“There are so few things in our existence we can count on to give us the sense of permanence, of the ground beneath our feet. People fail us. Our bodies fail us. We fail ourselves. He’s experienced all of that. But what do you cling to, moment to moment, if memories can simply change. What, then, is real? And if the answer is nothing, where does that leave us?”*

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

After witnessing, her mother’s mental deterioration as a result of Alzheimer’s disease, Helen’s dream is to preserve memories. With her funding running out, she’s desperate to find a way to continue her research. An offer of a bottomless budget comes just in time, but her benefactor has a different vision for her invention. Meanwhile, Barry can’t stop thinking of woman who killed herself in front of him and her claims of suffering from False Memory Syndrome. His unofficial investigation leads him to a startling, life-changing discovery.

RECURSION includes many of the things I loved about DARK MATTER, i.e. the hard science that brings the sci-fi world to life, the mystery element as Barry explores the cause of False Memory Syndrome, philosophy, and romance. RECURSION is an ambitious book, and only an author of Crouch’s caliber could have pulled it off. He puts Helena and Barry into the grinder, giving them a problem with a seemingly impossible solution and great costs that come with every attempt to solve the puzzle.

After reading Merriam-Webster’s definition of ‘recursion:’ “the determination of a succession of elements (such as numbers or functions) by operation on one or more preceding elements according to a rule or formula involving a finite number of steps,” I can’t imagine a more fitting title for this book.

There’s a cool Easter egg in the Acknowledgments section. The author lists people he paid tribute to in the naming of many of the characters. When I was reading the book, I caught one of them, which made the reveal even more fun.

Thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for the opportunity to experience this novel in advance of its release.

*Please note that my review is based on uncorrected text.

This book is flat-out awesome. I am not generally a reader of sci-fi stuff, but Blake Crouch’s novels are impossible to resist. Highly recommend this new one!

Blake Crouch writes such mind-bending 'fasten your seatbelts and get ready for this ride!' science fiction that is always such a fun and quick read. Recursion is a story that is enjoyed best if you go into the story without knowing too much.

We start in two different timelines. In one timeline, we meet Barry Sutton, a police officer who tries to intervene when a woman threatens to jump off a building due to False Memory Syndrome (FMS). She has recovered a set of 'dead' memories of another life in which she was happily married and had a son. When she visits the man from her memories, he is married to another woman and there is no son. Worried that he has caught FMS, he begins to investigate. In another timeline, we meet a brilliant memory researcher, Helena Smith who has just received the opportunity of a lifetime to pursue her life's work and try to record memories in an effort to re-instate them, so that we can relive those memories. Not surprisingly, these two lines eventually intersect and the mind-bending begins.

This is not a perfect story (the timeline loops become a bit repetitive, and it accepts flashbulb memory as a given, when this is a controversial area and there is lots of evidence against it), but it's an enjoyable one.

Thanks to the author, NetGalley, and Crown Publishing for the opportunity to read an advance copy.

Blake Crouch’s latest novel, Recursion, is a deftly-plotted, interesting, and emotional read that I couldn’t put down.

The novel opens as police officer Barry Sutton attempts to persuade a woman with False Memory Syndrome-a condition where someone wakes up with a new set of memories of a life they never lived- to not commit suicide. That’s about as much of the plot as I would want to know going in to this book. A lot of the fun of this novel lies in how the story twists and turns.

Mr. Crouch knows how to lay a plot down. He also has the knack for creating characters a reader can care about. There’s real emotion on display that grounds the high concept Michael Crichton-esque story ideas and gives the novel a fuller feel.

All in all, this was a fun book with some really interesting ideas and a good emotional core. Loved it!

Crouch is the master of sci-fi in my book. He does it again with a twisty, turny thriller of epic proportions. The concepts that this man can think of are insane! I can’t say much without spoiling, but you should definitely pick this up when it releases in June. Five stars, as always.

Filled with robust characters and a trippy, mind-bending plot, Blake Crouch’s Recursion is guaranteed to quicken your pulse. NYC police officer Barry Sutton is investigating an anomaly referred to as False Memory Syndrome when he begins to display symptoms of this strange, new phenomenon. Meanwhile, neuroscientist Helena Smith is devoted to curing memory loss disorders in an effort to prevent a parent from further declining and forgetting her altogether. What happens when these two charged people crash into each other is explosive and you’ll spend the rest of your time trying to solve this multilayered puzzle as you’re presented with ethical dilemmas that will leave you questioning your own belief system. I was doubtful that I could love another Blake Crouch novel as much as I love Dark Matter but Recursion superseded my expectations. Highly recommend.

I loved this. I don't have much else to say so I'm going to repeat myself. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this. I loved this.

I'd previously read Wayward Pines and absolutely loved it so when I saw Recursion (same author and as a computer programmer I was curious how he'd include recursion in the book) I had to read it. OH MY GOSH. I received it this morning and I couldn't put it down at all. The book immediately sucks you in, holds you in it's grasp, and shakes you up.... and I loved it. I kept choosing to read today and even though I needed to go to bed earlier tonight I ended up staying up reading it (and had to review it while I could still feel the book). The book made sense with it's ending although I mostly wish I could've kept reading as it ended so soon (since I couldn't put it down). A pragmatist in me was happy with it's length as if it was longer I wouldn't've been able to go bed until I finished it.
So glad I read this. It's one of those books that feel far out there but at the same time you could still see it occurring right now.

