This book seemed like a one with a good concept - a futuristic retelling of Rapunzel. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as good as I hoped it to be.

We meet Adelaide - the main protagonist, a memory jumper. But who are memory jumpers? Well, they can edit, delete or add memories and the world doesn’t like them. They are hunted down, perceived as dangerous. This is why Adelaine is stuck in a safe house with Fawn, her guardian who is emotionally and mentally abusive to her. Fawn controls Adelaide all the time and uses for her own purposes.

Ironically, Fawn was the best written character in the whole book, the rest was mostly one-dimensional, nothing unique about them. The writing was very simple, which made the reading experience easy despite it being a science fiction book, however, I was hoping to read something more demanding. And the worldbuilding was really poor, a reader didn’t really know how big the world is and what states are in it. The tech seemed advanced sometimes, and sometimes I felt like going back to the Middle Ages.

“The Memory Jumper” could be a really good read, but turned out to be very mediocre. However, I think the author has potential and I’ll give her a chance if he writes something new.

I had a difficult time with this book. I felt like it had a good concept, and I understood what it was trying to do, but it never quite got there for me. I often felt confused about what was happening and why. I also had no idea that it was a Rapunzel retelling until I saw it mentioned in a review or blurb somewhere. I appreciated the commentary on domestic abuse, but felt like the message sometimes got a bit muddled. The end felt abrupt, as well.

When I saw the words "Rapunzel Retelling" I just knew I had to give The Memory Jumper a go, and my goodness it didn't disappoint! The twists and turns, the unexpected directions, the dark retelling... it's a match made in heaven for a reader like me. This dystopian sci-fi novel was so well written that there were times I had to sit in my feelings for a while before I continued on - Amanda Michelle Brown has a way with words and characterisation that is truly magical.

If the genre isn't normally your cup of tea, still give it a go - The Memory Jumper does not disappoint, and was one of the best books I read all year!

I am grateful for the opportunity to have received an advance copy of "The Memory Jumper" for review.

"The Memory Jumper" introduces us to Adelaide, a complex and deeply layered protagonist. As I followed her journey, I appreciated the author's portrayal of her internal struggle and the gradual realization of the injustices she had endured. Adelaide's growth and self-reflection throughout the story were compelling to witness, as she grappled with the weight of her actions and discovered her true identity as a victim.

While the book undeniably possesses significant merit and explores important themes, I must admit that I think the book is more suitable for a younger audience. This observation may stem from personal preference or individual reading experiences, as each reader brings their unique perspective to a story. However, I believe that younger readers, particularly those who are navigating their own path of self-discovery and moral understanding, will find immense value and resonance within the pages of this book.

One aspect that truly shines in "The Memory Jumper" is the intricate web of emotions woven throughout the narrative. The author skillfully delves into Adelaide's inner turmoil, showcasing the internal conflicts she grapples with as she comes to terms with her past. The exploration of victimhood, self-empowerment, and the recognition of one's own agency is a powerful and thought-provoking journey that the author guides readers through with sensitivity and depth.

While "The Memory Jumper" may not have aligned perfectly with my personal reading preferences, I recognize its inherent value and the impact it can have on the target audience it is intended for. This book serves as a catalyst for introspection and encourages readers to question the nature of memories, the power dynamics at play, and the importance of finding one's voice amidst adversity.

The cover is absolutely stunning, it is what drew me to the book initially. I found the story hard to get into, I’m not really sure why. Just not for me.

This book is strong and talks about people being hurt at home. You should read it. The story is okay, but it could have been better. Some parts of the story went too fast, but overall it is a good book. I didn't really feel a connection or bond with the main character. The person named Mason, who was supposed to be in love, was not very interesting and so I didn't care what happened to them as a couple. The writing reminded me of things I had forgotten and unique ways of saying things. I loved how the author wrote the book with simple yet powerful words, literary tricks, and storytelling techniques.

big dnf, i had a hard time getting into this book, i really wished i had liked it enoguh to keep going with it

TW// mention of suicidal thoughts, gaslighting, abuse and coercive control

"Every day you can start over. But you have to choose it "

I feel like this review is going to be all over the place, so I apologise in advance.

Adelaide is a memory jumper, at 18 years old, she lives an older fierce and manipulative woman, Fawn, whose taken up the role of Adelaide's mother, after having her memory wiped. Adelaide is tasked with jumping into other people's minds and manipulating or destroying their memories. The government has spent years trying to eradicate memory jumpers from existence, so at Fawn's orders, Adelaide hasn't left their underground safe house since she was little and lost her parents.

This was a really interesting and unique Rapunzel re-telling, with multiple POV's from various different characters, in a futuristic America with an American Monarchy barely holding on.

