JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Recursion by Blake Crouch

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 than 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.

Recursion by Blake Crouch is a mind-bending, thrilling novel about memory readjustment, and a technological advancement that allows people to go back in time and rewrite their history and avoid terrible things happening — deaths, divorces, terrorist attacks. But, naturally, something with this much power has its consequences.

There are two main characters in the book. First, in 2018, there’s Barry, an NYPD detective whose marriage crumbled when his daughter was killed in a hit-and-run accident over a decade earlier.

Secondly, in 2007, Helena is a neuroscientist in Palo Alto who is studying memory. Her mother suffers from severe memory loss and Helena wants to invent and develop a chair that will help her. When a stranger appears in her office, he offers her the funding she requires to finish the chair that could help her mum.

“Barry has the tracking software activated on his phone. He has no idea how long he’s been unconscious, but assuming it’s still early Tuesday morning, his absence from work won’t be noticed until late afternoon. In theory, hours from now.”

Part of the intrigue of the book, is waiting to find out how Helena’s inventions in 2007 lead to the plagued False Memory Syndrome in Barry’s 2018. We first meet Barry when he fails to convince a woman not to jump off the top of the building in suicide — she’s a victim of False Memory Syndrome and a few weeks earlier, she woke up to discover all her past memories weren’t real and she was now living an alternate life. She was confused and angry, and lost. She felt so depressed, she committed suicide. Barry investigates this ‘syndrome’ and uncovers a dangerous secret behind the syndrome, and we start to understand how Barry and Helena’s lives will intersect.

This book took me completely by surprise — it hooked me from the first chapter, and kept me absolutely addicted until the last paragraphs. What a wild ride; what a magnificent read.

The technology and the premise drew me in immediately. Memory is the dominant theme in this book and it’s used so well, drawing on the human experience of hindsight and regret and asking readers to imagine a world where you could go back and change something terrible that happened in your life. Regret your marriage? You can erase it!

Recursion is apparently a sequel, although I sensed no evidence of that. I’ve never read Dark Matter, and I adored this book. I’ve been recommending it to just about everyone since I finished it last week.

“Over the last year, this apartment has felt more and more like a prison, but never more so than now. And it occurs to her as hot, angry tears run down her face that it was her own self-destructive ambition that carried her to this moment, and probably the one in 2018.”

Despite a less than impressive cover design, this book is the kind of story I’m interested in. It’s complex, but heartfelt. The characters are fleshed out and original, and the premise is incredibly fascinating, unique and a real page turner.

This book won’t be for everyone, I’ll admit that. It’s about time travel, memory alterations, and at times the back-and-forth between timelines and the complex mathematical nature of it all can get a little overwhelming. You have to have an interest in the fantastical — the imaginary — to love this book. But if that sounds like you, definitely pick this up. Well worth a read.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Recursion
Blake Crouch
June 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Thou Shalt Kill

A dark, gripping and witty thriller in which the only thing humanity has control over is death.

In a world where disease, war and crime have been eliminated, the only way to die is to be randomly killed (“gleaned”) by professional scythes.

Citra and Rowan are teenagers who have been selected to be scythes’ apprentices, and despite wanting nothing to do with the vocation, they must learn the art of killing and understand the necessity of what they do. Only one of them will be chosen as a scythe’s apprentice and as Citra and Rowan come up against a terrifyingly corrupt Scythedom, it becomes clear that the winning apprentice’s first task will be to glean the loser.

Scythe by Neal Shusterman is a speculative fiction novel set in a world where people don’t die of natural causes. They can live for decades, and they can even reset their bodies and turn themselves young again.

In order to curb the population growth, Scythes are employed to kill people. They act like assassins. There is a system to their decisions, but ultimately, a lot of the time the deaths are random. They could be women, men or children. They could be hundreds of years old, or toddlers. They could be teenagers with lots of promise, or someone evil who hasn’t lived a very moral life.

“That afternoon, just as the scythe had said, they went to the shipping company where the woman worked, and they watched — just as Rowan had watched Kohl’s gleaning.
‘I have chosen for you a life-terminating pill,’ Scythe Faraday told the speechless, tremulous woman. He reached into his robe and produced a small pill in a little glass vial.”

This novel is both original and engrossing; Neal has set this series up really well, drawing the reader into this crazy and chaotic world. The characters are all really different, but the danger is real. The book may be long, but it’s fast-paced and the stakes are high. Despite the fact that the final third of the book dragged on a little too much and it could’ve been edited down, I did really like this read.

The world building is the biggest strength of this series — technology is incredibly advanced and society is a lot more civilised. And yet, fear is so dominant. Despite the fact that people in this world don’t feel pain and they don’t suffer and war doesn’t exist, there is still something in the world that scares them — petrifies them. And that is death. Because it is something they can’t control.

“The scythe attack came less than a minute after she was given her slice, piping hot from the oven. ..Esme turned to see them. Four of them. They were clad in bright robes that glittered. They looked like no one Esme had ever seen. She had never met a scythe.”

Citra and Rowan are moral and compassionate, one of the reasons that they were chosen as apprentices. I liked their dynamic, and their budding relationship. They were in competition with each other, always challenging one another to be the best.

“There were men and there were women. The subjects represented different ages, ethnic mixes, and body types, from muscular to obsess to gaunt. He yelled and screamed and grunted with every thrust, slice and twist. He had trained well. The blades sunk in with perfect precision.”

I’d recommend this to fantasy or science fiction lovers. The storyline is still grounded in reality, but with alternate, fantastical elements. Young adult readers may find this to be a little long, but it’s still a great launch for the series and I think readers will follow Neil onto book number two.

I don’t think this book is necessarily just for young adult readers, but for people who love adult fiction as well. If you love crime or thrillers, you’ll love how Neal has woven fact with fiction, the real vs. the unreal. The main characters may be young but they’re mature and they’re self-aware, and they drive the book. The concept of the series is intriguing enough to pull in even the most reluctant of readers.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Scythe
Neal Shusterman
February 2018
Walker Books Australia

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