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Reviewed by Emily-Jane Hills Orford for Readers' Favorite
Mia has a gift. She can steal people’s memories. She isn’t malicious about it. Her intent is to take away the sad and frightening memories so the person having those memories doesn’t suffer. She cares for people and doesn’t want them to hurt, so she stores the memories safely in her own mind. But, once the memories are taken, the person who had those memories doesn’t remember them. Her sister, Daisy, understands and appreciates Mia’s gift. She teases her sister saying, “Soon I won’t be able to remember a thing!” In fact, Daisy watches out for Mia. When Luca comes into their lives, Mia is surprised that she can’t enter his mind and rescue some memories the way she does with everyone else. Luca becomes a close friend and Mia, at one point, believes she’s in love with him. That is until she finds him alone with her sister, Daisy. And then along comes someone special for Mia.
Isabel Scheck’s short story, Mia and Her Collected Memories, reads like a collection of snapshots as the author opens the door to the main character Mia’s mind as she shares the intense library of memories that she’s collected over the years. The story is sorted into mini-chapters which read like footnotes, random thoughts like a journal entry pieced together into a patchwork quilt of memories. It’s very cleverly constructed and the piecework approach evolves as a well-constructed plot. The characters are developed through the memories collected by Mia. The theme of love and caring for others shines through as Mia matures from her love of her sister, to her first love, Luca, and to her adult love.
