Recursion

Review

One of my goals for 2023 is to read more books, specifically fiction. I usually end up reading a few theology books every year, and enough podcasts that surely they count for a few audio books. But I have been slacking in the fiction department for sometime. I think reading fiction is an important part of being human. Russell Moore wrote a good article on why it’s important for Christians to read fiction, this quote really stood out for me. "Fiction helps the Christian to learn to speak in ways that can navigate between the boring abstract and the irrelevant mundane. It also enables you to learn insights about human nature." So with that said, I’m aiming to read 12 new (well, new to me) books this year. After attempting a few different books in the first days of the new year, I settled on Recursion by Blake Crouch. I wanted a sci-fi thriller that wasn’t based on an established world I already knew (such as a star wars book). This book got some pretty nice praise from authors I already respected as well as NPR so I decided to give it a shot, and I am glad I did. Recursion is a sci-fi thriller set around time travel. At first I was pretty hesitant because I feel like time travel stories can get sloppy. You almost always get multiple timelines and plot holes, and it’s just a really hard concept to really nail. I think crouch did a fantastic job however. He made sure there wasn’t some sort of grandfather paradox by having the time traveler die in the present when traveling. I also loved the idea that time traveling was such moving your consciousness back to a previous time, or specifically in this case, a specific memory. I was a bit confused in the beginning of the book, which was my own fault because I wasn’t paying attention to the chapter names, so I wasn’t aware that the two main Point of Views were happening at different times. Once I realized that, I was a lot more in tune with the story. I have to admit, I did tear up at a certain part. When Barry gets sent back in time for the first time, he goes back to the night his daughter died. As a Dad, I obviously pictured myself in this same scenario. I really felt that Crouch hit the emotion in the scenes between Barry, his daughter, and his (ex)wife. I probably would have done and felt the same way as Barry in his scenarios, or at least I hope I would have. My one complaint, and it’s not really much of a compliant, was how I thought of the resolution to the story very early on in the book. And that’s not a brag, I’m sure a lot of other people also thought “I wonder if they can travel back into a dead memory?”. Crouch did a good job explaining the twist at the end, just wasn’t much of a twist itself. Still a nice way to end the time loop they were stuck in and allowed everyone to finally be free. If you are someone who likes thrillers and/or sci-fi, I think you would enjoy this book. And Netflix bought the rights to the book before it was even released. Last update I found online stated that they were planning a movie and a few seasons set in the universe of Recursion. As I was reading it, I couldn’t help but think that this would make for a great blockbuster duology of movies. I’m planning on reading Dark Matter (currently filming for Apple+) and Upgrade by Blake Crouch this year as well. Both are currently checked out at my local library, so they will have to wait.