Recursion by Blake Crouch

Reality is broken.

At first, it looks like a disease. An epidemic that spreads through no known means, driving its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived. But the force that’s sweeping the world is no pathogen. It’s just the first shock wave, unleashed by a stunning discovery—and what’s in jeopardy is not our minds but the very fabric of time itself.

In New York City, Detective Barry Sutton is closing in on the truth—and in a remote laboratory, neuroscientist Helena Smith is unaware that she alone holds the key to this mystery . . . and the tools for fighting back.

Together, Barry and Helena will have to confront their enemy—before they, and the world, are trapped in a loop of ever-growing chaos.

I am not an emotional person and I’m full of emotion after finishing this book. Was a bit of a slower start but once I got sucked in, it was a whirlwind. Literally page turner where I couldn’t stop and needed to see what happened next. Fascinating to think of what is possible in the world as this book really stretches your brain (but not in a hard to follow way). You’ve got humor, you’ve got love, you’ve got emotions and tears. And you’ve just got a bunch of humans all trying to figure out the point of life and how to best live it. Beautiful book.

TL;DR

I started liking this book but by the end I had to force myself to finish it. I's so weird, it's starts out okay, gets interesting and then drops to be so boring it was hard to finish it. I did not like this book but the idea and how it tells us the effect it has on people and the world is why I would recommend this book.

My Scoring System

I have five things I look for in a book, if the book checks all five it's a 5/5 stars book, if it checks none it's a 1/5 stars and everything else is a combination:

✓ - Main Story: As with [book:Dark Matter|27833670] the idea is amazing and even though the execution is far better I still didn't like it. But the idea is so great it has to be given credit.

X - Side Stories (if it applies):

✓ - Characters: Halena and Slade are the stars of the show, Barry is uninteresting. A guy who constantly cries at everything, had me rolling my eyes a lot when I was reading his point of view. He's probably the worst character in the book so it's unfortunate that he's one of the main protagonists.

X - Setting/Ambiance: It's just America, even if we are playing with alternate realities nothing impressive happens.

X - Ending: Not an amazing ending but it wasn't terrible. The lead up to it was horrible though.

Extensive Review

A bit better than Dark Matter, while on that book we had an incredible idea that wasn't used properly, here we get an incredible idea that shows us the consequences of using it. The beginning is pretty boring, then we get to the mid section and it's interesting and then towards the end it gets so boring that I couldn't believe I was reading the same book. Let's get off the easy stuff out of the way first.

- Slade and Halena were good characters, I really liked both of them. Always happy to read the chapters with them involved, sadly Slade only appears for about half the book.

- The idea of this book is amazing and how it tells us the effect of these alternate realities is perfect. Nothing bad to say about that just like Dark Matter, Blake Crouch's ideas are amazing. I don't want to spoil anything but if I had to rate this book based solely on the idea it presents it would be a 5/5 stars.

Now to the bad stuff:

- There's a running theme in this book, where people when they get these memories from alternate realities suddenly go crazy and commit suicide. I just can't believe it, I don't believe that you can be okay one day, you suddenly get these memories and a few days later you kill yourself because "you don't know what is real anymore". They all keep asking "is this real?" and I just have to roll my eyes, doesn't anyone in this book know what reality is? Reality is what our brain perceives so you're always in reality.

- Barry as a character is pretty boring, I hate how he constantly cries at everything. Yeah I get it he's been through some very grieving moments but seriously, every chapter with him I was reading he was crying about something.

- Minor thing but I hate when it happens in books. Towards the end of the story someone will tell someone that they can do something, they will have to work hard at it and it will be the hardest thing they will achieve in their life. Literally a few paragraphs later that someone does it first try without any problems or difficuly like it's just another Monday at work.

- At some point this book turns into Minory Report, while the book itself acknowledges it. And it's nowhere near as interesting as the movie.

- Before the ending of the book, the last fifty pages are so boring I couldn't believe I was reading the same book. It's boring because nothing new happens it's just the same thing over and over without any progress bring made. I guess the author's intention was to put us in the helplesness of the characters that they can't escape this loop? Well it was very boring and made it so hard to finish this book.

- Meghan is a piece of shit, she doesn't just commit suicide which is already a coward thing to do she sets a fire on her building killing three other innocent people, great job dumbass (it was an accident but she left her stove on when she knew she would kill herself so it's still her fault). I get that she wasn't a big character in the book but still a garbage character for what she did.

- MASSIVE ENDING SPOILER I don't get the implications of the ending. Slade killed Halena to avoid her finding out what she created. Barry kills Slade so Halena will eventually create the chair again. She has the same driven mindset as Slade so I have no doubt that eventually she will try to kill someone to get them to release DMT and figure out how the memory mapping works. Maybe if Barry tells her what happen in his previous timelines she will stop but I'm not sure...

I wish I could enjoy the book like the rest of people who rated it four/five stars but one of the main characters beeing so boring and a crying constantly, the Minority Report section and the lead up to the ending were so boring it destroyed my enjoyment.

A quick, fun read with some interesting concepts and philosophy. The dialogue sounds more like a TedX talk than human conversation and there is way too much plot getting in the way of the story.

I heard there are two types of people. Those who prefer Dark Matter and those who prefer Recursion. I guess I'm in the second camp? But only barely.

As much as I liked Dark Matter I guessed the ending at the beginning and situations they got into were getting more and more ridiculous. But it was a thrill ride until the end even though now that I look back I consider the last third of it the weakest.

On the other hand Recursion was borderline between 3 and 4 stars until the last third where it got crazy and amazing. I guess it shows that if you have strong ending it counts for more than having strong core story and weak ending. The re-readability is also much higher than Dark Matter's as the story is about manipulating time.

First three acts (out of five) were kinda losing me. I also admit I wasn't in the headspace to read about deaths and time manipulation while going through a loss myself. Pacing is slower throughout most of the book which was actually welcomed because the situations MCs got into weren't as ridiculous even when they were mind/reality-bending.

Around 100 pages before the end one of the MCs made the dumbest thing I've read this year only for it to lead to the best scene I've read this year so far. So let's call it even. And the book did not let go from there until the end which solidified the 4 star rating.

There was also no cheating regarding page count with no
...sentences structured...
like...
this.

There are suppose to be some plot holes here. Can anyone tell me what they are? Slade says that he manipulated the timeline at the end to make Helena believe it's impossible to enter dead memory. So the interview with the convict who died was orchestrated by Slade to convince Helena. Which means it's not a plot hole. What else is there?