Colette, Queen of Frelsi, despises her position and how enclosed and trapped she feels. Dealing with the suffocating Palace, and the political mayhem, having to give away a son, and deal with the blackmail of ensuring the ascension of her illegitimate child. However, with her bastard son and heir to the throne falling into a coma, the monarchy reach out to Adelaide and Fawn to save his life by jumping into his memory whilst he's unconscious, something that's difficult and dangerous at the best of times. Colette appears numbed and desensitised at least outwardly to all the horrific and unnecessary death and cruelty that follows her husband King Wesley. She longs to escape and find her son she had to give away, get away from this dictatorship, that relies solely upon the grovelling and hard work of inventors and artists to keep the country of Frelsi afloat. It's difficult not to feel compassion and empathy towards Colette, she carries a large weight on her shoulders and can't see a way out of this hell. The comparisons between her and Adelaide are palpable, each forced to stay in a place that brings them nothing but misery and anguish.

Fawn is really emotionally and mentally abusive to Adelaide, controlling her and keeping constant watch over her daily activities, she has no privacy and is confined to the underground, never having seen the outside. Instead, Fawn uses her talents of memory jumping to gain clientele and bring them home to Adelaide. She's definitely a hard to stomach character, horrific and controlling to an extreme.

Adelaide spends her time isolated and alone, with only Buddy and Perkins to speak to, Fawn's lackeys. Buddy and Perkins are visionaries so they can see glimpses of your future reality, based on a trajectory of your current choices and decisions, which was a really interesting and refreshing dynamic. It's tangible how distressing and traumatising it is for Adelaide to jump into other's memories, particularly when she's forced to do it to someone unwilling, just so Fawn can get an income. She has to deal with their memories replaying over and over in her head long after the client has gone.

Mason was another interesting character, he came into Adelaide's life like a whirlwind, giving her a new sense of life and purpose that she'd lost under lock and key of Fawn. He gave her the space to be herself, and figure out who that is, by embracing herself and all the quirks that come along with it. Adelaide helps Mason uncover the truth about his parents, and in return, Mason brings something each day from a different part of the world, giving her this new opportunity to travel even whilst trapped. Their friendship was so wholesome, full of warmth and heart, and utterly adorable to read.

I did find at times that the movement of the plot was really slow, and focused on some really mundane activities and human aspects of life i.e. cooking and washing up, which I didn't feel necessarily moved the plot along or added much. Some aspects of the plot thought were really beautifully written, for example, Adelaide's first time outside, you could feel her child-like wonder and innocence shining through the pages, it was so wholesome and warming. It has a tense plot, with action packed twists, that although I did guess them from a little while in, were still really fun. I did feel like the open ending left me with a lot of questions. I would've liked to have known more about how Fawn found Adelaide and whether she had anything to do with her losing her parents. What happened to Adam? Green? Fawn? Buddy and Perkins? What did Adelaide end up doing? There's definitely a lot to be cleared up, that felt a little abandoned and lost at the end.

Overall, it was a really unique and refreshing retelling of Rapunzel. Mason and Adelaide's friendship was the biggest highlight for me. It was definitely a unique and well imagined world, with some interesting and compelling twists, but it did leave me with a lot of questions, so I'm conflicted.

Not until I read some other reviews did I realize that this was supposed to be a Rapunzel retelling. I gave the book repeated chances, making it to 50% only so I could count it for a readathon. The book started with a lot of confusing infodumping; I hoped that this tendency would taper off but it did not. The book could not decide whether it wanted to be a sci-fi dystopian or medieval fantasy with anachronistic elements. The book had tech and magic which can work sometimes but it did not in this book. I kept trying but ultimately I could not continue.

I like the main character, but the story feels like it needs more developing. There is so much that is left unexplained and it's just so confusing. So much potential, but it's wasted.

Adelaide, a memory jumper that can manipulate minds, was a interesting main character. I liked her, but the story and execution wasn't amazing. The writing felt clunky and disjointed, but the pacing was good. I think the best thing about this story was the concept.

I’m a huge fan of re-tellings, so I was absolutely over the moon when I read the synopsis for this book!

Well written and super intriguing premise but unfortunately this one just didn’t hit the mark for me! Not as dark as I was expecting (or even as dark as the original tale) and I felt like the ending was underwhelming and a bit disorganized? Had the ending followed the same pacing as the rest of the novel I think this would have been a solid 4⭐️ read for me because I was definitely entertained!

This was an interesting and imaginative take on retelling Rapunzel, using a futuristic/distopian lens. I did not find it as dark as the original fairytale despite promising a dark fantasy twist. I also found the ending to be a little rushed and haphazard.

Thank you to the publisher, author and NetGalley for sending me this arc. I will be posting this review on my Goodreads and Storygraph accounts.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/57438368-georgie
Storygraph: https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/gfairs’

I know they say not to judge a book by its cover, but I love the cover of this so much that I think I set my expectations a bit too high. THE MEMORY JUMPER is a retelling of Rapunzel, but I'm not sure why the blurb says there's a dark twist when the book is significantly less dark than the original fairytale. Sure, having your memories erased is dark, but falling out of a tower to land on thorns that pierce your eyes and blind you is a bit more gruesome. The second POV of the queen also didn't do much to add to the story and it was unclear why it was included. It also made the ending pretty unsatisfying, with the queen and king's reactions being completely inconsistent with their previous behaviour. The king in particular was described as a monster, but his actions and dialogue didn't actually show that. I generally enjoyed it as a light, easy read until about the 75% mark. Everything after that felt rushed and unrealistic.

