MY REVIEW: 2 Stars

I’ve had this book for a long time when Netgalley had it available, but I couldn’t get into it. So, I waited until it actually came out at my library and tried listening to the audio.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I just don’t love all of the authors books and that’s okay, there are plenty of people out there that love them.

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

Blake has does it again!!!! I loved his Dark Matter book and I loved this one as well!!! I would say that I love Dark Matter more than the Upgrade but I liked the new take in this book!

Blake Crouch has done it again.
The best way to read Blake Crouch is to go in completely blind. He is the best sci-fi thriller writer since Michael Crichton, and yet is wholly unique to himself.
If you are looking for a mind-bender, look no further than Blake Crouch. Upgrade is another stellar outing by one of the finest in the business.

I love Blake Crouch. He has such a way with words and is great at story telling. I cannot wait to read whatever his next book is because this one was even better than the last. It almost reminded me of something along the lines of the matrix.

“Upgrade” is sleek and propulsive, a page-turner with unexpectedly beautiful passages that give you pause amid the thrills. “I had extraordinary dreams and an ordinary mind,” says Logan, whose thoughtful, anguished perspective provides the book with much of its depth. Logan as a son, a father, a brother, is much more interesting than Logan as an augmented warrior, and I appreciated how much that was part of the book’s design...

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy!

I enjoyed this! I do not believe it was better than Recursion or Dark Matter but it had be captivated from start to finish. The ending was excellent and I look forward to many more from Crouch.

4 stars

Blake Crouch is one of my favorite sci-fi thriller writers and Upgrade was not a disappointment. Upgrade focuses on DNA alteration and the effects that can have on the world. How far is too far? There were many parallels that I drew with the state of our current world. Crouch is so good at writing stories that suck you in. They're full of scientific jargon and I never fully understand what's happening, but I love it.

This book is absolutely fantastic and I remain one of Crouch’s biggest fans. It has one of the best epilogues I’ve ever read and I’m in awe of the brain that wrote this. Even if you’re not a science fiction fan this is a must read! I highlighted too many quotes to count and can’t wait to recommend this to everyone I know.

This is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which vast changes have resulted from climate change and a devastating famine caused by a genetics experiment that went wrong. Logan Ramsay has been upgraded, without his knowledge or consent. He doesn’t know by whom or why, but he spends the first part of this book answering those questions. That is the part of the book that I preferred. I liked the “Flowers of Algernon” vibe as Logan transforms and his newly acquired intelligence enables him to figure out what is happening. The second part of the book is a thriller, pitting Logan against an antagonist with a different solution for the world’s problems.

The author is very good at thrillers and this would make a good movie. Fight scenes bore me, but I enjoyed the discussion of the science behind Logan’s enhancements. Frankly, some of his enhancements weren’t all that impressive. Gee, he can write an email while carrying on a conversation. I guess the author has never been on a conference call. Logan can also read while listening to an audiobook at double speed. Wow. I didn’t really care for the ending in which the author sets up an unnecessary dichotomy between two courses of action - and he doesn’t really deal with the implications (ethical, moral, legal) of pursuing any action at all.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

First line: We found Henrik Soren at a wine bar in the international terminal, thirty minutes from boarding a hyperjet to Tokyo.

Summary: Logan Ramsay is a part of the Gene Protection Agency. He spends his days hunting down scientists and criminals who are using gene technology to enhance or harm the world’s population. However, after a raid that leaves him in intensive care he starts to notice changes to his body and mind. It appears that the explosion at the raid infected him with a gene altering substance that appears to be upgrading his DNA. But the government will not let him continue living as a regular citizen which leads him to make the decision to run for his life.

My Thoughts: Blake Crouch writes a solid story. I do not understand the science behind the plot but the story is always fast moving and thrilling. The story appears to take place in the near future which gives the story a feeling of reality. We have been living through a pandemic and racing to find cures. I can see how easy it would be to rely on science to change humans to survive as the world around us is falling apart. It seems hopeful but Crouch shows that behind every bright spot there is a dark underbelly. As with his other stories I flew through this and cannot wait for his next sci-fi thriller!

