Prefacing this with that I DNF'd at 31%. Rating 2/5 stars for the fact of the concept of memory sharing seemed interesting as hell which is why I requested the ARC. When I got it, I'll be honest. It took me a while to even get through the first portion. The boy at the beginning is giving a message to everyone letting them know the memories he was sharing were from his mother; that he wanted to share them all before they were edited and/or removed for being illegal banned memories. The book is apparently a collection of connected stories all related to different banned memories.

While the story I read was the Arc, it jumps through POVs too much. One chapter will start talking At you, or the Qin Audience, in 2nd person. "For the next minute, listen to my voice as we prepare you for your upcoming experience." The next paragraph will shift to 3rd person as it tells you a small story and slowly shift into using first person pronouns for the descriptions before another page goes by and its suddenly referring to you - the reader/Qin audience - again. It's personally very disorienting.

After that chapter, we're given a "viral memory" and then another message from the boy at the beginning. I don't believe we ever meet the same characters twice aside from the boy with no name from the beginning; I believe that's a downside of these types of stories. The collection of stories aren't long enough to give me any connection to the characters aside from one that I don't even have a name of that occasionally pops in to talk directly to the reader/audience. It makes me less likely to enjoy the story, the characters are a spill of water. I know nothing of them and therefore their struggles and such aren't enough to make me concerned or find a way to connect with them. Perhaps I'll try to re-read this later and I'll adjust my review then but for now, it's not gonna be finished.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the e-ARC!

This was a really beautiful Black Mirror-esque book of beautiful interconnected dystopian vignettes. It’s short read but certainly not an easy one and I know that these individual stories that all fit together so well will sit with me for a while.

If you like your books to challenge your view of reality and confront what our world looks like today and what that could mean for our futures or you enjoy philosophy focused sci fi spin on dystopian stories this is a good choice for you.

In "These Memories Do Not Belong To Us," the protagonist is grieving the loss of his mother, whose memories he has inherited.

The memories are vignettes about the genesis of Qin (China after defeating the West through war), and it's citizens who have been outfitted with a Mindbank-a device that records and shares memories.

The individual stories were thought provoking, even Black Mirror-esque. I wondered how the stories would dovetail and if the characters would crossover with others. Some did to a limited capacity and the denouement was satisfying.

The themes of the stories involved history, communism, the strength of the human spirit, and the importance of truth.

Thank you to Mariner books and Netgalley for this arc

cool, well written, book telling a very effective story throughout through an assortment of memories of various people. 5 stars. tysm for the arc.

Yiming Ma delivers a radical and haunting meditation on memory, censorship, and resistance. This speculative novel is mosaic in nature. It's layered and fragmented and almost like a dream sequence or transmission.

TMDNBTU is set in a future where the world is ruled the authoritarian Qin Empire. In this world, memories are no longer private - they are commodities! Every citizen is implanted with a Mindbank, a device capable of recording, sharing, editing, and even erasing memories.

Our narrator, is unnamed and grieving,and inherits from his mother a collection of outlawed memories that challenge the official story of Qin’s rise to power. The book unfolds through these fragments. They are interconnected but nonlinear. Together we encounter an armless Olympic swimmer, a dissident delivery worker in New York, a mother stirring a pot of chankonabe in defiance, and a runaway recalling a forbidden love. What these memories have in common is that each is an actual act of rebellion against a the regime.

What’s so striking is that Ma balances the coldness of science fiction and the regime with warm emotions in the memories. We are left with enduring questions such as,; What do we owe to the truth? What stories survive when governments rewrite the past? And how do we carry forward the memories that others tried to silence? This is a beautiful, fragmented and chilling look at a possible future. #Mariner #Thesememoriesdonotbelongtous #yimingma

The idea of this book is cool, and the writing is good for a debut book. I like the memory concept and how the stories are connected (even tho I struggled to follow them and got confused sometimes(?)). I didn't really enjoy the parts about the whole empire and the world-building thing. And I just didn’t feel interested in the politics or something like that here. Maybe other people will like it more, but it wasn’t really for me.

I loved the setting and framework of this book - a dystopian future in which Qin (formerly China) is the global superpower and most citizens have Mindbanks (interracial devices that are used to record memories and transmit them to others). Mindbanks also serve as their primary devices for communication with others, etc. Each chapter is a memory that has been transmitted to an unnamed narrator by his mother at the time of her death.

Similar Vibes: To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara. Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng.

