I had never heard of Blake Crouch before. I found out about this book by reading an interview with Andy Weir ("The Martian", "Artemis", "Project Hail Mary" and a few others).
The beginning is so… well, not thrilling. Barry is a NYPD cop. Helena' mother suffers from Alzheimer's. In the background - American big-city life seen through the eyes of these two. And the FMS.
False Memory Syndrome is a phenomenon that has yet to be explained. Some people suddenly start remembering events from another life. A life that never happened. Doctors are powerless. The disease has no bacterial (or viral) origin. It cannot be contracted. What is more interesting, though, is that from time to time groups of people suffering from FMS appear who have never met in real life, but who are - indirectly - socially connected. For example, they have a mutual friend on Facebook. Or they used to live - at different times - at the same address. And so on.
A bit of a bore. If it wasn't for Weir's name recommending the book, I would have put it back on the "some other time" shelf after 50 pages.
And foolishly I would, because around page number 60 things suddenly start to pick up.
It is a book about time travel!
Boy, what a book...
Crouch made it all up in a really interesting way. I don't want to reveal too much, I won't disclose any plot details. I'll just mention time loops, intertwined lines of events and a whole lot of other tricks typical for this kind of stories. Everything is very, but very solidly organised. There are also romance, crime and war threads along the way to keep things interesting. Once you get through those first 60 pages, then it only gets better, until the last paragraph.
This is one of those books that makes you sad it's over.
I highly recommend it.
Napiszę po polsku, bo w szkole miałem tylko azerski: Szkoda, że Jacek Dukaj nie zdążył napisać swojej „Rekursji” (chociaż miał na to 10 lat…), i że ten tytuł już mu ktoś zajął. 😛
Alternatywnie można było też wrzucić komentarz pod polską wersją wpisu 🙂