“A Memory was different from normal memories. Sometimes they came late at night, while she lay half-asleep in bed. Sometimes they came while she walked home from school, choked by roadside dust and afternoon humidity. Sometimes, like this one, they came in the morning. Always, they hit like a semitruck.”

When I first picked up Kat Zhang’s The Memory of Forgotten Things (Simon & Schuster’s Aladdin imprint), I took a look at the cover, read the jacket copy, and expected one thing. When I put it down, inhaled in just two sittings, I walked away with something else entirely.

I thought the book would have a strong Stranger Things vibe. A story about a group of kids navigating a slightly supernatural world.

And though it certainly has echoes of that, The Memory of Forgotten Things is actually an examination of childhood trauma and parallel universes. And I certainly wasn’t prepared for what an emotional stab wound it would be.

It’s heavy.

The story centers on 12-year-old Sophia Wallace who occasionally gets struck by Memories. Except these aren’t ordinary memories of past events. They’re memories of things that never happened. They’re incredibly real. And many of them feature her mother… who died when Sophia was 6.

And after Sophia is partnered with two “misfit” boys on a school project (one who recently lost his older sister in a car accident and one whose father walked out in spectacular fashion… at least for their small town), she discovers that she’s not alone in having capital-M Memories of people and events that never existed.

Soon, the three set off on a quest to understand parallel realities, uncover “thin spaces” between those realities, and attempt to cross over. All to fill the gaping emotional voids in their respective lives: a missing mother, a lost sister, and an absent father.

This was the way things were. Rough days weren’t talked about. Unhappy things weren’t talked about. They, like the death of Sophia’s mother, were wounds that never healed properly, and hurt too much to touch.

Much of the book is purely theoretical on the whole parallel realities thing. Until it’s not and the story sharply swerves to the left. In a good way. In a heartbreaking way. In a way that underscores the old adage “Be careful what you wish for.”

Zhang does a great job with her characters here, showing how loss and grief can manifest in starkly contrasting ways – especially re: their effect on kids. The depression kids feel when faced with devastating loss cannot be neatly summed up with a checklist or classified by a static set of symptoms.

Some might, like Sophia, withdraw and emotionally shut themselves off from the world. Others might lash out in rage and want to tear everything down. And still others might find it useful to channel their emotions into more creative or productive pursuits.

Don’t misunderstand, though. This is an emotional book. Emotionally raw, even. But it’s not emotionally draining. The Memory of Forgotten Things is ultimately hopeful and full of love, and it charts a course toward optimism.

And for that, I’m grateful I took this wonderful journey.