Thank you to NetGalley, Black Crouch, and the publisher for proving me with this ARC. I was excited to see that Blake Crouch had another book coming out. After devouring and LOVING Dark Matter, I could not wait to immerse myself in this book. For the most part, I was not disappointed. I do feel like I connected with the first half of the book more than the 2nd, but it still remained unputdownable for me. I think the 2nd half started to feel a bit ground hog dayish to me. I loved the mix of sci fi, conspiracy, thriller that this book brings and the topic of what would you do if you could turn back time is immensely fascinating. I liked the main characters Barry and Helena very much and was on tenterhooks to see how their stories ended. I highly recommend this book!

Fantastic story told from the point of views of our two main characters, a scientist and cop. The scientist is working on preserving memories in Alzheimer's patients while she inadvertently discovers a way to cognitively time travel. Meanwhile, the cop stumbles upon a hotel in New York that is using technology to create alternative memory lines. This book was a real page-turner and I read it in one sitting.

Let me just start by saying Blake Crouch's mind-bending, time-twisty books are hard on my brain. This newest story was easier to follow than Dark Matter (for me at least). Helena is a very likeable character, and Barry grows on you. As the story progressed, my empathy for Helena's situation, for the struggle to fix a situation spiraling out of control grew.

[There is an element of 50 First Dates (the sci-fi edition) going on, where every cycle Helena has to reeducate Barry on the situation. Then another reset puts them back to square one. (hide spoiler)]

I think this book is a great addition to the Crouch collection for those who love his writing.

“Time is an illusion, a construct made out of human memory. There’s no such thing as the past, the present, or the future. It’s all happening now.”

I really enjoyed Recursion. It delivers all the goodness Blake Crouch is famous for: big science, drama, and crazy scientists. Crouch can literally paint a picture, and I feel as if I am there on the ledge, raindrops falling....all the emotions. I loved Helene, and would loved to heard
more of her voice in the text. And the shifting setting again is beautifully depicted!!! Loved views of the desert, mountains, islands.

I read this on Kindle, and to refer to previous chapters to orient myself in time and place. I enjoyed this book, it it felt very close to Pines and Dark Matter.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC! Everyone pick this up when you are in the mood for an unputdownable story.

Thanks as always to #NetGalley, the publisher and Blake Crouch for the opportunity to read an Uncorrected Proof copy of "Recursion", in return for an honest review.

"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know. (Saint Augustine). After reading Recursion, I no long quite know that time is!

Helena has spent her entire academic life in pursuit of a way to preserve her mother's memories (and the memories of all Alzheimer's and dementia patients by extension). Barry is a New York policeman who tragically lost his daughter to a random hit-and-run and then lost his marriage in the aftermath.

Marcus Slade offers Helena the opportunity to see her dreams come true - no matter the cost - but in secret; Barry witnesses one night the suicide of a woman who is stricken with False Memory Syndrome (FMS). Helena at first resists, wondering if the application that Marcus wishes to use her creation for is the same as her ideals; Barry discovers the Memory Hotel, and is sent back into his past - to minutes before his daughter's death.

Thus begins an absolutely staggering, mind-boggling tale of re-written memories, and the consequences of changing the past. Imagine if you could actually return to a time before Hitler instigated his "Final Solution" and save the millions he exterminated.... what would the consequences be? Imagine if every country in the world somehow obtained the ability to go back and change the past - and ensure the destruction of humanity... These are some of the questions asked in the course of this masterpiece (in my humble opinion). The science may be confusing at times, but the story is well worth sticking with.

There I will leave my review, because of the possibility of spoilers. But I will say that this is a lengthy, sometimes slightly confusing, masterful tale of 'time travel'. And I heartily recommend it.

Thank you for allowing me to preview this title. Great book! I look forward to sharing this title with may of our library's readers. Thanks again!

A dark, sci-fi thriller that had my mind bending in many directions!

From the author of Dark Matter , which has been on my reading list for some time, but still haven't read it yet.

Would you like a do-over of your life? Hmm, that seems like a loaded question and it is! This was quite an edge of your seat, genre crossover that had me needing answers and quick.

A brilliant neuroscientist Helena Smith, has developed technology that will redefine how we think about time and memory. Playing with time and timelines is where she is headed and some seedy people just might want a piece of this technology. "Pandora's box has been flung open."

I really enjoyed this fast read, although it took some "work" on my part. A lot happens and moves quite quickly- think Evelyn Hardcastle meets time machine. Lets talk equations, science, timelines, and memory loopy de loops. If you have the patience, this is an entertaining, far-out puzzle to enjoy.

Interested? Step right in, buckle up, place the helmet on and lets mess with time!

n a world where False Memory Syndrome is slowly becoming an outbreak, Detective Barry Sutton watches a woman kill herself, driven mad by her memories of another life. What horrible secrets will Barry uncover when he follows her back trail?

Blake Crouch has been a favorite of mine for a few years, first because of the Wayward Pines series, then Dark Matter. When I saw Recursion was up on Netgalley, it was a no-brainer.

