Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for providing me with this eARC in exchange for an unbiased review. 

I remember reading Dark Matter and really enjoying it, and also recommending the book to quite a few friends as well. When I saw that Blake Crouch is releasing a new book I got very excited and was eager to read what other time-bendy and sciency book can he cook up. When scrolling through NetGalley, I came across an ARC of this book and got even more excited, what could be more perfect! Requested not hoping for much, as my blog at that time wasn’t even published, but somehow I got my request approved and now here we are! 

Title: Recursion

Author: Blake Crouch

Genre: Sci-fi / Fiction / Thriller 

Number of Pages: 336

My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ (5 stars)

“That’s what it is to be human—the beauty and the pain, each meaningless without the other.” 

Synopsis: An exploration of memory, decision making, and second chances. The story begins with Barry Sutton, an NYPD detective, who is investigating a new anomaly, the False Memory Syndrome. People suffering from it have vivid memories of a life they’ve never lived and are struggling to distinguish which one is the real one. Meanwhile, Helena is a neuroscientist whose aim is to help her mother with Alzheimer’s. Her research involves memories, mapping and retaining them. As she works on, her new invention could cause destruction if it falls into the wrong hands. 

Overall Impression: The story itself took me by surprise, and all the twists and endings were also unexpected which is nice when you’re reading a tense thriller. About half way through the book I started getting worried and questioning what else could the author possibly put in, and how is he going to continue the story. But Blake Crouch weaved all the lines spectacularly well into one, intrinsic story. I loved the concept of the book itself and I’m really interested in how our brains process memories in general. Therefore, reading sci-fi related to that is always alluring. I also thought that it was just as good as the first book I’ve read by Blake Crouch. 

Likes: I enjoy books that are written from a number of different character perspectives, and here we have two main characters telling the story. An incredibly detailed and intricate story that was engulfing to read. Very well written and always gripping. I grew to care for the characters, even though at the start I didn’t really like either of them. Another aspect that I enjoyed was that it reminded of Netflix’s Black Mirror. It’s not set in the future (2007 and 2018) and felt like factual fiction, uncomfortable even at times, as it’s not that unrealistic. There were numerous different timelines to keep track of, but as it was written so well it wasn’t really an issue to follow them all. 

Dislikes: At certain times, the book felt a little bit stretched out where it didn’t need to be. Therefore providing a slight stagnation to the story line. But that’s my only complaint!

In Conclusion: Netlifx is adapting Recursion and I can’t wait to see it! Please read this book if you loved Dark Matter or just want to read a good sci-fi thriller. You will not be disappointed!

Let me know what you thought of Recursion if you’ve read it and what you’re reading at the moment!