The Book of M by Peng Shepherd

"Set in a dangerous near future world, The Book of M tells the captivating story of a group of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary catastrophe who risk everything to save the ones they love. It is a sweeping debut that illuminates the power that memories have not only on the heart, but on the world itself. One afternoon at an outdoor market in India, a man's shadow disappears--an occurrence science cannot explain. He is only the first. The phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, it comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories. Ory and his wife Max have escaped the Forgetting so far by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods. Their new life feels almost normal, until one day Max's shadow disappears too. Knowing that the more she forgets, the more dangerous she will become to Ory, Max runs away. But Ory refuses to give up the time they have left together. Desperate to find Max before her memory disappears completely, he follows her trail across a perilous, unrecognizable world, braving the threat of roaming bandits, the call to a new war being waged on the ruins of the capital, and the rise of a sinister cult that worships the shadowless. As they journey, each searches for answers: for Ory, about love, about survival, about hope; and for Max, about a new force growing in the south that may hold the cure. Like The Passage and Station Eleven, this haunting, thought-provoking, and beautiful novel explores fundamental questions of memory, connection, and what it means to be human in a world turned upside down"--

This was an amazing, enriching, and complex story of mysticism and tribulations. Very well done!
See my video review here - https://youtu.be/hYbgZmWMRio

Engaging from the very first pages, brilliant writing and ideas with some sci-fi without the need to explain absolutely everything. Loved it.

If I'm honest the title is what attracted me to the book and I had hoped it would be a brilliant read - and it absolutely was!

The story kicks off immediately into the first few pages where people have start to lose their shadows, and the knock on effect is that they forget, they forget all sorts of things, then they forget their name, or forget their parent's names, or that they had a husband or wife or children, then forget how to speak. Then more mind bendingly, they forget that a thing is a thing, an in doing so reality changes around them - such as forgetting that a place exists then all of a sudden that place really doesn't exist taking all it's inhabitants with it.

The story follows a few key characters dedicating chapters to telling each of their story and the effect this epidemic (of sorts) affects their lives. So the story is very much about humans even though it lives inside an almost magical epidemic.

I like that the story doesn't particularly try to explain how the shadows are lost or why and why it affects some people faster than others.

A wonderfully written book that swept me along. Definitely recommend.

The Book of M is a fascinating post-apocalyptic story examining the intersection between memory and identity by looking at what may happen if people around the world began suddenly losing their memories. First, they lost their shadows, then their memories???but as they forgot, what they forgot became real, changing the world around them.

Though it is overlong and I didn't love any of the characters, it's a creative story well told that I kept thinking about after finishing it. It's one of a kind, and I loved that it presented more questions than answers, leaving it up to readers to dissect what the different pieces mean.

Full Review on My Website

What defines a person? Your experiences? Your personality? The emotional bonds you forge? What happens when you forget? Are you still you if you don't remember who that is? The Book of M tackles these questions and takes an intimate look at what happens when some people forget but others remember.

We enter on Max and Ory in an abandoned hotel, running out of food and supplies. Max has lost her shadow, which means she will soon start forgetting. Everything. (There are rumors that Shadowless have died because they forgot to breathe or eat.) We learn it's been a few years since the phenomenon started happening, and flashbacks tell us the story of those early months. Like any good dystopia, it is a world-altering process. Governments are gone because no one remembered to run them. Food and other supplies are dwindling because farmers, shippers, manufacturers forgot what they were doing and how to do it.

But with the forgetting comes - magic, of a sort. Ory comes across a deer in the forest that instead of antlers, has wings sprouting from its forehead. Because someone forgot that deer shouldn't have wings - and so it happened. Forgetting that something can be destroyed can make it indestructible. Forgetting that you left a place can take you back to that place. Forgetting a place exists can make that place no longer exist. It's not a very controllable kind of magic. And it's dangerous - you can never be quite sure what you'll forget, and you can affect other people with it.

And the forgetting starts with losing your shadow. Ory gives Max a tape recorder, so she can record things she might forget. He posts signs around their hideout to remind her of things, like “Let no one in. Ory has a key.” and “Don't touch the guns or the knives.” But Max knows she is a danger to Ory, and so while she can still remember enough to function, she runs away.

The book mostly concerns Ory and Max's journeys across the country; Max trying to find something she's forgotten, and Ory trying to find Max. The adventure is gripping, heartbreaking, and at times confusing. (Mostly on Max's end, as magic warps things around her.) There are a few side characters who also have viewpoint chapters. Naz Ahmadi is an Iranian girl training for the Olympics in the US - in archery, which comes in quite handy. We also have The One Who Gathers, a mysterious man in New Orleans who has gathered a flock of shadowless.

If you ever played the roleplaying game Mage: the Ascension, and remember the concept of Paradox, this book reminds me of that a lot. (Is it a surprise that I'm a tabletop RPG geek? It shouldn't be. I own almost all of the old World of Darkness books, and currently play in a D&D game, and hopefully soon a second D&D game!) Anyway. Paradox. Where doing magic too far outside the bounds of acceptable reality punishes you, so you have to weigh the potential consequences against the magic you want to do.

I really enjoyed this debut novel; it is a very original take on a dystopia, and raised a lot of questions about personality, memories, and what makes a person the person you remember.

You can find all my reviews at Goddess in the Stacks.