As always, Blake Crouch delivered an amazing and thought-provoking read. How far would one person be willing to go to change their past? And what effect will those changes have when the world is remade over and over? This is speculative fiction at its best.

This book is a trip. Even more so than Dark Matter!

"Book One" begins in the present day (well, last year, but that's close enough). Barry Sutton is an NYPD detective. He arrives at a building where a woman named Ann is about to jump to her death. She's afflicted with something called False Memory Syndrome (FMS). As Ann describes it, she suddenly started to remember herself with a different past, while still also "remembering" her current life. It is, understandably, driving her crazy. Ann gives Barry some details about her alternate past before jumping to her death.

We then meet Helena, an inventor who is, apparently, trying to build a chair. (A WHAT now?) Also, she's in 2007. She's trying to get funding for this chair and she needs a lot of money. (So this is probably not going to be a chair made out of wood.) A mysterious man offers her a mysterious job at a research facility so she can build her chair. (Seriously, WTH?)

Ann's FMS situation has stoked Barry's curiosity (and mine), so he tries to investigate. As it turns out, some of Ann's "alternate past" story is true, but not all of it, which only deepens the mystery. Why was she remembering two different lives, and is this connected to Helena and her chair? (Yes.)

And that's just the first few chapters. Things get a lot crazier from there. I was definitely confused at times, but overall, it's a fun ride. If you liked Dark Matter, you will like this one too.

I received an ARC of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. (Thank you, Net Galley!)

Let me preface this by saying that I've read one other Blake Crouch novel (Dark Matter) and I was overjoyed to get early access to this one. Crouch has a way of grabbing me from the first pages and keeping the death grip over my reading time until the last page, and often beyond. Recursion was no different. Just a rollercoaster of wow wow wow. I have already ordered multiple copies for my library because I know all my sci-fi readers are going to love it. Thank you so much!

Recursion is well written thriller with elements of science fiction. I am typically not a science fiction fan, but this book somewhat changed my perspective of how the world works and how we perceive the past, present and future. This one kept me on the edge of my seat and held my interest throughout. My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for an advance copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I loved Mr. Crouch’s last book, Dark Matter, and was very excited to read his latest work. Recursion does not disappoint.

Recursion is well-written, especially the two lead characters, Barry and Helena. It has a slightly different feel than his last book. The plot is a harder science-style science fiction, but it works well, with a nice pace and a series of unexpected twists. And within the twists and science fiction is a more personal story about memory, nostalgia, and regret: “The thought comes almost like a prayer—I don’t want to look back anymore. I’m ready to accept that my existence will sometimes contain pain. No more trying to escape....”

Another strong effort from Mr. Crouch, who is quickly moving up my list of must-read authors. Try to avoid the spoilers, and read this book as soon as you can. Highly recommended.

Helena Smith has created an amazing device that is capable of recording memories, implanting memories, even altering memories. What she didn't count on were the unintended consequences of her invention -- whatever good is done by altering memories is undone when memories of previous timelines come flooding back on the anniversary of each alteration.

Barry Sutton is a New York police detective who first encounters those unintended consequences when investigating the suicide of a woman who believes her son has been "erased" -- a son she never (apparently) had. Barry experiences that feeling himself when the device is used to alter his memory of his daughter's death as a teenager, allowing him to relive his life with his daughter having avoided her untimely end.

Then things start to get really hairy in Blake Crouch's latest science fiction-thriller crossover.

Viewed strictly as straightforward storytelling, Recursion is a well-crafted, straight-ahead thriller with elements of science fiction as a catalyst. It has already been optioned for a Netflix series, which will fit right in with several other recent series that explored incursions into consciousness, dreams, timelines, and such.

Slicing a little deeper, there are two issues I grappled with in reading an advance copy of Recursion (thanks to NetGalley for providing the ARC).

First is suspension of disbelief. While I can see how an individual's perception of reality can be altered via memory, I cannot see how actual reality can be altered, especially on a mass scale, by changing one person's memories. But such is Recursion as Crouch has composed it that I'm willing to suspend my disbelief and go with it -- I still don't see how it makes sense, but if you accept the premise, everything else makes sense, the story conforms well to its own internal logic.

Second is the alteration of timelines. Every time travel story has to deal with this issue -- if you change history, what happens to the future? Along the same lines as my disbelief that altering one person's memories can have any possible impact on reality, I don't believe anything can possibly change what has already happened -- which is why the only time travel stories that make sense to me are the ones where travel into the past re-confirms history, as in The Terminator / La Jetee.

In Recursion, the only problem in that regard is the effect on reality of memory implants -- if it remained in one person's head, any outcome is imaginable, as when Barry relives his life with his daughter surviving the night she died. But for the entire world to have its history altered by changing one person's memory of history, that remains a problem, even if I suspend my disbelief in all other respects.

