Upgrade

Surprisingly I didn't really vibe with this book and I found myself struggling to care about what was happening for about half the book.

Quite a lot of the book resonated me and I love the idea of becoming super smart but the story fell a smidge flat and in particular the ending. Though the epilogue felt like the real ending and I loved that. This is a peculiar book for me, I really liked it and yet I didn't find anything special about it. This could be a testament to how much I absolutely loved Recursion. Tough act to follow.

DNF 39%

Goddamn was this book a snooze. I don't really have criticisms, I just wish it was somehow compelling. The other two Crouch books I've read were very compelling, any other flaws aside. I admit part of the problem is me; I don't find genetic engineering as interesting as the science in the other novels. But an author should be able to get me interested, especially when the book is primarily a thriller. Alas, I don't care about a single thing that happened at any point.

Dit is deels een doemverhaal, gecombineerd met de film Limitless en een Mission Impossible-achtig actie-avontuur met hoge inzet.

De auteur had duidelijk zijn research gedaan en wou zijn inzichten delen, soms een beetje met een te zware hand, waardoor we te veel lange en saaie passages aan info-dumping kregen. Zelfs de actiescènes konden me niet echt aangrijpen.

Het thema vond ik zeer zeker interessant en de uiteindelijke boodschap was mooi en stemde tot nadenken, maar echt origineel was het niet.

“We don't have an intelligence problem. We have a compassion problem. That, more than any other single factor, is what's driving us toward extinction.”

Doordat dit een verhaal was met een hoge inzet en een wereldwijd risico, miste ik de emotionele connectie. Het is raar om te zeggen, maar het feit dat de hele mensheid gevaar liep, raakte me minder dan de te weinig scènes van persoonlijk verlies en gevolg.
Des te meer ironisch dat dit nu net de boodschap is die de auteur naar voor wou brengen.

Al bij al een boek met een interessant uitgangspunt en noemenswaardige boodschap, hoewel niet helemaal origineel, maar een ietwat saaie uitvoering.

Overall a decent read, but got a bit repetitive at times. The storyline was pretty typical for the concept.

This definitely lived up to the hype. Another gem of a book from Blake Crouch after Recursion and Dark Matter!

This is definitely a page-turner with some expected, some unexpected twists and turns, overall a fantastic read.

What does it mean to be human?

That is that question at the heart of this novel. All of Blake Crouch's recent novels have just set my mind thinking after turning the last page, but I think none more so than Upgrade. Of Dark Matter and Recursion, Upgrade is the closest to our current reality which makes it the most relatable.

Upgrade is just a fun read and an easy page turner, because basically what you have is a more realistic and grounded take on Captain America, but Upgrade isn't defined by The Upgrade, it's defined by that question.

I think Crouch arrived at the correct answer to it, which made me love the ending of the book and the final solution. If only it were that easy in real life.

Like the past few novels by Blake Crouch, I finished Upgrade in record time. Crouch is best at making speculative science readable for the layman while rolling it into an exciting action-packed novel that unfolds at breakneck speed. However, I only gave this book three stars because it seems like Crouch has bought into the Greta Thunberg cult of belief in the near future total collapse of Earth's environment with flooded coasts and mass human die off leading to the subsequent future extinction of humankind. I was really rolling my eyes when I found he actually included a quote from the insane ramblings of Israeli troll Yuval Noah Harari. At this point in time the people of the world are being threatened from all sides. But are these crises created by the world's population or are they synthetic creations of a power-mad elite (like the World Economic Forum) with their hooks in compromised politicians and control over fiat currencies, corporations and commodities? Messing with human DNA will not create supermen, but can only lead to human suffering and death like the experimental MRNA injections are now causing among those who bought into the propaganda around a so-called “pandemic.”

3.5 stars

I am a big fan of Blake Crouch and Upgrade was my most anticipated read of the year. That being said, it fell short for me.

You have to be incredibly smart to write the things Blake Crouch writes. The idea of a future with a means of immediate mass genetic code alterations and the way Crouch uses it in the story was simultaneously fascinating and terrifying.

