I’m not going to lie, I bought this book purely based on the cover, and only because Waterstones was ‘buy one get one half price’ and I’d already picked up the book I wanted. But boy am I glad that this cover leapt off the shelves at me.

As the title of the book suggests, this is a book of memories. Samantha has just been diagnosed with a disease called NPC, which will have dementia-like symptoms and she wants to write a book for Future-Sam to remember who she was and what her dreams for the future were.

I guess you could kind of compare this book to something like The Fault In Our Stars, where the main character has a disease and you live it through their eyes, but this somehow seemed way more gut-wrenching. As the effects of the book were not just physical but intellectual, you could see Sammie starting to fall apart through her own words and it broke my heart.

I’m not ashamed to say that by the end, big fat ugly tears were leaking out of my eyes and falling silently onto the pages of the book. As I got to the last few pages, it was pretty obvious what was happening, even though I hoped against hope it wasn’t true. But for all the ugly tears, it was a happy ending too, the pieces of Sammie’s life had pulled together into a perfect place for her and that made me happier than anything.

I’ll definitely remember this book, it wasn’t an easy read, but it has left its mark on me. Find happiness in all moments, because you never know when you won’t be able to do that anymore. And remember that your happiness might not be what you expected, or what you had planned all along. And that’s okay too.