Review Copy

Ohhh, Blake Crouch, you pushed all my buttons. As I get older I find myself wishing I could go back and do life over. In my mind I've picked the time I'd like to go back to and restart. And here you go and write a novel that kept me glued to its pages until I finished. I read it cover to cover in one day until I finally, sadly, ran out of words.

In a sense, RECURSION is a time travel story. Fans of David Gerrold's THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF and Robert Heinlein's future history and tales of Lazarus Long will fall into this easily. Like the epic TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE, RECURSION is a love story. It's about love of family and and finding your soul mate.

The writing is strong and never boring. It's hopeful and yearning. If ever there was a book I wanted to dive into, this would be at the top of my list.

Great book! Thanks Netgalley and Crown for the advanced copy I received in exchange for an honest review

This was a little reminiscent of Dark Matter but also different. A time warped mind twister that was really a page turner. Really makes you think about memories and how fluid they are. Kind of nuts.

I liked the first half much better than the second half. The first half I found to be pretty addicting and had a hard time putting it down. The second half was a little too "action packed" and wordy for my preference and at times I wanted to skim. However, I enjoyed the overall plot and found this to be an entertaining read.

Blake Crouch has again captured my attention with a unique blend of suspense and science fiction. If you could capture a memory before it is lost, would you? What effect do those memories actually have on us and the world around us. In Recursion it goes beyond anything imaginable.
Recommend for fans of Dark Matter and Life After Life.

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch was one of my favorite books from 2018. I read it as a library book and then ran out to buy a copy as soon as I finished it. So when I got approved for an advanced copy of his next book, Recursion, I literally put everything else aside to read it ASAP.

It’s amazing. Mind blowing. I’m just going to summarize the first chapter because I don’t want to give anything away.

A detective gets called to a scene of a woman on top of a building, threatening to jump. He’s trying to talk her down and she tells him to not get any closer because she has FMS. False Memory Syndrome is not well understood, but is driving people towards suicide. People suddenly have false memories of another life they could have lead - a marriage that never happened, a child that doesn’t exist, years of their life going in another direction. It’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s false.

“All my memories from that life are in shades of gray, like film noir stills. They feel real, but they’re haunted, phantom memories.”

That’s just the first 4 pages. If you liked Dark Matter, go ahead and pre-order this one. It comes out June 11, 2019. #netgalley readers, go request this one now!

Thank you to @netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

NYPE Detective Barry Sutton responds to a suicide attempt on the forty-first floor of an office building. He finds a woman suffering from a mysterious new disease, which the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome. Victims of FMS describe the experience as having a sudden stabbing pain in their head, nosebleed, followed by a sudden onset of incredibly vivid memories of another life, a false life. Her last words before she plummets to her death are “My son has been erased". Suicide rates continue to rise as new cases of FMS emerge.
Doctor Helena Smith is working on designing a chair that will catalog and project memory in hopes of helping those afflicted with dementia and Alzheimer's. Helena's funding is about to be cut when she is receives a proposal from one of the world’s wealthiest technological business founders, Marcus Slade, who offers her all the resources she needs to complete her design...but what she creates, may be the end of us all…
Recursion is an exhilarating new Sci-Fi thriller from author Blake Crouch. This novel explores human memories and life experiences when a technology designed to help those with memory loss is turned into something that may be the end of humanity. I don't want to give away any spoilers but this was an action-packed thrill ride I didn't want to put down, a must read for 2019!

I received an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.
I loved this book! It is a great psychological thriller with a strong female lead and a sprinkling of science fiction.

If you could go back and do it all again, would you? Should you? How would it affect others if you made changes? Would you/they recall the alternate histories? With joy? With regret? With grief? With jealousy?
When NY police detective Barry Sutton has his first contact with False Memory Syndrome (FMS) it’s in the person of a despondent woman who remembers a previous life and family she doesn’t have in the current version of history. He investigates, leading to an adventure that spans several (alternate) lifetimes. Corporate, military, and government espionage, murder, and a variety of personal, professional, and family relationships litter the landscape as our protagonist faces physical as well as philosophical battles in this fast-paced race to restore order. I received an advanced digital copy from #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review..

I loved this book. I could not put it down. I didn't see the ending when I started it.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy.

Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle ARC of Recursion.

This book was kind of bonkers (in a good way) and I'm not even going to pretend to know all the science and physics jargon being tossed back and forth within the pages.

What I can say is that it was an exciting, thought provoking, frightening and powerful story about memory, loss and love.

There are plenty of existential stuff that will come up frequently as you read about Barry Sutton, a NYPD cop who tries to talk a jumper down from a building. Her last words to him is bizarre but gets the gears in his head to spin and he goes on a search that will eventually bring him to a brilliant neuroscientist named Helena Smith.

Helena is an ingenious woman hoping to build a memory chair to capture forgotten movies, her desire motivated by her mother suffering from Alzheimer's. But an introduction to an Elon Musk-type patron has powerful and devastating consequences Helena could never have conceived and she will spend countless lifetimes trying to rectify her mistake.

