Reviews - Dissolution | The StoryGraph

263 reviews for:

Dissolution

Nicholas Binge

4.18 AVERAGE

tara_siobhan's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

stacymcauliffe's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging emotional tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

dadwagondriver's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous emotional inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

kodup's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Just finished, but my immediate instinct:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 4.5/5

As with most dual/multiple POV/timeline novels, there is often one section that is more catching than others. In this novel, I found myself more engaged with Stanley’s past than Maggie’s present, but both were enjoyable to read and it might be related to Stanley’s past having more action while Maggie’s present seemed more expository at times. Although I predicted some twists, I didn’t often find I was predicting them far ahead of when the author made the reveal.

As a frequent romance reader, I fell for Maggie and Stanley. The line near the end when he says “because nothing made sense before you came into my life, because I trust you more than I trust myself […] I’ve been wrong before, I’ve been wrong a lot. The only thing I’ve never been wrong about is you.” melted me.

This book isn’t a solid 5-stars for me for a couple reasons. I found it a bit hard to track at times, and found I had to sit with not knowing quite a bit for a longer than I usually do for my typical reads. Sitting with the confusion did pay off, however. My second issue was that Professor Waldman felt like a characterization of a professor rather than a character. I think it was all the “ha!”s at the beginning of sentences. (SPOILER: I also didn’t love the supernatural-feeling twist with Omega at first, but it grew on me.)

Read this in about a week when considering I paused from 7/14-7/30. I listened to the audiobook and could picture it playing in my mind. I could see this being adapted into a TV show, but I believe it would take some creative formatting to successfully and accessibly portray the shift from interview format to the past.

helenid's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

A clever sci-fi that challenges our perception of memory.

If one could travel back to a memory, could one tweak it to change the present? Are one's memories accurate? Does distance cloud the memory or emotion? Was it ever an exact memory of an incident to begin with?

Maggie, an octogenarian, discovers that her husband's Alzheimer's may not be natural and that someone is deliberately removing his memories. A solution presents itself. Hassan can send Maggie into Stanley's memories and promises that they can reverse the memory loss and also save mankind...

Told in two timelines: Maggie flits about through various points of Stanley's life while Stanley relives his life chronologically. The science can be quite detailed and with the flitting about there is a need to concentrate. Due to life, I took a month off this book at around the 33% mark and found it quite difficult to work out what was happening when stepping back in.

The last section positively zoomed by and the tension really ramps up.... I can't really describe why and how without providing spoilers.

Would I read it again? Quite possibly, but without a gap!

Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins for an e-arc.