The Memory Thief

Rosie Oaks loves her stories, almost as much as she loves her best friend, Germ. Together, they dream of magical witches, feathered beasts, and haunting ghost stories. Rosie doesn’t know what she would do without her best friend, especially since Rosie’s mother is missing whatever it is that makes mothers love their daughters. Rosie tries to focus on happier things, but one night, she starts hearing voices. Frightened, she goes to her mother, who doesn’t understand Rosie. The next evening, Rosie recruits Germ to help her with the investigation. That night, Rosie’s house comes alive with ghosts and decade-old secrets.  

Reasonably scared, Rosie and Germ run from the ghosts, almost making it out. They come face-to-face with a thirteen-year-old ghost named Ebb. He explains that Rosie did something to activate her sight, which is how she’s finally able to see the ghosts who have been haunting her house all this time.  

Regarding the witches, Rosie comes from a long line of witch-hunters, one of whom successfully killed one of the thirteen witches. The other twelve have been plaguing Rosie’s family for decades. One of the witches, the Memory Thief, can steal memories. On the night of Rosie’s birth, the witch stole her mother’s memories. To save her mother, Rosie must find a way to defeat the Memory Thief. With the help of the ghosts and her human friends, Rosie enters the world of the supernatural, armed with only a sharp tongue and Ebb’s reassurance that her witch-hunting abilities will strengthen in time.  

The protagonist, Rosie, is a role model on a quest to save her mother. She relies on the power of friendship and quick thinking. Rosie has a wonderful best friend, Germ, who sticks with her through thick and thin, providing great emotional support. Her new ghost friend, Ebb, gives plenty of great advice and teaches Rosie how to stand up to bullies like the Memory Thief. Rosie demonstrates how to ask for help and how to be independent while relying on your instincts. She’s deeply afraid of losing her mother and her town to the witches, but she won’t let that stop her from saving everyone.  

Like many fantasy books, The Memory Thief features supernatural elements and a complex magic system that gradually unfolds as Rosie navigates this new world alongside the reader. Despite being populated with witches, ghosts, and other magical creatures, the story maintains a relatively tame tone—even the spectral characters become Rosie’s allies in her witch-hunting quest rather than sources of fear. That said, the magic system suffers from inconsistencies and rules that don’t quite hold together. The book also leaves several threads dangling, though these unanswered questions appear intentional, setting up the sequel, The Sea of Always. 

Readers will love the powerful witches, ghostly magic system, and small band of heroes in The Memory Thief. Rosie navigates a world filled with supernatural creatures—from memory-stealing moths to cloud shepherds and ghosts—all of which complicate her quest to fix what the witches have broken. She’s an inspiring character who grows when challenged, leading by example and standing by her own moral principles. Overall, this is a beautiful story with moments of sweet friendship, powerful bravery, and dramatic losses and victories. 

Sexual Content  

• None  

Violence  

• When Rosie describes her best friend, Germ, she mentions a scar on her hand “where—at [Rosie’s] request—[they] both cut [them]selves when [they] decided to be blood sisters when [they] were eight.” 
• After Rosie removes her mother’s necklace and Rosie’s magical abilities awaken, one of the witches comes after her. She threatens Rosie, “‘Watch for me at the dark moon, child,’ [the witch] calls over her shoulder. ‘At the dark moon, I’ll end you.’” 
• To get answers about her family, Rosie goes to the ghost who haunts the hospital where she was born. The ghost explains, “‘[Rosie’s] mother only had time to hide one of [her children]. [One] was crying; [the other wasn’t]. [The witches] never knew there were two.’ His shoulders sag as if in release, or surrender, or both. And then he says the only thing that really matters. ‘Twins.’” He insinuates that the witches killed the brother Rosie never knew about. “They took him. Dropped him in the ocean.” 
• When one of the witches again tries to snatch Rosie, one of the house ghosts, Crafty Agatha, comes to her rescue. But “with a howl of rage [the witch] reaches out for the figure nearest her—Crafty Agatha. A cluster of moths swarms Agatha as she screams. A moment later, the moths fly apart—and Agatha is gone.” Agatha’s spirit dissolves.  
• To escape from one of the witches, Rosie summons her magical pet bird. “[Rosie’s bird] soars at the witch, opens her beak, and devours [the witch].” The witch dies. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