Thoughts
- This book does not read as a novel. It reads like interconnected short stories. I didn’t fully grasp that until halfway in and probably would have enjoyed it more if I had realized it sooner.
- My favorite kind of dystopian setting…one that feels very real and possible. It makes it all the more eerie to read.
- I had difficulty grasping the timeline and had to frequently go back to an earlier page where the chapter timeline was outlined.
- Some stories I loved and wanted more of. Several other stories…I’m not sure why they were included. But isn’t this always the way with short story collections?
- This is a “trust the process” type read. I was often unsure of the direction we were headed with various stories. But it all comes together in the end.

Thanks to NetGalley & Mariner Books for the ARC!

These Memories Do Not Belong to Us by Yiming Ma is a thought-provoking collection of interconnected short stories, or memories, that span multiple lifetimes. Although the stories are not presented in chronological order, readers gradually learn to place each narrative in its proper time period as they become more familiar with the world Ma has created. One of the most enjoyable aspects of reading this book is piecing together the threads that connect the stories: objects, themes, and characters that appear and reappear. A particularly memorable recurring object is a watch. After finishing the book,I found myself wanting to go back and reread it to catch details I may have missed the first time. My two favorite stories were those of the sumo wrestler and the armless swimmer which were both moving and memorable.

The stories are framed by a central character who has inherited these memories from their mother. The setting is a dystopian future version of China, now called Qin, which has become the dominant global power after a devastating war. The United States, in contrast, has become a marginalized “4th world country.” In Qin, the government demands total obedience, and any information that challenges its authority or image is strictly forbidden. In this world, people store their experiences in “mind banks,” where memories can be traded like currency. Corporations produce “Memory Epics,” which are modified memories that have been edited for emotion, color, or even historical accuracy. This technology is not only invasive, but it also allows those in power to rewrite the past.

The memories the protagonist receives are illegal and dangerous to possess. They know that the authorities will eventually discover what they hold in his mind bank, and when they do, the consequences will be severe being either execution or forced reeducation.
Yiming Ma’s book is a fascinating blend of science fiction, dystopian warning, and social commentary. It paints a chilling but believable picture of a future where history, truth, and identity are controlled by those in power. I would recommend These Memories Do Not Belong to Us to readers who enjoy dystopian fiction, speculative sci-fi, and stories that echo real-world political issues.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for this ARC!

While the premise of the Qin Empire, the Mindbank, Memory Capitalism, and memory censoring is fascinating, there is very little said about how all of this works. Given it was this premise that drew me to the book, I was disappointed.

Instead the book is comprised of a series of vignettes - memories. They are all told in the first person. At first I thought they were all of the narrator’s mother’s personal memories. However, there are two memories featuring young women about the same age, so they can’t possibly belong to one woman. I found this very confusing.

Were these memories his mother collected, since they didn’t all appear to be her own? And if so how did she manage to inherit them while evading the censors? So many questions!

That said, I am in the minority given the 4 rating on both Storygraph and Goodreads. Obviously, this book wasn’t meant for me. Yiming Ma is a good writer who knows how to paint a scene that’s easy to see. So I can understand how readers with a more literary appetite enjoyed this book. I really didn’t.

Thank you to Mariner Books and author Yimimg Ma for access to the ARC of These Memories Do Not Belong to Us. This book focuses on a boy retrieving memories from his mother who passed. In a world where China, renamed Qin, has taken over much of the world including America. Written in short stories, this book relives stories before, after, and during the war in which Qin claimed much of the world. In this future the boy lives in, Mindbanks (which people use to quickly access memories and share memories with others) are standard for people to use. Memories that go against party ideals are dangerous to possess. The stories our main character finds involve many revolutionary ideals. Each individual story connects in some way to other parts of this book which is a very nice touch. I enjoyed the concept of this book and the pacing. I wish there was more!

Is this going to be one of my favorite books of the year? Probably. I'm really going to have to sit with this one and maybe re read it a couple times to fully wrap my head around everything, but I will enjoy every second of it.

This book consists of several short stories, which can be read in almost any order. In a future where memories are shared just as easily as we share reels and tiktoks today, our narrator inherits several memories from his mother, only to discover that they are banned memories and he will suffer the legal consequences of owning them once the government gets around to screening them. These memories cover a wide span of time and take place around the world. We are offered a range of perspectives on the war and the Mindbanks that have propelled this society's timeline forward. Some stories feel a little Black Mirror, and others feel so "normal" that you forget you are reading a science fiction book. All of them feel real.

