Reviews with content warning for Addiction - Recursion

A detective tries to understand and stop a temporal anomaly that affects people’s memories.
A complicated read that can sometimes be repetitive but compelling narrative keeps you engaged.
There are some dark, disturbing moments so be aware going in it’s not a book for kids.

Content Warnings

keen's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Crouch reached in my chest, grabbed my heart, played with it, and tore it out of me. I thank him for the experience.

This is not a story I would ordinarily read. What hooked me in was the inclusion of memories and reality twisting in on itself, which was all I knew of. It took me a while to realize I was reading about tropes I generally disliked. Afterward, I found I didn't care. The story was that good. Saying what those tropes are will spoil the book, however.

When I finished Recursion, I couldn't believe it was only 327-pages long. There are arcs in the book, going from Book One to Book Five, with breaks in between each arc. The method of splitting up chapters was annoying when I needed to refer to previous chapters, but only because Kindle didn't list the sub-chapters. Aside that, it made total sense to me as I read. I could swear I read a series of books, not just one. 327 pages didn't seem nearly enough time to get me this attached to the characters while throwing so much information to me. I'm surprised I even managed to understand such complicated information. Blake Crouch was very good at showing the complexity of the science in fiction, while making it sound believable and understandable to a layman. I truly felt how much research and care he put into the story.

Another compliment to his writing: he is amazing at describing senses and emotions, something necessary to make the reader believe the story. His descriptions of the five senses surprised me by noting experiences I don't even notice in my own life. I wouldn't even think to include it in my writings. When he described grief, it made me want to cry. When he described happiness, my heart ached. I'm a fan of philosophy, and there's tons of it here. The end had me reflecting on what I value in life, how I treat my relationships, and my view of the world overall. Plenty of conversational topics for my therapist, haha.

Part of me did find myself frustrated by the end, believing the main characters had made strange and annoying decisions... until I realized that, if put in their position, my grasp on logic would have long since been shattered. If anything, they stayed extremely intelligent and resilient considering the situation they've been through and were in.

By the way, the audiobook is amazing. Great narrators who breathed extra life into already lively characters.

Spoiler warning for small details I've noticed:

"Recursive" was used about two times in the book, iirc. I'm very surprised that the snake eating its tail, or the ouroboros, was not mentioned at all. If it was, I missed it. I actually thought the front of the book was an ouroboros until I realized it was an infinite figure 8 with a maze within.

Also, I'm not sure if this was intentional, but I liked that Helena's middle name is Gray. Just like dead memories.

Content Warnings

lilifane's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

My favourite one! For me it's perfection.
I love love loooooooved everything about this and don't have any complaints whatsoever.
I even cried at the end. That's something I didn't expect from a book like this.
And woah, this felt like 5 books in one. At the end I was like "This all really happened in this one book?!"

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thebooklifeofemilyrose's review against another edition

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adventurous fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

What I liked:

Multiple POVs
Great character development—the Barry and Helena you meet in the first few pages isn’t nearly the same ones you encounter at the end.
Fast paced with engaging writing
The science aspect—I’m a huge science nerd and really enjoyed how there was an even balance of science and plot throughout.

What I didn’t like:

Also the science aspect—at times I had to reread the same paragraphs a few times because I really wanted to make sense of the science Crouch was writing about. I’m not a physicist so who knows if anyone of it’s accurate, but I really wanted to be able to follow it and sometimes it felt a bit too dense (but it didn’t affect the plot).

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