• None  

Language  

• None 

Supernatural  

• This book follows Rosie, a descendant of witch-hunters, as she tries to break a curse on her mother and fight witches with the help of ghosts. The story is full of supernatural creatures and magical events. Since supernatural elements are on nearly every page, not every example is documented below. 
• The book opens, “In a stone courtyard at the edge of the woods, a ghost with glowing red eyes floats back and forth past the windows of Saint Ignatius Hospital, waiting for a baby to be born.” The ghost watches as a witch curses Rosie’s mother. “Moths fluttering out of [the witch’s] sleeves as she speaks.” 
• Rosie’s ghost friend, Ebb, is described as “shimmery and glowing bright blue, frowning at me, his eyebrows low. He floats at least a foot off the ground.” After Rosie meets Ebb, she goes downstairs to her kitchen, finding even more ghosts. “A woman stands in the parlor staring at us, a ball of yarn in her hands. A man is just behind her wearing a yellow rain slicker, sopping wet and pale, starfishes stuck to his arms. There is another woman by the couch, very old, all in white. And closest—just inches from us—is a boy with floppy brown hair and a dour expression, like he’s just tasted something rotten. He’s a dreadful sight: maybe thirteen or fourteen, wide brown eyes, a furrowed forehead, pale, his dark hair plastered wetly down around his ears, bluish skin. He glows with a bluish light that casts a dim glow onto the wall behind him.” 
• Rosie’s mother kept a witch-hunter journal, with instructions and descriptions of witch-hunting magic and tactics. For example, the journal lists qualities of the Memory Thief: “Familiars: Her moths are her weapons and her spies. They spread out all over the world at night and steal from her victims. They can be distinguished by the shifting, sparkling patterns on their wings, which are actually the shifting dust of the memories they have stolen. Victims: A person cursed by the Memory Thief may appear normal, go about their normal lives, but they’ve lost memories of the past, of the people they are close to, even how to love others. At times, entire towns have lost their histories to this terrible witch.” 
• As Rosie trains to fight witches, she tries to use her mother’s witch-hunting bow and arrow. “But as [the arrow is] flying, something miraculous happens. A shimmer—a puff of something—appears, filmy and delicate but unmistakable, like the trail of exhaust you might see from an airplane. Only this is in a wave of colors and small, diaphanous shapes so exquisitely beautiful, so full of light, so warm and clear and sparkling that just looking at it makes something feel better inside you. The shapes are the shapes my mom has painted on the arrows; the colors are my mom’s colors come to life—as real and unreal, at the same time, as ghosts. They shimmer in the air for a moment, then disappear.” The instrument doesn’t work for Rosie; it only emits magical colors.  
• As Rosie fights one of the witches, she is aided by magical creatures called “cloud shepherds”. As “the moths are knocked back, the wind is whipping. Patches of fog blow toward the trees. It’s unmistakable: shapes loom in and out of the fog, though I can’t make them out. The Memory Thief takes several stumbling steps backward. And just as the clouds part far above to reveal the last sliver of moon in the sky, it dawns on me: The cloud shepherds are helping.” 
• Rosie describes the cloud shepherd: “[She] see[s] a face loom out of it, made of mist—a round face that disintegrates and rearranges into a long and thin face, then into a bushy-browed face, and then it has no eyebrows at all. But every face appears to be a kind one. It smiles at [Rosie] gently again and again as it changes. And then a sound weaves through the mist, as if several threads of voices are joining together at once.” 
• After Crafty Agatha dies, Rosie describes many of the ghosts, having settled their earthly business, leaving for the “Beyond.” “And a moment later, something strange begins to happen all around us. Tiny, glowing spirits of bugs that were killed in the fray, crushed by falling walls and pummeled against trees—fireflies and dragonflies and crickets and ants—begin to float up from the ground, all tiny luminous ghosts rising and surrounded by sparkling pink dust.” 
• While saving her mother, Rosie discovers her magic witch-hunter power. She is able to summon a magical bird with a flashlight. “As soon as [Rosie] take[s] hold of it, the bright, breathtaking bluebird appears—and then wreaks havoc. She circles the room, tearing down the chandelier above the overturned dining room table, knocks over the one vase that was still standing, and nearly eats Fred the spider as he sits on [Rosie’s] knee.” 
• When the Memory Thief kidnaps Rosie, she steals some of her memories. Rosie describes it as, “so many memories, all beginning to blur and fade away. [She] feel[s] tears running down [her] cheeks as [she] watch[es] these visions turn to iridescent dust and fall through the air, gathered on the wings of the moths that flutter all around [her]. And then [she] can’t remember why [she’s] crying.” 
• After Rosie defeats the Memory Thief, memories return to people around the world. “Everywhere, strange, subtle things have happened—stories [Rosie] see[s] on the news: Grandparents who’ve forgotten names and faces suddenly smiling at their grandchildren. Amnesiacs showing up in their families’ backyards. Towns publicly reflecting on histories long forgotten. Even if people don’t see the invisible moths in the sky, dropping dust on them like snow, maybe they feel it. Even the reporters look happy as they relate these stories.” 

Spiritual Content  

• None 

by Kate Schuyler