Recursion #BookReview

Blake Crouch | June 2019 | 329 pages

This was my second Blake Crouch and, I may love him. For me, he hits the right balance of sci-fi, thriller and mystery. Its like smart girl mystery fiction – love!

This one has a lot of twist and turns so I’ll do my best to describe the story without giving up any spoilers. Similarly to Dark Matter, the plot of Recursion revolves around the establishments ability to manipulate time, memories and ultimately our future. At its core, Recursion is a love story, though it unfolds slowly. Once it gets going, it moves quickly though.

Barry is a NYC detective tasked with investigating new cases of False Memory Syndrome or FMS. Victims typically go mad and suicidal because they wake one day with memories of a different life. His investigation eventually leads him to Helena, a scientist conducting research on mapping the human brain. I’m not sure I ever fully understood the science, but it sounds like, she believes if she can map clear memories in the human brain, she can somehow send you back to the time of that memory, allowing you to live again. Helena’s motivation is to help her mom who is suffering from Alzheimer’s.

Of course the ability to travel back into time is valuable and the technology gets into the hands of the wrong folks and the chase is on. When Helena and Barry connect, they fall in love and continually jump in time to try and prevent ‘the bad guys’ from manipulating time. At some point the entire world is about to collapse from nuclear destruction because of the technology that Helena has created. How will they ever prevent this from happening?

Pros: Sci-fi, action packed, thrilling drama, with side of love story..? I mean, what more do you want? Even though it unravels slowly at first, once it heats up – it really heats up and moves quickly. i read this in days.

Cons: Eh, a little heavy into the science in this one and I’m not sure that was needed. All the explaining really didn’t add anything to the story and I didn’t walk away feeling like I understood any of it. Blake – I don’t want to be neurophysicist, I just want to read about them, mmkay? There is a lot of backstory in the beginning for Barry and Helena and I think in Helena’s case it made sense but for Barry, I’m not sure. Barry’s story drags a bit in the early chapters.

If you are a sci-fi fan, this is a no brainer. If you are new to the genre or too much makes you feel like an idiot, the first several chapters will drag for you. Stick in there though – it will go boom and you’ll love it! Good book 32/2021