However, this one didn't stick with me the way Dark Matter and Recursion did. I felt that there were too many

Another outstanding performance from Crouch. I'm not well versed on Sci-fi and especially not sci-fi thrillers but he simply has to be the best!

I enjoyed this one more than Dark Matter. The concept is interesting and there were some good surprises.

More than 3 stars but I don't think worth 4. Interesting premise - upgraded intelligence via DNA hacking - but the story itself is pretty meh.

Another science fiction novel from Blake Crouch that I loved! Just like Dark Matter and Recursion I was intrigued by the premise and wanted to keep reading it until I finished it even though I have other things I needed to be doing! Where Dark Matter played with the multiverse and Recursion played with memory and time-travel, Upgrade plays with the idea of genetic modification. I have to admit, hearing about all the things Logan was able to do had me wishing for those kinds of upgrades myself!

Now I want to go back and re-read Dark Matter and Recursion because I am reminded of how much I love these books! I also want to re-read Summer Frost, his sci-fi novella that was my favorite out of the Forward Collection.

Not bad, really. Another page turner from a skilled writer. But the central theme of the “smartest man in the world” is hard to pull off and even harder to do in an original way. Resulting in a bit of a déjà lu feeling

Very engaging and quite interesting.

I originally for some reason thought this released much sooner in the year, which made it even harder to wait for July. This author has been an auto-buy for me since Dark Matter so I couldn't wait for this one. 
Upgrade is a science fiction novel that reads like scifi-realism (if that's a thing?) and scifi/dystopia. For me this is my sweet spot for the genre, which is why the author has catapulted to a favorite. His novels are accessible to anyone, but with science just smart enough to make me feel stupid, which to me at least, feels more real seeing as I am not a scientist. And I link each one to dystopian because he has such a way about writing things that are evolutions of where we are now, nothing ever seems ridiculous or impossible, but they are most often bleak. 
For me this is some of Crouch's best writing, even from the first page, there's just something refreshing about how he tells stories. I've always particularly liked that his main characters are not typical, they are never young or special, they are typically around 40 and ultimately average. Yet they often face the same odds and events that you would get in a chosen-one type story. 
Overall Upgrade is the story of what it means to be human, humanity itself, and a cry for compassion in the world. The author knows we need to act in terms of conservation, and this novel takes place in the future, a future that looks like our own, but it doesn't read like that, it's not so one dimensional. 
Through and through this is a wild ride, it's compulsively readable, unputdownable, and anything else you'd like to call it. Yes, there's a lot of science and description, but this one is also filled with incredible action and pacing. An absolute must. 
Personally a 5/5*, probably my favorite read this year. 

Incredible. Blake Crouch does it again.

Being a [a:Blake Crouch 442240 Blake Crouch https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1479398727p2/442240.jpg] book, I won't elaborate much on this review to not spoil the story.I loved [b:Dark Matter 27833670 Dark Matter Blake Crouch https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1472119680l/27833670.SY75.jpg 43161998] and [b:Recursion 42046112 Recursion Blake Crouch https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1543687940l/42046112.SY75.jpg 64277987] and was super excited for Upgrade to come out. Unfortunately, it didn't live through my hype and I'm a bit disappointed with the book. What I loved about the book:- It is scientifically interesting- The story touches some important issues that should be discussed and makes you think about them - The epilogue What I think it could have been done better:- Logan is my least favourite character so far and I was not engaged with the story. For someone so smart, it takes him quite a bit to reach some important conclusions- The pace. I loved the beginning and the end of the book but it was as if almost nothing was happening in the middle. This book will satisfy most of Blake Crouch fans. However, if you never read anything by him, do not start with this one.

Latest Blake Crouch “Upgrade”. 4 / 5
Thriller about gene editing taking place in the near future. If you like “Dark Matter” and “Recursion”, you'll like this book even though it's not as good. His vision of the future is believable.

I thought this was a fun lil story. I wanted it to go a lil further than it did or even different places but that's just my own projections onto an interesting world.

