“Wickedly smart, devious as hell, and lightning fast.” -Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author “A suspenseful and disturbing sci-fi thriller about the interweaving nature of trauma, memory, and identity.”—Peter Clines, New York Times bestselling author In this claustrophobic science fiction thriller, a woman begins to doubt her own sanity and reality itself when she undergoes a … own sanity and reality itself when she undergoes a dangerous experiment.
The Ganymede facility is a fresh start. At least that’s what Senna tells herself when she arrives to take part in a cutting-edge scientific treatment in which participants have traumatic memories erased.
And Senna has reasons for wanting to escape her past.
But almost as soon as the treatment begins, Senna finds more than just her traumatic memories disappearing. She hardly recognizes her new life or herself. Even though the cure might justify the side effects of the process, Senna knows that something isn’t right. As the side effects worsen, she will need to band together with the other participants to unravel the mystery of her present and save her future.
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One Sentence Summary: Senna, Han, and Zurri join an experimental program on an isolated moon to erase painful memories, but things stop adding up, and there’s no way out.
Overall
Reclaimed tells a fascinating story of how our memories impact us and what might happen if they suddenly become hazy and vanish. Described as a claustrophobic science fiction thriller, I felt it delivered on every front. The world was fascinating and definitely sci-fi and it, and the story made me claustrophobic. There were so many weird things going on in the dome on Ganymede that I couldn’t shake the creepy feeling and the twists and turns had me madly flipping the pages. Despite a slow start to the story, it was a quick read, though I did love the characters enough that I couldn’t read fast enough to find out what happened to them.
Extended Thoughts
Senna is the sole survivor of a deadly crash on Mars. But, more than that, she’s the sole survivor of the cult that hijacked the spaceship that was used to crash into Mars. Once, she lived completely off the grid, with no implant and no VIT device that literally keeps track of one’s life and offers endless entertainment. Now she’s infamous, and desperate to get rid of the trauma and horrendous memories.
Han is a fourteen-year-old boy with a high IQ who worships reclusive genius and billionaire Paxton Dunn. Ever since his mom tragically died, he’s been desperate to forget the last message she ever left for him. And Paxton Dunn might have just the thing to help him.
Zurri is a successful model everyone knows, though that doesn’t mean she’s immune to trauma. On her rise to fame, she neglected to form certain boundaries, boundaries that will come back to haunt her in a most horrific and public display.
Targeted by Paxton as potential test subjects who can benefit from his unique invention, he invites them for tests before finally inviting them to the distant and dangerous moon Ganymede, where they will live in close quarters with just a handful of other people. There, they will undergo a procedure to remove the traumatic memories, but, no matter how desperate Senna, Han, and Zurri are, they can’t shake the feeling something is very off.
Reclaimed starts off slowly, with most of the first half being not much beyond set up and getting the characters into one place. But, once they’re all in the dome on Ganymede, the claustrophobic part of the book description comes into play right away. From there, the story spins away wildly. The distrust was almost palpable to me. Right away, I started to get suspicious, but part of my mind was afraid to speculate. Still, I found some threads kind of frayed and others kind of forgotten. At the end, I felt only one character really got any closure, leaving me wondering about the others and how the experience really impacted them.
The characters were the big standouts for me. Even though how the reader is supposed to perceive them is set up right away, I still found them fascinating. Senna, Han, Zurri, and Paxton were so different from each other and had some interesting connections to each other that I felt drawn into their web. I loved the diversity from the mousy blond girl to the black supermodel to the Asian teenager who all held a piece of the puzzle and formed a close trio no matter how Paxton tried to change them, though I wish there had been more focus on the impact of the truth of how some of them were connected. It was fascinating, though, to see how they seemed kind of jerked around as they underwent their treatments to remove unwanted memories. I liked how they retained the core of their characters despite all the things being done to their brains, but I do think the edges could have been softened a little so it didn’t feel like it stuck out so much.