I love a book that makes me think. I spent most chapters considering 1. Why tell us this story? and 2. Why ban this story? There are some obvious parallels to what we are currently experiencing in real life, but Memories also demonstrates how the gradual destruction of our human connections makes us weak and isolated. The memories all have a degree of sadness but are not overly bleak, and often have an undertone of hope. I'm a sucker for a quiet dystopian novel that doesn't launch me into a bottomless depression.

Considering recommending this for book club to force my friends to talk about it with me.

Even though the book is presented to us in loosely-related short stories, the narrative does have an escalating tone that helps keep its readers engaged. I'll randomize the chapter order a bit more for subsequent reads. Looking forward to more from Yiming Ma in the future! Thank you so much to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the ARC!

These memories Do Not Belong to Us is a series of short stories set in a post-apocalyptic China, renamed Qin, where memories are used as currency. There is literal trade and monetary value extracted from the use of memories, and those memories may be passed from person to person in order to relive experiences from a true first person angle. As you would expect, censorship occurs and many of the Memory Epics, a title used for notable memories, begin to become either redacted or outright banned as anything which may be considered anti-Qin is suppressed. You gain access to your mother's memory bank which contains many banned memories and Memory Epics - what will you discover about your world? The parallels to modern-day China are very clear with themes of government censorship and control of the media, though this takes it a step further in which those memories may be literally deleted -erased from existence aside from those who harbor rogue, unadulterated copies.

The format of the novel is incredibly smart - by having a series of short stories, it's like we the audience are able to experience the various banned memories in first person. None of the stories are very long and breeze by quickly, but you continue to learn more about the worst as you continue reading. I found each of the short stories to be individually enjoyable, and slowly piecing together the history of this alternate timeline is incredibly satisfying. By the end, I had a strong urge to reread the novel just to see what I missed now that I have some additional context! The novel also provides a recommended reading order (aka the order it's published in), but offers the opportunity to experience these stories in any order which is nifty as well and plays into many of the themes of individual expression and freedom.

My only issue with the novel is the lack of emotional depth that I felt with any of the individual stories. They're all snappy and read easily, but you never get to know the characters enough that their personal tragedies go beyond a base layer of empathy. There are some recurring characters and references are made to the events of previous stories, but we never grow with a single character enough to really bond with them. This may be a general issue with short story compilations, but I digress.

Overall, I recommend this novel for people who enjoy Sci-fi which plays into themes of identity, individualism, and the dangers of government control. The stories are well paced and the reveal of information about the world is satisfying.

4/5 stars.

I really enjoyed the writing style of this book. I am not usually into sci-fi but the premise of inherited/shared memories was intriguing to me.

It took me awhile to piece together how the chapters connected to each other but once I got far enough in and started seeing the big picture it really made me think. I got serious 1984 vibes from this.

The ending was kind of a let down for me, but I think the ending is meant to be more open and make you think rather than being a definitive “the story is over now” kind of ending. This ending worked really well for the book and the story it told, but it just wasn’t as impactful for me personally as I would have liked.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read and I liked that it made me think about the world today even if it took place in a future time.

In this stunning, genre-bending work, author Yiming Ma introduces us to a world that parallels our own, but one where China has become the global superpower and the introduction of Mindbanks, a device implanted in individuals' brains, leads to the rise of Memory Capitalism and the overarching surveillance of the Party. The opening pages are told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator who has inherited his deceased mother's Mindbank and memories - and despite the risk of experiencing and sharing them, he chooses to do so. What follows is a series of short stories that are loosely interconnected, told from various time periods before, during, and after the rise of the Qin empire and the devastation of the Chrysanthemum Virus that plagued the world.

Each of these stories act like mosaics - a piece of art independently, but even more beautiful when put into context with the others. In "First Viral Memory: Chankonabe", a mother questions her decision to send her only child to train as a sumo wrestler and years later, tries to bring to him a pot of her signature chankonabe stew after his eventual success. In "Swimmer of Yangtze", an armless swimmer from the small village of Wuhan is enlisted in the Olympics and tries to obtain fame for his hometown - at a devastating cost. In "+86 Shanghai", a Qin deserter leaves his family behind in China and attempts to make a new life in New York City, working as a food delivery person in the hopes of bringing his family with him. Each of these stories is immersive, thought-provoking, and beautifully written, questioning our ties with our loved ones, our reliance on technology, the deeply expanding surveillance of state, how our memories and experiences craft who we are.

