The Cleaners

I thought the world this story was set in was fascinating: people leave fragments of their memories on everything they touch, which others can experience with various levels of sensitivity. One character is “normal” and gets impressions but can't usually relive memories from people she's not close to, one is extremely sensitive and can relive any memory she touches like it's her own, and one is completely immune to feeling memories this way at the cost of having no memories of his own.

The things this story has to say about the ways the world is connected and people in the west rely on the suffering of people overseas but don't want to think about it are really interesting - one character works in a factory where she removes the anguished memories of the people who built smartphones from the devices before they go to the American market. Another character is a forensic memory specialist who is in the process of sniffing out a faked memory as part of a court case, and the third is the titular cleaner, who cleans memories from objects in his workshop.

However the actual plot of the breakup and Clara visiting the cleaner isn't really all that interesting. I would love to see a longer work set in this world, though.

This story has a very intriguing concept in this alternate reality world. This is my favorite in this series.

2.5 stars. I thought this would be my favourite in the series but it's actually my least favourite so far. :(

This was a very fascinating story about memory - the importance of remembering both the good and bad stuff, and how sometimes we forget some of them but being reminded of them later might give joy again. And how unfortunate it is for those who don't have a lot of memories.