Title: Recursion
Author: Blake Crouch
Pages: 329
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9781509866656
My rating:★★★★☆
About: What if it were possible to go back into one of your memories and relive it again and again? But what if there were some terrible side effects? Would you still do it? Even more so, would you decide to give the world access to this technology or rather aim to destroy it? A police officer gets involved in an apparent case of suicide that has more about it than it at first seems. A neuroscientist develops a machine to preserve and relive old memories. Their paths will cross under very unlikely circumstances, putting them up against reality itself.
After I'd read Blake Crouch's Dark Matter a couple of years ago, it became an instant favorite of mine, and I was incredibly excited to pick up his new sci-fi thriller Recursion. It was a quick read, but not always an easy one. There's a lot of science and assumptions and just very crazy stuff going on, and sadly, it sometimes was too much for me to grasp. In the end, I liked the book a lot, but some things definitely went over my head.
The writing style itself was fluent and easy to follow, the plot mostly fast paced. Only in the second half, it started to drag a little here and there. It never got boring, but some parts could have been a bit shorter. But since the book itself isn't that long it was fine.
I don't really have an opinion on the main characters Barry and Helena. I couldn't identify with them in any way, but they were still interesting personalities, and just such bright minds. They have backstories the book dives into at some point that made them feel very well developed. There are a bunch of secondary characters too, such as Marcus Slade. Creepy guy, but very interesting.
What I liked was that you can't really tell who's the villain, because it all depends on the perspective from which you're looking at things! Who knows, if this scenario was real, maybe some of us would act the same way?! It's interesting and frightening at the same time to see what great inventions can do in the wrong hands; the book really dives into some ethical questions here.
In the end, Recursion was a good book. I might even be very good, but it's not outstanding. I wish I would've understood more of the scientific background (something I loved in Dark Matter), but even though Blake Crouch attempted to explain everything, it was kinda complicated. The whole memory-reliving-thing that made more sense once I'd understood a certain aspect (not going into depth here because spoilers, but if you still want to know check my goodreads review which has a spoilery paragraph).
I would recommend Recursion to readers who like science-fiction thrillers with an actual scientific background (especially neuroscience), or to everyone who just wants to have an exciting read because even if you don't understand everything, this book is still exciting and fun.
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