One of my favorite late night topics when I was in college, still easily capable of staying up until the small hours on a daily basis, was whether or not time travel might be possible in an altered state of consciousness, going back to an earlier point in your own timeline. What would you do if you could go back in time and change a pivotal event in your life? We've all asked ourselves that question, sometimes multiple times a day. But how often do you ask yourself about the repercussions around you, the ripples spreading throughout the pond? That's the well Blake Crouch draws from in Recursion.

In the early goings, Detective Sutton lifts up rocks and sees the bugs scattering, revealing a vast enterprise built on accessing memories and shifting people back in time. Can the man himself be tempted by what time travel has to offer?

Duh, of course he is! While it seems great at first, the book quickly becomes race after race against time, trying to outrun and undo the consequences of unfettered time travel. I've given this an easy five but it's not quite a perfect sf thriller. My only gripe is that Helena and Barry fall in love too easily. Insta-love, as the kids used to call it. Also, it leans on an episode of The Outer Limits just a tad.

Anyway, apart from that, this one is balls to the wall. Once the memory chair plans are leaked, things quickly become a shit storm of ultimate proportions. Barry and Helena spend timeline after timeline trying to set things right, only to be disappointed, only to learn, finally, that the best way to save the world is to leave it alone.

Blake Crouch has made an art out of taking an interesting sci-fi hook and wrapping an engaging thriller around in. Recursion may be his best one yet. Five out of five stars.

I can't even talk about this book. I have no words. So confusing at first but then also like, holy crap. WHAT IN THE F IS GOING ON. I remember feeling like this in Dark Matter so I shouldn't have been surprised to have a similar feeling. It was very good. Very compelling. Highly recommend it if you liked Dark Matter.

A cutting-edge scientist is given the option to work on her memory capture device with the help of an unlimited budget from a billionaire angel investor. What comes of this agreement changes the world, but far from the initial stated goals of the device and experiment.

I truly enjoyed Recursion, it is an excellent blend of thriller and sci-fi - and a much stronger book (in my opinion) than Dark Matter. This book is much more plot based than focused on character development, and for the type of story we're reading, that is what needs to happen. I loved the sweep of the story from correcting individual life choices with the device to assessing global impact from these changes.

The book is divided into multiple parts, with some stronger than others - however, that ending was exactly what was needed.

I received the arc from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

As soon as I heard there was a new Blake Crouch, I was SUPER excited to read it. Dark Matter was the first book I read by him and I loved it. This one was definitely a page-turner but I had a hard time with some of it.

Barry Sutton is a detective who has dealt with significant loss in his life. Upon receiving a dispatch about a woman threatening to jump from a building, Barry arrives at the scene with the intention of talking her down. The woman claims to have FMS--False Memory Syndrome. She remembers a whole other life that doesn't fit with the one that she's currently living in and is devastated and confused by her loss.

Helena Smith is a scientist who is working on building a chair that allows people to preserve memories. Her mother's memory is slowly deteriorating and Helena is trying everything she can to find a way to reverse the damage. Helena is approached by a charming philanthropist, Marcus Slade, who wants to fund her research. He has a greater knowledge of both her and her research than she expects--just enough to make her worry.

As this new technology is let out into the world, the effects become devastatingly apparent, as do the motivations of the people behind it. There's an exploration into what humans are capable of, both good and bad, and whether mankind could handle having such extreme power over the past. My favourite part was the contemplating the ethics behind such technology.

Overall, this was a page-turner. I couldn't wait to get back to it and see what would happen next. There was a lot of scientific theory that I frankly didn't understand, but I could look past it. My main issue was with the last 1/4 of the book--I started to lose interest when it became repetitive. I understand why it had to be that way for the end to happen, but it was too drawn out for me. I also had a hard time connecting to some of the character relationships--they didn't seem plausible (not listing them as I'm trying to not include spoilers!).

Even though it wasn't my favourite book, I would still be just as excited to read the next Blake Crouch as I was to pick up this one! His creativity is mind-bending.

Blake Crouch is a master of timeline manipulation! Just like Dark Matter, Recursion will leave a reader thinking about the book for days. An engaging, quick read, Recursion is a must for fans of psychological thrillers and books like Kate Atkinson's Life After Life.

Recursion by Blake Crouch. If I could take back time....takes on a whole new meaning in this dark and scary scifi/thriller from Mr. Crouch. Highly recommended.

Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

Whew! Give me a moment while I try to write a synopsis for this wild ride of a book. This is the story of Barry, who is dealing with a mysterious phenomenon called False Memory Syndrome. Barry and others experience full memories of a complete life that they never lived. Or did they? It is also the story of Helena, a neuroscientist who has devoted her life to building a machine that will help save her mother, who has Alzheimer's. Her goal was to create something that would preserve memories, but what she creates has the potential to do much more. When Helena and Barry meet, they are faced with life-threatening questions about the nature of time and reality and must face the future consequences of what happens when you go back in time and change things in the past.