FYI: Read his other books if you have not yet. Dark Matter is a book I have recommended many times for its instant action and thrilling plot.

I enjoyed this story and was hooked to see what came next, but a good portion of this book read like the author was just saying "look how smart I am". A lot of the science went over my head, but it was easy to feel a connection to the characters. ⭐️⭐️⭐️. If you've liked this author's other book you'll like this.

This book has everything you want in a thriller. There is endless action, an imaginative plot, a good dose of science, and great characters.

Logan Ramsay is a member of the GPA - a government organization fighting against unauthorized genetic manipulation. His past has a lot to do with why he does what he does. To not give any spoilers, Logan has a huge challenge ahead of him and he has to use every bit of himself to save humankind.

Aside from the action-packed story, there is a lot to discuss about genetic manipulation and what it means to be human.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.

At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep.

But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways.

The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy.

Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost.

Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human.

And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if humanity’s only hope for a future really does lie in engineering our own evolution?

Intimate in scale yet epic in scope, Upgrade is an intricately plotted, lightning-fast tale that charts one man’s thrilling transformation, even as it asks us to ponder the limits of our humanity—and our boundless potential.

So I love all of Blake Crouch's novel but this to me felt like it was a bit too much. I thought the science-y part of it just went over my head and I kept skimming a bunch of it. However, the action and pace of this was fantastic - I love that aspect of it. And as always a highly original concept and story and a fairly satisfying ending - very real.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for my free digital copy.

Once again Blake Crouch has written a high science concept novel that is not only readable, but at least partially intelligible for those with little knowledge of genetics.

This action-thriller featuring a wrongly accused man under pursuit (This felt very
Hitchcockian to me!) propels this wild ride while still keeping the story grounded because of the consequences at stake.

Something that has really stuck out to me from the two Blake Crouch works I have read, this and Dark Matter, is the amount of heart behind these undeniably fun-to-read sci-fi thrillers. There's always so much emotion tied to his main characters in terms of family, love, and loss.

This novel also presents hard questions about humanity, the future of this planet, and the ethical route to save both. (Think Chidi's trolley problem from The Good Place.)

Side Note: Blake, Upgrade would make a great movie. Get👏 on👏 that👏 film👏 deal

Thank you Penguin Random House & NetGalley for this e-ARC! Upgrade is out NOW 💙

I give Upgrade by Blake Crouch 3.75 stars ⭐⭐⭐✨

Fast-paced, scary, compelling science fiction about genetic engineering and the end of the world! Couldn't put it down.

Ahhh, good old Blake Crouch. As always with his books, I love how he explains things even though I’m sure 40% still goes over my head. I found this fascinating and completely terrifying. Found it timely. I need all of his books to be movies and tv shows please and thank you. I also need another book from him, stat.

Technical and Excellent

5 out of 5 stars
When I start a Blake Crouch technothriller, I know I’m in for a ride. I know that when I read his or Eliot Peper’s books, I’m going to be taken to a world that not only could happen, but the way the story is written feels like is bound to happen. In Upgrade, Crouch was able to write a near-future that was so believable (even outside of the premise of the story) that it felt like, “oh no, this is where we’re headed.”

Logan, as a character, was the perfect mix of traits to make his story and emotions believable. He was tasked with the herculean task of preventing a bigger problem on top of learning about all the changes that were happening to him. There were stories within stories, and Crouch did a great job creating different waves of “completion,” for lack of a better term. Some subplots would come up and get solved, or some would lead to the bigger plot. And the bigger plot had twists and turns that kept me riveted to my seat.

I thought that Levya did a great job with the performance of this one. He was able to add a lot of emotion and feeling to the book without overperforming it. I felt like he became Logan, which helped the story be even more believable.

