Synopsis
One afternoon at an outdoor market in India, a man’s shadow disappears—an occurrence science cannot explain. He is only the first. The phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, it comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories.
Ory and his wife Max have escaped the Forgetting so far by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods. Their new life feels almost normal, until one day Max’s shadow disappears too.
Knowing that the more she forgets, the more dangerous she will become to Ory, Max runs away. But Ory refuses to give up the time they have left together. Desperate to find Max before her memory disappears completely, he follows her trail across a perilous, unrecognizable world, braving the threat of roaming bandits, the call to a new war being waged on the ruins of the capital, and the rise of a sinister cult that worships the shadowless.
As they journey, each searches for answers: for Ory, about love, about survival, about hope; and for Max, about a new force growing in the south that may hold the cure.
Review
In a near-future post-apocalyptic world, there’s a strange phenomenon of people losing their shadows – and their memories with them. How the memories leave have no rhyme or reason but it’s a sure sign that soon enough that person’s mind will be erased until they don’t even remember they need to breathe.
This was a book I randomly added to my audiobooks and my TBR jar, and I’m honestly so glad I didn’t know anything before going in. I can honestly say I genuinely enjoyed this read. I’m sure for some it’ll feel a bit slower but I think the different POVs from those with and without shadows, with and without pasts, with and without big motivations keeps the ball rolling allowing to really take in the deterioration of society. As with any situation with groups of people with definitive differences, you can expect there to be compassion, sympathy and the raw anger that breeds from fear of what we can’t control.
Easily a book that forces you to focus on the subtleties *and* the bigger picture, otherwise you might get lost yourself.
Book and Pen In Hand 