I love to read stories that mess with time, and this one was reminiscent of other books that I love with similar concepts. 11/22/63 and Life after Life came to mind while I was reading. I also loved Dark Matter with all its multiverse, time bending craziness, so I was very excited to jump into Recursion. So excited that I sat down and read the whole book in one day! My poor brain!! Just like with Dark Matter, this book messes with your head. I was doing mental gymnastics just to try to follow it all. I'm not sure that I totally understood all the scientific talk, but I think you just have to go with it in a book like this. Hang on and go along for the ride, and don't stress too much about trying to make logical sense of it all. Because I'm not sure it is even possible to make logical sense of it anyway. That's what makes it so entertaining!

This book is filled with action and suspense, along with a bit of a love story, and plenty of mind boggling scientific discussion. I do think that in the midst of all the action, the character development suffers a little. I wanted to know more about Helena and Barry and feel more connected to them. But at the same time, I also just wanted the plot to keep moving so that I could find out what happened next! So maybe I can't have everything I want. The ending did leave me a tad frustrated, and I may have wanted to say some not nice words when I finished. But overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good time travel story!

Thank you to Net Galley and Crown Publishing for providing me with an ARC of this book to review. All of the thoughts above are my own. Recursion won't be published until June, but I would recommend that you go ahead and preorder it or request it from the library now!

Crouch knows how to keep readers on their toes in the best mix of science fiction and thriller. This is highly addictive! Character development takes a bit of a back seat to the action but that's really what I was reading for anyways. I'm excited to suggest this to all the thriller readers in my library that think they don't like sci-fi :)
The science behind this is what really propels the reader (think The Martian); I'm not brainy enough to read it with any kind of authority, but it all sounds like it makes sense in an ideal scenario.
I'm excited to see how the Netflix adaptation turns out!

Around 4.5. I really enjoyed this. Fast paced and creative. If you've enjoyed other Crouch novels, you will like this one. And, if you haven't read him before, it's definitely worth a try. He gets better each time.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an EARC in exchange for an honest review.

One of the first things I heard about Recursion is that it has already been optioned as a series. I will admit that I was skeptical…. Until a couple of chapters in.

Helena is a young scientist with a mother suffering from Alzheimer’s and a passion to help save her mother’s memories. She doesn’t have the time or the funding to make her breakthrough a reality until a men shows up with an offer too good to refuse.

Barry, a New York cop, shows up at the scene of a potential suicide. The woman appears to be suffering from “False Memory Syndrome”, a new medical phenomenon. What the woman says before she jumps to her death piques Barry’s interest…and down the rabbit hole he goes.

What would you do for a chance to go back, to do over, to fix things before they ever became broken. What happens when what you do for love brings you to dark places?

The book is an interesting take on the ability live a “do-over”. The wrinkle is that changing your own reality leaves shadows of old memories and changing your reality changes reality for everyone.
Timeline on timeline and twist upon twist made the book read like a GIANT sci-fi action movie. There I some beautiful writing here, some great ethical questions and some far above my head science.

This is a mind-bender of a suspenseful sci-fi. This is no beach read; your brain will be in overdrive.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Author Blake Crouch is a gifted writer with big ideas about the meaning of life and how humans experience time. As a reader, I want him to keep working away at those ideas and his expression of them. In RECURSION, they got away from him; the book starts out as a basic sci fi tale with a shape and outline that is understandable. His ideas are impactful and fascinating. By the second half, the moorings are lost and don’t really return. It feels as though Crouch didn’t know how to reel the characters and tale back in for an ending. I read the book in one sitting but became frustrated with the second half. I would not have been able to describe the book and its plot if asked. It was just too messy and convoluted. It had lost its power. The tale is somewhat like the movie INCEPTION. Perhaps in its initial appeal that morphs into bleakness. I’m still a fan of the author and will look forward to reading whatever he writes next. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Thank you NetGalley for the free ARC.

Is memory real or can it be created from and altered? What if a traumatic event in your life simply did not happen? What if you could not rely on your memory because you don't know what the truth is. That is the essential plot in Recursion. There are two main story's Barry's and Helena's, I was much more interested in barry's dark story. Good read!

This is a review of an ARC from NetGalley.

New York police officer Barry Sutton is trying to talk a woman off of a ledge. The problem, she says is that her life - her husband, her son - has been erased. She has a life now, but she also has memories of another life, but it's all gone, and she's the only one who can remember that it ever was. And then she jumps.

The woman was suffering from False Memory Syndrome, a new illness. People experience a sharp headache, nosebleeds, and a sudden rush of memories of a life they never lived. As Sutton begins to explore the woman's claims of her past life, things start get strange. And if I say anymore, that would be massive spoilers.

This was really good - a read all in one sitting, rush to the next page page. It's an excellently plotted sci-fi puzzle of a book, but also a meditation on memories, time, and life, and how what we remember shapes who we are. Just so well done.