For such a deep subject and the amount of awful things that happen it's odd that I would leave this feeling that it was a light story. It was well paced and definitely kept me interested the whole way through. I've never read this author before but will definitely be looking at his other works. I think he did a great job at making the science easily digestible.

I really liked Kara right off the bat and was sad we didn't  get much time with her and the way things go. It was jarring to see that there was no room for even a little discussion and just automatically went to trying to kill each other. Which I see is part of the point to begin with. I liked the story we got I just also want a different one. And perhaps it's because I rarely read a male pov, but I really gravitated towards her and wanted more.  Even though I thought she was being way too quick to pull the trigger on releasing this thing and nothing was going to get in her way and there was no room for even a brief discussion about anything. And perhaps that's my issue here, I wanted her to be different, to make better choices or at least just be reasonable about it.

Blake Crouch is an auto-buy for me. He never fails to deliver a great story full of twists, enjoyable characters and edge of your seat, brain frying fun.

Quick review - a fun story with heart and moments that make you stop and think. Will keep you guessing and you can yet again see this being made into film. Upgrade was very entertaining, slightly enjoyed this less than Dark Matter and Recursion, however that certainly does not mean this was a bad book. Very high standards Mr Crouch has set himself with his wonderful writing.

Twitter - @readsgavin let's chat books!

Upgrade is a Sci-Fi where it feels more real than fiction. It is set in a future where targeted gene mutations are entirely feasible but outlawed because of its environmental effects. In the middle of the story is Logan,

This is the second Blake Crouch I've read. I enjoyed reading Recursion so much 2 years ago that he became an insta-buy author for me. I was really looking forward to this book and it did not disappoint! Blake Crouch knows how to write thrilling mind-bending science-fiction that's hard to put down.

Overall, I really enjoyed Upgrade, it asked some great ethical questions about the environment, compassion, intelligent, the greater good and where these all meet. I really liked the way the author handled the changes in Logan, especially the emotional ones, as he gets smarter and stronger. His slow disconnection from humanity, the changes in the way he views others and his relationship with his family was both beautiful and heartbreaking. In some way it reminded me of Fowers for Algernon in this regard.
Beyond the emotional, the technical aspects of the changes in Logan were also handled in a very unique and cool way. For example, how being able to split your focus over and over again could feel like time slowing down.

Even though the book takes place in the future, it's not hard to imagine how our world could end up like the one in the book, and it's hard to miss the environmental crisis and climate change in the book as what we are moving towards. I liked that the book took a hard stance on these topics, without seeming defeatist and completely pessimistic. Blake Crouch himself has said in an interview that he doesn't feel like he's writing sci-fi anymore, and that's easy to see with this book.

There were a few small nitpicks I had with this book, that kept it from being a full 5⭐. One of these was some of small parts of the book that felt unnecessarily detailed to me, without actually adding anything to the story.

Also, the problem with any story where the main character gets superhuman smartness is that it gets difficult not to nitpick on small mistakes. TBF these kinds of discrepancies happen a tiny amount in this book, but they do happen.

Overall rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.2

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for this eARC.

My full review: https://literaryquicksand.com/2022/05/review-upgrade-by-blake-crouch/

Have you read Dark Matter and/or Recursion? Both of those just had me frantically turning pages to find out what happened. Even though I never read sci fi (and probably still won't unless pushed by book club), I just loved the craziness of both of those books. The worlds were so inventive, the science so cool.

So, I started Upgrade expecting to go for a ride. I did, but...

This book didn't do for me what the previous two did, I'm sad to report! I just couldn't get lost in this one like I did the other two.

My main issue with Upgrade was the way Logan continuously describes his new abilities. I know we need the details to fully understand what's happening with his body and mind, but it got to be too much for me, like he was just hitting the reader over the head with “look what I can do now!” kind of stuff.

Now, I'm definitely not saying that this book was awful because of that. It was still a fun and entertaining read! I enjoyed the rivalry in the book, which I won't go into because it's a spoiler. It was pretty epic, though.