Overall, I thought Upgrade is in the top two books by Crouch I’ve read. Recursion is the other one, and both of them left me with this feeling of unease but also satisfaction as well. His writing style shines here, and I thought it was one of his most technical books.

Speaking of Peper and Crouch, I would LOVE to see the two of them come together and write a technothriller to knock my socks even further off. But, Peper included Upgrade in his 3 books email (these emails are excellent, I love getting them) along with an interview he did with Crouch.

I'm never disappointed by Blake Crouch's books! He has a way of taking a super out there scientific concept and turning it into something that seems like it could happen in the near future. This was super fast paced and I had a hard time putting it down. It touches on being the child of a famous "villian" and how that causes a strain on sibling relationships. I will continue reading everything Blake Crouch releases!

Published by Ballentine on July 12, 2022

It’s obvious to rational people that any number of existential crises threaten human survival, from climate change to bioweapons to environmental destruction. Upgrade asks whether boosting human intelligence would solve those problems. One side of the debate suggests that a genetic upgrade, unleashing full human potential, would make unintelligent people realize that the planet cannot sustain humanity’s current behaviors. The other side suggests that the problems are not caused by stupidity but by selfishness and greed, attributes that might well survive a genetic upgrade.

The protagonist, Logan Ramsay, works for the Gene Protection Agency. His mother was a brilliant geneticist who attempted to make a blight resistant strain of rice by introducing a genetically engineered virus that would be spread by locusts. The virus mutated and wiped out much of the world’s food production, creating a worldwide famine. Logan worshipped his mother but lacked her brilliance. He was working with her when the famine spread. That connection was enough to earn him a prison sentence. His knowledge of genetics was enough to get him a job at the GPA when his sentence ended.

Genetic experiments have been outlawed, but rogue geneticists continue to meddle with DNA. Logan’s team is raiding a gene lab when he stumbles into a trap. A virus infects his body, leading to an upgrade of genes that control intelligence, perception, muscle development, and other bodily systems. Logan doesn’t quite turn into Superman, but he’s smarter and stronger than everyone else. Why that happened is a mystery I won’t spoil.

Logan’s sister has also been upgraded. She wants to make the virus more easily transmissible, upgrading all humans to save the planet from human stupidity. Unfortunately, about 13% of the population exposed to her version of the virus will die. Well, you can’t save the planet without breaking a few eggs.

The novel becomes a thriller as Logan tries to locate his sister and thwart her plot. As the two antagonists try to kill each other, they are momentarily troubled by memories of good times growing up, but one advantage or disadvantage of the upgrade is the ability to compartmentalize emotion, switching it off as might a sociopath.

An epilog begins with a touching moment before it morphs into a preachy essay. Fortunately, most of the novel doesn’t linger over humanity’s drive to kill itself. Readers turn to thrillers to escape from reality, not to become depressed by it.

Upgrade offers a fair amount of escapism with fast moving action scenes. The novel reads like a treatment for a movie. In addition to chase scenes, shootouts, and several explosions, the story features familiar action movie elements: a misunderstood protagonist who tries to do the right thing while he’s being chased by government agents who view him as a criminal; the protagonist’s forced separation from his wife and daughter to keep them safe; siblings torn apart by differing loyalties.

A screenwriter making a movie version of Upgrade might delete some of the novel’s heavy-handed preaching. Or a studio might have Morgan Freeman come in at the end to give the preaching some gravity. Either way, I would probably enjoy the movie, just as — despite the epilog — I enjoyed the novel.

RECOMMENDED

Upgrade is my first Blake Crouch book, and I can't believe I have waited this long. I am not a science person but when I tell you, this kept me reading and I actually understood everything, I am not exaggerating. So much of this can relate back to our world today yet while still being completely fantastical is wonderful. This is an extremely smart book, and I won't stop thinking about this one for a while.