Meg's Reviews > Upgrade

"Higher Intelligence doesn’t automatically make you a good human."

It had been a while since I was this excited about a book release. Let’s discuss.
First things first, Is it as good (or) better than Dark Matter & Recursion - Debatable.
Is it worth the time you’ll spend on the story here - Absolutely.

Upgrade is about DNA upgrades made possible to people in the future (As you might have guessed from the book title and cover). That’s it. I am not going to give away anything else in this story. I’d suggest you go into this blind because the book is filled with Blake Crouch’s signature storytelling quips that include a great plot with twisty twists, inventive Sci-fi ideas, men being romantic husbands (personal favourite in his books) and a brilliantly told POV from the main character of the story.

Crouch does an amazing job at putting us into the main character’s shoes and makes us live through his journey. We feel what Logan is feeling and are given perfect sense as to what his ideals and thoughts are. This rarely happens in books where the reader just seems to be watching the lead characters from a distance. Told in 3 parts, the plot is fast paced and the writing is direct and specific. This is the kind of book where you keep turning the pages until you realise you reached the end too soon.

My only minor qualm with this book was the 2nd part of the story. It tends to drag on a bit considering how much scientific mumbo jumbo there is. I love sci-fi mumbo jumbo as much as the next nerd, but when it is almost an entire page of DNA sequence names, your mind tends to wander a bit during these portions. In some places, the writing style is almost screenplay like, like it was written to be made into a movie. Might mildly annoy you if that isn’t your thing.

Overall, another winner from Blake Crouch. I loved how this book goes beyond the sci-fi genre to ultimately question the one thing we all want answers to - What does it truly mean to be human? Read the book to find out.