Persistence of Memory by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Slight spoilers included. Nothing too specific.

I am forever conflicted when mental illness is conflated or caused by supernatural elements of a story. I don't really have a problem with the supernatural making whatever the mental illness is worse or better, but being the root cause... that's sticky for me. That said, how this is dealt with in Persistence of Memory at least feels like a good representation of that... mostly. Having never experienced something like DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), I don't feel qualified to discuss that aspect of the story, so I will try to stay away from it, despite it being a rather big part of the story.

I actually quite liked most of the characters here. Erin felt like a mostly blank slate, even though she is arguably the main character. Sassy and Adjila were quite good as the love-interest-types. Shevaun... well... Shevaun mainly comes together in the last third of the book. I mostly the the feel of her as a mothering character with a wild streak. Given how short Persistence of Memory is, I feel like the characterization was mostly well done.

I definitely feel like the plot elements all crashed into place at the end, rather than revealing themselves more slowly. I don't think Single Earth/Marissa's inclusion would have ever been revealed without Alexander just handing over the info... and Pandora... I really, really want some kind of Pandora character study. We're told how she operates, but aren't really shown much of that. She's basically shamed into helping at the end, but otherwise doesn't really contribute much.

I'm overall conflicted about how to feel about the whole thing. I did enjoy the story, right up until the very end, though that wasn't dissatisfying either. Add in the mental health stuff... I do understand that Nyeusigrube is a world in which the supernatural is hidden and can come out in sudden ways. The epilogue definitely didn't help with this feeling. Even Erin's acceptance of the events leading to her "current" life feels kind of rushed. It's fine. It's honestly par for the course of this era of Nyeusigrube. At least I actually cared about the characters this time around.