The Book of M

Books | Fiction / Literary

3.9

(226)

Peng Shepherd

Brad Thor's Summer 2018 Fiction Pick for THE TODAY SHOW!NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY Elle • Refinery29 • PopSugar • VergeAuthor of LA Times Prize finalist The Cartographers“The Book of M is devastating and inventive as Shepherd examines the value of memory, packing in imaginative twists as she goes.” —USA Today"Eerie, dark, and compelling, [The Book of M] will not disappoint lovers of The Passage and Station Eleven." —BooklistWHAT WOULD YOU GIVE UP TO REMEMBER?Set in a dangerous near future world, The Book of M tells the captivating story of a group of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary catastrophe who risk everything to save the ones they love. It is a sweeping debut that illuminates the power that memories have not only on the heart, but on the world itself.One afternoon at an outdoor market in India, a man’s shadow disappears—an occurrence science cannot explain. He is only the first. The phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, it comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories.Ory and his wife Max have escaped the Forgetting so far by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods. Their new life feels almost normal, until one day Max’s shadow disappears too.Knowing that the more she forgets, the more dangerous she will become to Ory, Max runs away. But Ory refuses to give up the time they have left together. Desperate to find Max before her memory disappears completely, he follows her trail across a perilous, unrecognizable world, braving the threat of roaming bandits, the call to a new war being waged on the ruins of the capital, and the rise of a sinister cult that worships the shadowless.As they journey, each searches for answers: for Ory, about love, about survival, about hope; and for Max, about a new force growing in the south that may hold the cure.Like The Passage and Station Eleven, this haunting, thought-provoking, and beautiful novel explores fundamental questions of memory, connection, and what it means to be human in a world turned upside down.Don't miss the latest captivating novel by Peng Shepherd:The Cartographers

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More Details:

Author

Peng Shepherd

Pages

496

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

2018-06-05

ISBN

0062669621 9780062669629

Community ReviewsSee all

"One of the most amazing thrillers I have read. The plot is amazing, the story is so unique with a twist you will NEVER see coming. "

S C

Soni C.

"Underrated dystopian! Very character focused and accessible. "

Storymapper

"DNF at 62% — I read the first 62% of this on audiobook in one day while I was doing a ton of cleaning. It was okay. There was some parts I thought were pretty interesting, but overall, I was not compelled by the story or characters at all. I waited two weeks to see if my interest to listen would pick up again, but even though I’m 62% in, this is a pretty long book and I just do not care—especially not enough to listen for like 8 more hours."

R i

Reading into the Void

"This was intense. I had to switch back and forth between this book and a less intense book because at times it was too much for me. I loved the creative details. Definitely need to willingly suspend disbelief. Mild “spoiler” so stop reading if you don’t want to see that … the ending is a mix of hopeful and sad, but one particular part of the end was very sad. Call me cliché but I like happy endings so that was hard. "

J O

Julia Ortiz

"I had a hard time getting into this book, finally thought I was getting hooked about half way through, was hooked for a few chapters, and then couldn’t get hooked again until the ending… and then the ending sucked so I was no longer hooked again. There was only one POV I really really liked listening to, and it was unfortunately the least common one in the book. It took me months to finish, and it felt like a chore to read. This book is so random haha. I wish I could recommend it but I don’t think I can."

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Claire Foltz Wells

"This is an extremely good surrealist allegory about post civ mutual aid. The constant in this book is change and sometimes it is hard to adjust and keep up but overall, it is a very good yarn. There are a LOT of characters-- at least 4 POV characters and as it's an odyssey, constantly changing settings. I highly recommend reading it with someone else to talk about the symbolism because this book is stacked with layers of metaphor around consensus reality and the shadows of other possible worlds. Lots of points for normalized disabled, POC, and queer representation in the cast."

B A

Bridget Anne

"This book blew my mind! This was brilliant! Dystopian world with a fantastic premise woven i to a solid story and characters to root for. I will read anything she writes. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️"

K M

Kalena Medina

"In a way, this could be a review of 2 books. The first half of this book had me all in. I loved the premise, the characters were interesting and I was eager to explore this intriguing world created. I love dystopian books and fantasy so the mixture of the two felt different and fresh. The love story was compelling. I’m the type of reader where I have to really care about the characters to get into the book and enjoy it. I don’t read for a pretty turn of phrase or to applaud someone’s writing technique. I read to be taken away to another reality, to feel something and be transported. So yeah, the first half of this book felt good and went by extremely quick. Then what happened? I’m really not sure at what point this book became boring and seemed to plod along. All of a sudden, it was taking me forever to just get through a chapter because I would lose interest and stop reading. The new characters introduced were not fleshed out enough. The travel scenes became repetitive. The battles scenes were blah. All of a sudden, I realized I went from loving a book to just wanting it to end. If it hadn’t been for that great first half, I might have quit. I was skimming through most pages and just wanting to get to the end. And the end...awful, disappointing, unrewarding...and unrealistic of the characters."

D B

Daniella Blowitski

"Great end world /pandemic thriller the ending unexpected "

A R

Alvaro Rubio

"Loved this book! The twist at the end really got me. "

J A

Joshua Abbott

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