Review: The Memory of Us by Camille Di Maio

The Memory of Us

by Camille Di Maio

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Pages: 400

Format: ARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Julianne Westcott was living the kind of life that other Protestant girls in prewar Liverpool could only dream about: old money, silk ball gowns, and prominent young men lining up to escort her. But when she learns of a blind-and-deaf brother, institutionalized since birth, the illusion of her perfect life and family shatters around her.

While visiting her brother in secret, Julianne meets and befriends Kyle McCarthy, an Irish Catholic groundskeeper studying to become a priest. Caught between her family’s expectations, Kyle’s devotion to the church, and the intense new feelings that the forbidden courtship has awakened in her, Julianne must make a choice: uphold the life she’s always known or follow the difficult path toward love.

But as war ripples through the world and the Blitz decimates England, a tragic accident forces Julianne to leave everything behind and forge a new life built on lies she’s told to protect the ones she loves. Now, after twenty years of hiding from her past, the truth finds her—will she be brave enough to face it? 


Kritters Thoughts:  An epic love story that with war pending made the book seem even more heavy than your typical love story.  Julianne finds that she is a twin and her twin brother has been put in a home as he is "different."  Julianne has been raised with a father who has a fairly negative opinion about Catholics so when she is visiting her brother behind her parents' back and meets a man that is Catholic and pursuing to be a priest - Julianne's world is turned upside down.

Sometimes it is just nice to curl up with an epic love story and this one hit the spot.  I loved Julianne as a character and enjoyed reading the conflict she had between pleasing her parents and becoming an adult and going her own way.  

After thinking about this book, I would also put it in the coming of age category.  Coming of age as in becoming an adult who makes their own decisions and has to live with both the positive and negative consequences that come from those decisions.  I liked that it was coming of age, but not YA.

There is one part that threw me for a loop and of course I can't share or it would ruin things, but it sent the story down an interesting path and I am not sure I loved it, but it certainly didn't ruin the book for me.

Not that I expect less from a debut author, but I had to go back and double check because I loved the flow of the story so much.  For me that can be lacking in a debut author, but this story just kept moving at a great pace from beginning to end.  I can't wait for her next one!  


Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from BookSparks.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.