Tell Me An Ending by Jo Harkin; Book Review brought to you by The Girl Who Reads courtesy of Random Things Tours
“He should have got therapy, Noor…It wasn’t binary. It wasn’t death or deletion. I can see him now, making his decision between honour and disgrace.“
Housekeeping:
Tell Me an Ending, a debut novel by Jo Harkin, is a sci-if almost dystopian book that would be perfect for fans of Black Mirror. It came out on the 1st of March and was published by Scribner.
Review for Tell Me an Ending
We’ve all wondered what it would be like if we could just delete a memory. If we could erase our trauma just like that. But don’t our memories make us who we are? Doesn’t the body also remember? Can it really be that easy?
Tell Me an Ending follows the stories of different people, whose lives overlap, who have all been impacted by the erasure of memories. Noor works at the clinic, Mei’s mother is important in the company, Oscar was one of its earliest patients, William had an illegal procedure, Finn was afraid that his wife had an affair and so on.
Jo Harkin does a fantastic job of exploring the consequences that this could have on a person, and people around them. It’s made more intriguing when people find out that memories can’t just be blacked out like that, and can be restored. The changing perspectives kept things going in what could have been a really slow book. This was definitely a great debut novel and I can’t wait to see more of Jo Harkin!
About Jo Harkin:
Jo Harkin studied English Literature at university. She daydreamed her way through various jobs in her twenties before giving in and becoming a full-time writer. She published four real-world literary fiction novels under a pseudonym, before deciding to follow her passion and move into speculative fiction. Her focus is ‘what if’ stories with an emphasis on human lives. She lives in Berkshire
Blurb for Tell Me an Ending
Across the world, thousands of people are shocked to receive an email telling them that they once chose to have a traumatic memory removed. Now they are being given the chance to get that memory back.
For Mei, William, Oscar and Finn there is a piece missing, but they’re not sure what. And each of them must decide if the truth is worth the pain, or better left unknown.
For Noor, who works at the memory clinic Nepenthe, the process of reinstating their patients’ memories begins to shake the moral foundations of her world. As she delves deeper into the programme, she will have to risk everything to uncover the true human cost of this miraculous technology.
An exploration of secrets, grief, identity and belonging – of the stories we tell ourselves, and come to rely on, Tell Me An Ending is a sharp, dark and devastating novel about the power and danger of memory.
The Girl Who Reads 
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