Hence my four-star rating -- Crouch has done well enough to end up with a good book that even a skeptic like me can buy into, except for this one aspect about changing history (which becomes relevant over the last third of the book, which I won't get into to avoid spoilers). That's the only area where the internal logic breaks down, in my view.

Barry is a detective who, through his work, becomes entangled in the social and psychological phenomenon known as False Memory Syndrom (FMS). In his search for answers, he's thrust into a journey that will test the limits of his perception of reality.

Helena wants to cure Alzheimer's, or at least find a way for her ailing mother to maintain her memories while she still has them. What her research becomes is beyond what she could have imagined, and grows increasingly beyond her own moral reasoning and control, but by then it's too late.

Helena and Barry must each confront their deepest fears and desires in order to make sense of everything.

If it seems like I'm being vague, that's on purpose. To speak too much of the plot would be to give away (and rob someone else of) moments that made my jaw drop, or made me pause reading so that I could process what had just happened. Fair warning: this book gets dark at times, though remains fantastically surreal.

With complex plotlines, and delicate balance of logic, this is an incredible story of memory and how our minds are equipped to process space and time. Some heavier moments required careful reading or re-reading, but I managed to keep pace pretty well with the wildly swinging/building plotlines.

Also, of note is that this novel is written in the present tense, which I love and feel gives a greater sense of urgency to the reader. Urgency, by the way, perfectly fits the tone of this book. It's a powerful effect after reading so much fiction that's written in the traditional past tense.

After reading all of Dark Matter in one sitting (and being so wrapped up in reading it that I stayed out in the sun too long and suffered the worst sunburn of my entire existence), I'd anticipated being sucked into another Blake Crouch book, but I still wasn't ready for this one.

As I got closer to the end of the book, drastically running out of pages, I had a sense that this story wouldn't offer as complete of an ending as I was hoping for, but I still came out of this book with a profound sense of awe.

I just wish we'd had ONE more chapter.

Wow! I was blown away by this book. It was a phenomenal read and will be my new go-to for recommendations.

Memories stay...........People don't.

Detective Barry Sutton, Central Robbery Division of the NYPD, races to the 41st floor of the Poe Building known for its Art Deco motif and certainly not for what is about to happen. A lone woman is perched on the edge in more ways than one. She looks imploringly at Barry and tells him in a breaking voice that her son has been "erased". Before Barry can even blink, the woman falls to her death.

What's real, Barry?

A paralyzing question that will run like a gazelle stampeding throughout these pages. Barry has gazed into the eyes of Death and sees into an abyss of life circumstances and moments caught in a loop of repetition so bizarre that no words can describe the experiences adequately. Much like the spring of a diving board catapulting a soul into the depths of a Black Hole.

At the throttle is Dr. Helen Smith, a neuroscientist from San Jose, California, who has the purest of intentions. Her mother suffers from Alzheimer's disease and Helen feels desperate to bring her mother's memories back. Word reaches a wealthy philanthropist who flies Helen out to a former oil rig platform in the middle of the ocean equipped with all that she needs. Just sign on the dotted line, Sweetheart.

Recursion deals with the state of being and unbeing. If given the opportunity, would you act upon an open door into the past in order to tweak the details slightly or profoundly in your past personal life? Blake Crouch tosses about the ethical questions involved in such an action. And if you believe in cause and effect and butterfly wings, you are aware of the consequences.

Crouch brings tension full-on in Recursion. He knows his subject matter like hard hitting knuckles to the face. Time certainly does not stay in the bottle as you flip pages repeatedly back and forth from previous events. You can't have it any other way as the bolts of electricity play through. And yet, Crouch brings a tenderness to Barry at one point that will conjure your own memories of loss to the surface.

If you are a fan of the talented Blake Crouch, then this is a must read. While Dark Matter still remains my favorite, Recursion will burn in my own memory........strange how that theme will stay with you after the last page.

I received a copy of Recursion through NetGalley for an honest review. My thanks to Crown Publishers and to Blake Crouch for the opportunity.

Black Crouch comes through again with a brainy, mind-bending thriller that stretches the imagination and terrifies, warms the heart, and leaves the reader with a welcomed reading hangover. Some parts "11/22/63", some Clines' "The Fold", and other parts what we loved in "Dark Matter", Crouch is a master when it comes to writing about quantum theory and making "Recursion" not only palatable but entertaining.

After reading "Dark Matter", I have been anticipating another book from Crouch. "Recursion" did not disappoint. Very fast paced, super interesting concept, a group of characters that I was invested in - It was a great book. I started getting bogged down towards the end in the scientific part, but trudged through to the great ending. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I am hoping to see it in movie form soon!!

I loved Dark Matter so I couldn't rate to read Blake Crouch's latest novel. I have to say this one was just so-so for me. I liked the premise and the writing was good. However, I found the intricacies of the science behind the time travel and how it related to memory to be convoluted to the point that I lost interest. I also never felt fully invested in the characters. By the end, I just wanted to see how the story was going to wrap up so I could be done with it.

I will definitely read more by this author and recommend this book to readers who enjoy a fast-paced, sci-fi story. It may be more your cup of tea.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the complimentary digital review copy.