Welcome to Forever

I thoroughly enjoyed Nathan Tavares' 2022 debut novel, [b:A Fractured Infinity 60852190 A Fractured Infinity Nathan Tavares https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1650477507l/60852190.SY75.jpg 93397711], so I was eager to read this follow up. Sadly, after struggling to finish it, I have to conclude that Welcome to Forever is just not my cup of tea. While Fractured Infinity combined a love story with a fairly basic science fiction plot, this novel goes all in on the sci-fi, which baffled and frustrated me.The book takes place on an exhausted, dying Earth. Fox is a memory editor, whose jobs at NIL/E Technologies involving erasing unpleasant memories from clients' brains and writing code so that entirely new (and always happy) memories can be inserted instead. His personal trainer husband, Gabe, can jump into clients' bodies and exercise for them so they look fit without the effort. In this brave new world, people can download their consciousness and plug it into a new body, forever averting final-death. But recently (maybe?) a bomb exploded near Fox's apartment, releasing a memory virus. Fox doesn't remember anything about his past, including Gabe. He finds himself at the Center for Memory Recovery, where he apparently checked himself in to recover his damaged “memory code” with the help of trained therapists. That summary covers approximately 10% of the book. I'm not sure I could describe the other 90% even if I wanted to. The plot isn't linear, jumping from Fox's experiences at the Memory Center to flashes of the past that his brain is starting to remember. But some of the memories feel like they belong to someone else...okay, you officially lost me. I struggled through discussions of memorystreams, mippers, sahusynics, and rez tech. Fox and Gabe are together. Now they're not. Now they're....other people? The Evil NIL/E Corporation, who operates all of this technology, is searching for Khadija Banks, pioneer of the technology turned revolutionary. But who are the true bad guys? Which parts of the narrative really happened, and which were dreams, fake memories, or something else? And, most importantly, what the hell does that ending mean?The book raises seriously existential questions about whether we are more than the sum of our memories, but I couldn't comprehend Tavares' answers. I think if I tackled it again, I might get a clearer picture of what exactly was going on, but I'm not motivated enough to do so. YMMV if you are more of a sci-fi devotee instead of a casual (and befuddled) reader like me. ARC received from Net Galley in exchange for objective review.