Reclaimed tells an interesting story of three people desperate to have certain memories removed, until they are and suddenly something feels like it’s missing. I loved the strange push and pull of them wanting to remove memories and freaking out about the empty spaces. It seems to want to shine a light on how our memories make us who we are and how, no matter what, we’ll still want to hold on to them no matter how painful. I’m fascinated by memories and how our past experiences shape us, so I really enjoyed how the story played out, despite feeling there were maybe a few too many loose ends.
The one thing that really disappointed me, though, was how the memory removal science-y, tech-y stuff worked and what powered it. I am not a science-inclined person, so my forays into science fiction are carefully plotted. I expected some explanation I could barely follow, but ended up disappointed with how, well, kind of out there it was. There is some science basis to it, but I haven’t the first idea to how it actually works. The whole mechanism ended up feeling kind of like a cop out to me. A suitable explanation that did add an interesting layer, but overall felt a little too simple. Though I did like the creepy edge to it.
And Reclaimed is creepy without being too creepy. There’s something odd about the dome and the reader is introduced to it right away. The words are carefully put on the page and the characters lead the readers on, hinting without overtly saying. There’s a very eerie feeling, though not enough to keep me awake at night. Just creepy enough for me, I suppose, and I scare easily. I loved how the dome immediately made me feel claustrophobic and isolated. There’s more weirdness the longer the characters stay, but the dome itself was fascinating. It felt both entirely mechanized and somehow also breathing on its own. It definitely takes all needs into account, but I also couldn’t shake a watched feeling.
Despite a slow start, Reclaimed does tell an interesting story that does offer some food for thought for readers. Once the story got going, the pace picked up and I found myself flying through the pages. I wish more of the story had been focused on it, though it was also interesting to get the backstories of Senna, Han, and Zurri. Overall, a fast science fiction thriller with really interesting characters.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.
RECLAIMED by Madeleine Roux is a futuristic, sci-fi, dystopian story line focusing on three humans who have suffered extraordinary personal tragedies, and have been offered a once in a lifetime chance to erase the specific memories from their pasts.
Told from several third person perspectives including Senna, Zurri and Han, RECLAIMED is set in the middle of the twenty-third century, when space travel, AI servitors, VIT, and VR are the norm. Wealthy entrepreneur and self-proclaimed genius Paxton Dunn has set up an experimental lab, at the Ganymede compound, on one of the moons of Jupiter, and has contacted our three leading characters for his inaugural test subjects and specific memory erasure. All three subjects have suffered through horrific experiences, and Paxton has targeted each for who they are, and what they know but the ‘treatment’ sessions begin to reveal that something is not quite right with Paxton and his crew, and the subjects begin to lose a little more of themselves with each progressive session.
Senna is a young woman who has spent most of her life controlled by a charismatic leader, a leader who dominated and restricted every aspect of her life but like many of his type, the need for power and control outweighed the safety of his followers, and in the end Senna is the only one to survive. Loneliness and innocence ooze through her broken façade.
Zurri is a super model with an ego to match but a stalker demanded Zurri’s attention. A televised promotion for Zurri’s new line of cosmetics ensured the world watched as her stalker appealed his final challenge. No amount of facial cream will heal the pain or memories of what happened and why.
Han is a fourteen year old, computer IT wizard, but he too, lost everything to a man man whose need to control destroyed many lives. On the fast track to genius, Han may become Paxton’s protégé, but a protégé that is about to take down a man he once considered his hero.
Madeleine Roux pulls the reader into a story of what ifs and hows? What if someone or something could erase the bad memories leaving only the good ones intact? …but therein lies the problem when memories are erased, what is left behind is a gaping ‘black hole’ of nothing, and in its’ place is darkness and pain. As our three ‘test subjects’ begin to breakdown both physically and emotionally, each will come to realize that their lives are no longer under their control.
RECLAIMED is a thought-provoking and aptly cautionary tale of desperation and loneliness, power and obsession, arrogance and egomania, suffering and pain. The premise is twisted and haunting, complex yet equally easy to read.