I really loved the concept of this story.

Adelaide is a young teenage girl with the ability to jump into people’s minds and manipulate/delete/create their memories. This ability is being used for money by Fawn, a motherly (albeit abusive) presence in her life. Since Memory Jumpers are considered illegal, Addy lives a very sheltered and sequestered life underground. Fawn get’s a job for her that’s rather unique giving Addy a rare glimpse of life above ground where, you guessed it, she meets a boy. And the story goes on….

I read this not knowing this was intended to be a retelling of Rapunzel which I honestly didn’t see any relationship to the story outside of Addy getting her hair cut. Which isn’t a huge spoiler nor was it any real part of the story like Rapunzel.

Overall, this is a very imaginative story. I loved the concept of memory jumping. It’s original and was executed very nicely. The pacing of the story was ok. It felt fast, then slow, then it was wrapped up quickly. So as a first time story, this was nicely done. But I wanted more. More detail. More of the world around Addy. More of Addy. More background of the story of the Memory Jumpers and how they came to be and more of what happened to them.

I’ll give this a 3 stars and hope to see more from Amanda Michelle Brown.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lost Island Press for the eARC.

This is a unique story with an interesting take on a dystopian world. However, I wouldn't call it a Rapunzel retelling.

The overall story was intriguing enough, with the relationship between Fawn and Adelaide building and changing throughout. The book's tone wasn't my favorite, so consider that with this review.

Several things could have been better. The worldbuilding was unfinished and frenetic—so many questions were left unanswered. However, the most significant thing was the last fourth of the book went off the rails.

Adelaide is a memory jumper and has lived underground for eighteen years. She was born with the power to manipulate minds, some people fear this rare gift and some want to use it for personal gains. Her mother has been selling this power and is doing it illegally. Adelaide has dreams of living in the outside world and away from her caged life. She meets a man that pushes her to live out her dreams. But, will living outside of her safe house have dangerous consequences? A retelling of Rapunzel with a twist, the author does an unique take on this fairytale with an enchanting plot and characters.

Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley and Lost Island Press for this ARC, I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for my ARC copy.

This had the potential of being such an epic story.

I was definitely engaged from the start as we’re thrust into this dystopian world of memory jumpers. I thought this concept was interesting and was excited to see where it would lead.

If we didn’t know the identity of Mason from the queen’s perspective, this would have left a bit more mystery when Adelaide helps him, after entering his subconscious. That really could have been a major shock moment in the plot.

If only we found out the motivation behind Fawn’s actions. I thought this may be a Rapunzel retelling when Mason made the reference and then the author confirmed it at the end. Why was Fawn so manipulative? Why did she keep Adelaide prisoner? What was her drive after saving Adelaide as baby to then treat her so cruel? At the end during their battle, if Adelaide was searching through Fawn’s memories for an answer, it also could have been a big reveal. We see the abuse and there’s no clear answer on it.

The pacing of the book was great. The ending was a bit rushed. Definitely wish there was more world building especially with the kingdom - where it was located, it’s placing and interactions with the world and the colour coding system. I thought the society was cool in the sense that they were advanced in technology but lived almost like they were in renaissance times. Sad about the twins and their memories being wiped. We are left wondering if Adelaide ever went back to that relationship and we’ll never know.

I thought this was a good debut novel from the author. Would be interested in her other books when released.

I really enjoyed this book. It felt like a unique and interesting new take on rapunzel and the sci-fi/dystopia/fantasy element felt fresh and exciting and I loved reading and learning about the world and the characters we encounter. I found the writing style easy enough for me to understand, and the book does tackle some heavy themes such as mental illness and gaslighting. I didn’t know this going in so some TWs would have been nice but overall I was still able to enjoy the book. I think the pacing is a little off as the end felt quite rushed compared to the even pacing of the rest of the book, but I did like the book as a whole!

Special thank you to NetGalley, Lost Island Press., and Amanda Michelle Brown for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.
The Memory Jumper is very imaginative. The lead, Adelaide is a memory jumper - a rare ability to manipulate minds and memories. The world is an interesting blend of sci-fi and historical components. I loved the magical realism of the world.
This book is a bit of a Rapunzel retelling as Adelaide is kept in an underground bunker by an abusive and controlling mother, Fawn. Fawn was by far the most intriguing character as a great villain! This was a quick read but was more plot-driven, world-building rather than character-driven. I wish Adelaide and Mason would have been developed a bit more. Overall, this is a great debut and standalone if you like fantasy!