Recursion

My brain wants to give this four stars and my heart wants to give it three stars. Or is it the other way around? I'm not sure. I'm going to be nice because I loved Dark Matter and am inclined to view the problems in a more favorable light towards Mr. Crouch and the no doubt intense amount of work writing this book must have been.

Here's the thing with time travel stories. They can be amazing, they can be outright trash, and they can be everything in between. I love time travel. But there are different styles of time travel stories. There are “multiple timelines”, there are “everything in the past already happened, you always went to the past and can't change anything”, and there is “when you change stuff, everything in the present is different in ways you can't predict.” I like each of these styles, and they can each explore different themes and questions.

Minor spoilers going forward. Nothing too spoilery.

This book is a unique (from my experience) combination of 1 and 3. And the first half of this book is electrifying. The second half I had increasing problems with. It is very repetitive, but this isn't my big problem. My big problem is that Crouch is so interested in his ideas and exploring memory (all super cool, the ideas are definitely the highlight of this book) that he doesn't stop to think through plot holes and logic gaps and just like, how choices work.

Here is a minor example- the main character's entire motivation is to help Alzheimer's patients because her mom has it. Every single thing in this book steps from her wanting to get her mom healthy. And in every time traveling adventure, her mom gets Alzheimer's. This woman is a scientist and obviously has access to research. Yet in no iteration does she try to intervene in her mom's life to prevent her from getting Alzheimer's. It's possible she would get it anyway, but we know lots of risk factors for Alzheimer's- diet, sleep, exercise. This is literally not even mentioned as something worth trying. I could not get past this!! If I had decades of foreknowledge that my mom was for sure going to get Alzheimer's in year X, I would be intervening constantly. Buying brain foods, forcing my mom to go on walks with me, etc. Maybe she still gets Alzheimer's, but maybe I totally stop this from happening. HOW IS THIS NOT EVEN BROUGHT UP?!? I can't believe it. Does Blake Crouch just not know you can take preventative measures for Alzheimer's?

One other example I have to be more vague about due to spoilers is, there is a particular nation's government response that is very negative, and it causes lots of problems for the main characters and also the world. And these governments keep making the same mistakes, over and over again, despite each time having more access to more information. Maybe my brain puts problems together differently, but I don't believe this problem would keep arising. I can't be more specific, but it is such a plot-centric problem and I was just hating having to read it over and over because it felt like Crouch was saying “I need X to happen”, and disregarding how people would act in the situation.

The very end is fine. As I write this review, I probably should have given it three stars. But the concept is so interesting! This book is so readable! I read it in less than a day. The characters are good! It really makes you think! I love books about memory! It's just...such a crash and burn in that second half.