Hello, friend, thanks for joining me today! What was the last book you read that you wanted to share with everyone but took a long time to get your thoughts together? An alternate-history science fiction, Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin, is that book for me and I am so happy to finally write down why this book is still on my mind. First, the synopsis and the content notes:
What if you didn’t have to live with your worst memories?
Across the world, thousands of people are shocked by a notification that they once chose to have a memory removed. Now they are being given an opportunity to get that memory back. Four individuals are filled with new doubts, grappling with the unexpected question of whether to remember unknown events, or to leave them buried forever.
Finn, an Irish architect living in the Arizona desert, begins to suspect his charming wife of having an affair. Mei, a troubled grad school dropout in Kuala Lumpur, wonders why she remembers a city she has never visited. William, a former police inspector in England, struggles with PTSD, the breakdown of his marriage, and his own secret family history. Oscar, a handsome young man with almost no memories at all, travels the world in a constant state of fear.
Into these characters’ lives comes Noor, a psychologist working at the Nepenthe memory removal clinic in London. The process of reinstating patients’ memories begins to shake the moral foundations of her world. As she delves deeper into how the program works, she will have to risk everything to uncover the cost of this miraculous technology.
A provocative exploration of secrets, grief, and identity—of the stories we tell ourselves—Tell Me an Ending is a sharp, dark, and devastating novel about the power of memory.
Content Notes include depiction of suicide, death of parent, death, addiction, mental illness, suicidal thoughts and incest.
Thoughts on Tell Me an Ending
I was also very much into audio journaling at this time of reading this so I recorded my thoughts as I read. This was a great exercise in recording the actual experience of the book from start to finish and being to share it rather than relying on my memory. Let’s see what that looked like.
First Impressions:
I loved the cover! The photo of a bird in the sky in front of a moon, depicted within a fractured frame works really well with the plot of the book. The image isn’t showing up right and speaks well to things that are no longer clear in our head.
The approach of the book around returning memories that were erased is an interesting point to start the story at. I had so many questions! What was this technology that made the memory removal possible? How did that affect society? How did people react to it? Deeper questions on the individual level of what it means to erase a memory?
Two books that I was reminded of –
- The Thirteenth Hour by Trudie Skies which has explored the effect of memories being buried by one of the protagonists, Quinn.
- We Are Satellites by Sara Pinsker had explored the adoption of mind technology chips that were supposed to enhance human functioning. The book approached the perspective of such technology not working out for everyone and the isolation and depression it caused when people’s experience did not align with the norm. How companies pushed down such truths.
Tell Me an Ending had the angle of technology and big corporation as well as the human experience of losing memories and the effects of that choice on self and others.
The Plot:
The story starts with Noor as the head of the aftercare team at Nepenthe. She follows up with people after their memory is removed. Through Noor, I learned a lot about the history of memory erasal and the type of clients that play a key role in this story. There are self-informed clients who know they have had a memory removed and then self-confidential clients, those who had a memory removed but didn’t know that either. Over the years, people have complained that part of the erased memory has been left intact. When scientists discover a procedure to bring the memories back, a class action lawsuit was launched for self-confidential clients to know who they are and what they erased.
As the case progresses, Noor gets disillusioned about the organisation and her boss. Her moral standing and values are tested. The clients also start to question what they had let happen to themselves. The author built the narrative around multiple characters who have had memory erased.
I liked the start. It raised all the questions I had at the beginning. The types of clients were confusing at first but I eventually adjusted to it. There were also little side plots about memories being stolen. I felt that the author cast a wide web and between all the characters, their personal history, the history of the alternate world depicted in the book, there was a lot that had to come about. The first 10% were hard to get through because there was so much to know about the world and the perspectives. There was a bunch of politics and court suits and old settlements that were interwoven into the different characters’ lives. Finally about 12% the pace picked up. Meeting Miranda and Finn, a married couple where one had a memory erased without telling the other, piqued my interest. It offered a look into a relationship, rather than other more one-individual centred perspectives.
Tell Me an Ending led me on a devastating journey. I could not put it down but when I did, I also didn’t want to get back into it. Through each of the characters, the consequences of the memory loss, the damage it did to some people, the course correction others tried and failed,…
I felt so sad as the pieces of memories and the characters fell into space.
What they had lost was revealed.
How they were connected became clear.
Oscar’s story was heartbreaking. Mei’s story of how she ended up having a memory erased was brutal. Noor’s neighbours’ story was mind-blowing but William’s was the very worst. That one I sat and cried on for some time.
Though I could not relate with all of the situations, it was impossible not to feel the human suffering and grief of the memories and what their loss had done to the people.
It was overall a good book! Sometimes it felt too complicated because with so many characters, it was hard to know where it was going.
Tell Me an Ending did a good job of showing life. There are no concrete answers. We do our best but there is no guarantee in life that everything will always be good and there will be no pain. The characters had a choice to take back a memory and learn who they were, or to let it remain unknown and live with the choices previously made. There is strength in both. And each will lead where it will.
Tell Me an Ending touches on every intricacy of being human – what it means to have memories, a childhood, to have done something that you can’t live with, it’s devastating. Human experience is often such a sad one and we all have to find a light that will keep us going. In our time, there is no memory removal technology so we have to find it in ourselves to let go. Maybe this book offers a look into how having technology can’t help us either.
Find Tell Me an Ending book on Goodreads and Storygraph.
Many thanks to The Nerd Daily for providing me a review copy for an honest review. A shorter version of this review will also be posted there.
Cover Photo by bady abbas on Unsplash
Hi there, thanks much for this review. Yes Tell me an Ending is brilliant and I was drawn to its premise when I first came across. Really pleased that I have read it.
Tell me an Ending has taken me longer than the time I take to finish a book partly because there was a lot going on in the book as well in my life. I was very distracted. I finally read the last part today, I could not put it down and it gave me a good cry and that was what I needed.
I completely relate with your reading experience. It was a slow read for me too! Thanks for reading my review and sharing your thoughts. 🙂