Barry and Helena's life (lives) will collide over and over, for better and for worse, but never for nothing as their love and support keeps them strong as they fight endlessly to save the world from our own hands.

Recursion is not just a story about misusing powerful technology for evil gain or taking responsibility for our actions; its also about humanity.

What makes us human?

Our memories? The people we share our lives with?

Recursion also makes you think about time. I can't help but think of the cliche truism; time passes so quickly when we are having fun or when we are doing nothing at all.

Is it because we don't notice it slipping away? Or because we take it for granted?

My parents once said that when you had children, time passed quickly because it was measured in the growth of your children. I didn't get what they meant when I was young, but now that I'm older and (a bit) wiser, I understand now.

The book makes you think about what we do with that time; the happy and sad moments we spend with the people we love, the life lessons we learn from our experiences, the things we see and can never un-see, the good and the bad and everything in between.

I kept thinking about Source Code, the movie with Jake Gyllenhaal as he repeats a time loop to find a terrorist, as I was reading and wondering how long Barry and Helena could keep going on without their psyche shattering.

Can we ever get things right even if we had multiple chances to do better?

Or are we doomed to failure because we are human?

I'm not even gonna bother getting into the science-y portion of the book about time and linear thinking and all that stuff.

Recursion was entertaining and it made me think (in a good way, not a school way).

I look forward to the author's next mind bender.

**5++ Stars**

"When every memory contains a universe, what does simple even mean?"

"He has wondered lately if that's all living really is - one long goodbye to those we love."

"...is deja vu actually the specter of false timelines that never happened but did, casting their shadows upon reality?"

I was so excited to get an advanced reviewer copy Blake Crouch's newest book, Recursion. I loved Dark Matter, and am happy to report that Recursion is even better than Dark Matter! I read this book in less than 24 hours - it is impossible to put down.

The book begins with Barry, a seasoned detective who is called to a disturbing scene on the rooftop of a skyscraper. He finds a woman who claims she is suffering from False Memory Syndrome, a recent virus that has infected a good deal of people across the world. She recalls vivid memories of a life she never lived, of a child she never ever cared for, and of a husband who loved her deeply. She cannot live with the pain of not being able to live that life again even though she knows it never happened. She jumps off of the roof to her death, and Barry feels compelled to investigate FMS cases.

Helena Smith is a researcher who has devoted her life's work to the study of memory. She has chosen this path because her mother is suffering from Alzheimer's and is losing her memories day after day. I sympathized with her plight as someone who loves and cherishes their research, so much so that sometimes everything else in life can become background noise:

"Her life as of late has unspooled under the fluorescent lights of laboratories and revolved around the processing of raw data. She has never managed to achieve escape velocity from the irresistible gravity of her work - for her mom, but if she's honest, also for herself. Work is the only thing that makes her feel alive, and she's wondered, on more than one occasion, if that means she's broken." 

"In her experience, few people ever found that raison d'etre. What teachers and professors never told her was about the dark side of finding your purpose. The part where it consumes you. Where it becomes a destroyer of relationships and happiness. And still, she wouldn't trade it. This is the only person she can be."

Helena and Barry's lives become entwined in complex, complicated ways that I don't want to reveal here in my blog for fear of ruining this story. Let's just say that this book is about a technology so powerful that it reinvents how humans experience the world and their memories. It holds the power to change human history - for better or, perhaps, for worse.

This isn't just about science, technology, and memory, however. Like Dark Matter, Crouch explores what it means to be human despite the power of technology. What would it be like if we could back in the past and alter the course of events? Should we even do so? How might science and human history improve if we had the chance to stop the Holocaust, stop high school shootings, or prevent the death or loss of a loved one taken much too young? What are the consequences of this for time and space? And what if we could live multiple lives, redoing the things we failed at, learning from our experiences, and, perhaps, advancing science in a way one lifetime does not permit? 

There is SO much good thinking material in this book. It's beautifully written and there are several parts that made me cry. It is a haunting tale of love, of revenge, and of science. This is definitely the book to read of 2019! I'll leave you with some additional lovely quotes that make this book so much more than a fun sci-fi thriller through time and space. Thank you to Blake Crouch, Crown Publishing Group, and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy of this book!

"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 simply change. What, then, is real? And if the answer is nothing, where does that leave us?"

"He takes another sip of coffee and watches the sunlight stream through the branches of the oak tree, striking the frosted grass, which begins to steam."

"Your perspective changes when you've lived countless lives."

"Could the fate of reality itself really depend upon one person not getting randomly hit by a bus?"

Recursion features two characters in different points of time. Barry is a New York City police officer in 2018 called to a suicide threat from a woman facing False Memory Syndrome. Helena is a brilliant scientist in 2007 looking to catalog memories to help people living with Alzheimer's - including her own mother. Much like Blake Crouch's first novel, Dark Matter, Recursion takes scientific ideas and shows the ramifications when they end up in the wrong hands.

