Dissolution

This plot-driven scifi book about the power of memory felt better suited to be a beach thriller or a movie (which apparently it might be). Largely, the character arcs feel flat and other a neat core idea, I'm not sure that the plot machinations hold up that well for me.

Some minor negatives: the time loop-esque conceit of future selves saving past selves, which always falls flat. It's also hard for me to suspend my disbelief about the idea of perfect memory, when it is always intermediated and misremembered. I also give a huge side-eye to this British author using Australian Aboriginals and their mythos as context for some plot elements.

On the positive front, for a story about memory, I appreciate that it is structured as a frame story where one person forces somebody else to recount their own memory of events, in which the story can nest further into other memories. I also appreciate the foreshadowing of the pick up artist who asks enough people out through persistence until somebody says yes. There's also a few good SCP-esque lines in the Lazarus Institute that made me laugh. But all of this was not enough to carry it for me.