIT, OH SHIT," amidst a plot as complex as the story's world. The story surfaces deep questions of culture and institutional preservation, and who has the right to remember things. The yearning of Tsai's characters is exquisite, and the worldbuilding rich with detail and meaning. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.

My thanks to Kensington Publishing and NetGalley for a free DRC of "The Memory Hunters" by Mia Tsai.
This was one of my most anticipated releases of 2025 because of the comparison to "The Fifth Season". I will be transparent and say there is one similarity : natural disasters, but not on the same scale.
"The Memory Hunters" is a Fantasy with some SF elements that had a impactful start and it promised a lot of mysteries and complex relationships.
My biggest difficulty was relating to the main character, Key. She was the embodiment of an extremely selfish, self centered rich person. But because I could relate to the second main character, Valerian, I continued my reading journey.
From the initial strong start I did feel that the narrative went in circles for a while and we learned a bit more about this world, magic and much more about the politics, but I did not felt that the story progressed in a significant way until we got closer to the end.
In conclusion I got invested in this Appalachian-influenced setting, in the intriguing world and magic, thought that some of the relationships were interesting and it was worth getting to the end.
While I an mot as satisfied as I anticipated, I would still recommend this Adult Fantasy to advanced readers of the genre that want to experience an original world with some political background and a some sapphic yearning.

I really did not like this at all and I could not keep reading it. The writing style was difficult to follow and the dialogue was not very good.