Despite how short "These Memories Do Not Belong to Us" is, I found it deeply impactful and memorable. Especially in the current state of the world and the ever-changing geopolitical status, the message underlying this work feels deeply relevant. Very much a recommended read when this is published in August 2025!

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for this ARC!
These Memories Do Not Belong to Us is a collection of short stories following characters before, during, and after a war that leaves a single authoritarian state in control of the entire world in which not even your own mind and memories are safe. These are all different settings, circumstances, and people, but each story is connected, a poignant reminder that the same is true in reality. It was easy to sympathize with all the characters, no matter their backgrounds or flaws. Whether the stories ended hopefully, sadly, or with bittersweet feelings, each were distinct and made you truly think about what you would do in the same circumstances.
In the current political climate, stories of systematic propaganda and misinformation hit unfortunately close to home. The 'main' narrator's story ends without resolution, but as we can hope for a better world, we can also hope that his narrative does not end tragically.
I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

Yiming Ma’s These Memories Do Not Belong to Us is not your traditional novel, and that’s what makes it so haunting. There’s no singular protagonist, no neat, linear progression—just fragments of lives lived under an increasingly oppressive regime, where memories are recorded, rewritten, and erased.

Through a series of interconnected narratives spanning different time periods, economic backgrounds, and government structures, Ma crafts a chilling vision of a future that feels uncomfortably close to reality. The novel explores authoritarian control, media manipulation, and the slow, methodical erasure of personal and collective history. The most unsettling part? It doesn’t read like speculative fiction—it reads like a warning.

The structure forces the reader to engage deeply, piecing together the overarching story through different perspectives. Some struggle within educational restrictions, others live under the weight of a government rewriting their past, and all of them—regardless of their circumstances—grapple with the same question: How do you hold onto hope when the very fabric of your reality is being altered?

Ma doesn’t leave the reader entirely adrift in despair, though. The novel builds toward a type of resolution, offering a form of closure for those searching for meaning in the chaos. But the real power of These Memories Do Not Belong to Us isn’t in the answers it provides—it’s in the questions it forces us to ask about our own world.

This is a book that lingers. It’s disturbing, timely, and impossible to ignore. If you’re looking for something that will challenge you, unsettle you, and make you think about the fragility of truth, this is it.

3.75 stars

4⭐️

The premise that you can read these stories in any order instantly intrigued me - it’s such a rarity in stories and definitely made this a unique reading experience. I found myself crying multiple times during this book at the beauty of these stories and what they symbolized. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would love to reread it in a different order - it seems like a story you can revisit multiple times and get a new experience with each read-through. Thank you for the early copy!

“Because you’re my koala, and I’m your tree.” ❤️

A beautiful and powerful novel of how memories eventually become a commodity with a new invention of "Mindbanks" in this new dystopian society of Qin. We dive into several "Memory Epics" or short stories from a variety of perspectives, and how governmental surveillance and control come into play with each Epic.

A true thought provoking novel as we reflect on our current global state. <3

*These Memories Do Not Belong to Us" is a thought-provoking exploration of memory, identity, and human emotion. The book's structure—shifting between fragmented memories—keeps readers engaged, with powerful moments emerging in scenes like the sumo wrestler, chess game, and swimmer’s struggle. These emotional highlights truly resonate, offering a deeper connection to the characters.

The ending ties everything together beautifully, leaving a satisfying sense of closure. However, I found myself wishing for more emotional depth throughout the book. Still, the story cleverly challenges readers to reflect on our global state and future possibilities, making it a memorable and intellectually stimulating read.

An incredible dystopian collection of interconnected short stories, spanning three different time periods. Each chapter offers a unique perspective either before, during, or after the war. The protagonist lives in a world where memories have been turned into a commodity - editable, marketable, and easily corrupted. In this society, a single memory can determine one’s fate and jeopardize their freedom. I found the story to be incredibly immersive, drawing me into a world where personal memories challenge the controlled narrative of history.

When I was a boy, my mother used to tell me stories of a world before memories could be shared between strangers. Some of the Memory Epics from which she drew her stories must have been censored already by the Party. Any loyal patriot would have deleted these memories.

There’s a deep melancholy, accompanied by a quiet hope, in each story. At times it felt like a reality check, eerily similar to today’s world. The contrast between individualism and systematic control is striking. Making this not just a story of the past, but one that resonates with the present as well. It reminded me of Black Mirror, with its unsettling exploration of technology and control. Overall, it’s a thought provoking and beautifully written book that will linger with you long after the last page. I look forward to re-reading this in the future.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Mariner Books for the ARC!