I really enjoyed Dark Matter and was excited to receive an ARC of Crouch's newest book from NetGalley and Crown Publishing. Recursion felt like an extended episode of Black Mirror and brought up questions around memories, perception of reality, technology, and what it means to be human. To say much more would give too much away. It's a book that needs to be read to unfold all of the questions that are raised and explore your own response to those questions. I enjoyed the pace of the book and the back and forth between Barry and Helena, which built a lot of tension and kept me wanting to read to see what happens next and how these two characters eventually intersect.

Crouch's strength is not character development - I didn't really have feelings for either of the characters. He, however, knows how to write a plot that will make you think and contains an incredible amount of complexity, but is still accessible to the reader.

Overall, I would give this book 3.5 stars but round up to 4, because I continue to be blown away at how Crouch can weave such a complex narrative and make it very consumable. The imagery and narrative are perfect for film, and I am looking forward to checking this out on Netflix.

Thank you NetGalley for the advance copy.

I found this to be classic Crouch, in that it was unique, exciting, well written and very interesting. This falls in line with his novel Dark Matter and I was happy to experience this new sci-fi world he created. This was a quick read and a lot of fun.

In Recursion, author Blake Crouch brings us an exciting SF Thriller with a lot of moral quandaries thrown in.

I was a little afraid to read this one. I thought it might be standard multi-verse. It definitely wasn’t! While you may think you know what you’re getting, Crouch takes us through twists and turns that turn a reader’s originally theories upside down.

There’s a lot of heartbreak in the book and so many things that make you wonder just what decisions you might make.

A truly unique and exciting read!

*ARC Provided via Net Galley

As a huge fan of Blake Crouch's previous novel, Dark Matter, my expectations for his latest book were high. Reversion is a smart, fast paced, haunting sci-fi thriller that explores the connections between memory and reality. The story is a pager turner, following an alternating narrative of a seemingly unconnected man and woman, as their lives intertwine and the world begins to unravel in the wake of a momentous discovery that has enormous potential to alter the world and ominous ramifications. Highly recommended!

Crouch has always had a gift for sci-fi. This new book Recursion is the perfect combo of sci-fi and thriller. A new disease has caused peoples memory to see things they have never lived. Barry Sutton is investigating how the False Memory Syndrome is spreading. Crouch always leaves you thinking after you read his books.

Recursion is the latest, and perhaps best, story by Blake Crouch. This book is almost impossible to put down and when you aren't reading this it is still in the back of your mind. Waiting to fall asleep at night you will be thinking "What if?" and "When?" I wish I could give this story more than 5 stars. I was given an early copy to review.

The king of high-concept sci-fi returns with a mind-bending thriller that questions the very notion of reality - or what we perceive as such. Across the globe, individuals are falling victim to a terrifying virus called FMS, False Memory Syndrome. Those afflicted claim to possess impossibly detailed memories of alternate lives lived - experiences and relationships that do not exist yet feel real and, in some cases, preferable to their present existence. Many bemoan the loss of loved ones, wives, even children they once had that have seemingly disappeared in a blink.

For Detective Barry Sutton who investigates one such case, it's the opposite. He has never gotten over the loss of his young daughter, killed by a hit and run driver so many years ago. So when he is struck by FMS and seemingly returns to that tragic night, can he change what happened and craft a new reality? And what would be the results?

Meanwhile, we are offered insight into the origins of FMS through flashbacks focused on neuroscientist Helena Smith who takes up an offer from a mysterious benefactor to pursue research that could help those afflicted with dementia (including her long-suffering mother).

The timelines - two at first, then multifarious - cross and converge, dissipate and reform, stutter, stop, and restart in a challenging, occasionally convoluted, story about humanity's ability to shape its reality. The plot may seem fantastic and far-fetched, but its theoretical grounding makes Recursion truly thought-provoking. And, yes, while it does get damned confusing at times, the pacing never flags and the book is a rewarding read.

Absolutely crazy- the Time Traveler's Wife meets Looper. The science in this went way over my head, but the plot and characters kept me invested.

Recursion
Author: Blake Crouch
Description
What if someone could rewrite your entire life?

"My son has been erased." Those are the last words the woman tells Barry Sutton before she leaps from the Manhattan rooftop.

Deeply unnerved, Barry begins to investigate her death, only to learn that this wasn't an isolated case. All across the country, people are waking up to lives different from the ones they fell asleep to. Are they suffering from False Memory Syndrome, a mysterious new disease that afflicts people with vivid memories of a life they never lived? Or is something far more sinister behind the fracturing of reality all around him?

Miles away, neuroscientist Helena Smith is developing a technology that allows us to preserve our most intense memories and relive them. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent.

Barry's search for the truth leads him on an impossible, astonishing journey as he discovers that Helena's work has yielded a terrifying gift--the ability not just to preserve memories but to remake them . . . at the risk of destroying what it means to be human.

At once a relentless thriller and an intricate science fiction puzzle box, Recursion is a deeply felt exploration of the flashbulb moments that define us--and who we are without them.

Blake Crouch has written a very engaging story about the big what-if moments in life. I would recommend this book when you have plenty of time to finish.