This is one of those books I just grabbed randomly from the library shelf. It sat in our library book tote for awhile and was then picked up and pored over by our three not-yet-readers. They loved the pictures. When I finally picked it up, I also enjoyed looking at the pictures before I started reading it.
Then I started reading it. It definitely has the feel of Matilda (by Roald Dahl) in that Hope's parents are just about as miserable at parenting as parents can be. They leave Hope's younger sister, Honey, on the side of the road simply for breaking the "no laughing" rule and tell Hope to forget about her. Somehow Hope finds herself being questioned at the World Wide Memory Bank because she wasn't depositing enough memories.
For me, the story went downhill from there. To be blunt, it was boring. I kept getting the feeling that the whole book was an allegory for something, but I simply didn't care enough to try to figure it all out. It had something to do with memories, forgetting, dreams, hope, and parenting.
I suppose there's nothing in this book that shouts, "Keep away!" But there's not much compelling either. Except the pictures are nice.
