The Book of M by Peng Shepherd - Book Review
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5 out 5 stars
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.
So who do I think will love this book: Those who love sci-fi dystopians, magical realism, light fantasy, and heavily character driven books both in terms of character development and plot. I stress that this book is character driven, and uses multiple points of view, so if that is not something you like you probably won't mesh well with this book. That being said I would still recommend it anyway! Also a disclaimer... this book can get gruesomely violent at times so be prepared!
So as usual 3 Dislikes and Likes with spoilers at the end.
Dislikes:
I am giving this book 5 stars so as you can imagine didn't hate much at all. I can see how some might falter through this book. Some might love the beginning more, some the end. Some might hate it all. It's a very peculiar book as you don't quite understand where the story is going, or where it wants to take it's characters and that may feel a little like disjointed story-telling to some. Others may get lost in all the characters and miss the plot. Understand going in that yes there is some fantasy and magic elements, it is a dystopian novel although it doesn't quite begin that way. But most of all it is a character driven plot... the plot is the characters and vice versa and depending on how that makes you feel will probably effect how you like this book. So not so much my dislikes but what I realized others may find frustrating as I read. I did put this down as I said.. there were times where it felt like too much information and then too much characters but in completing this book I realized it was every bit as much as we needed to know to get to the end!
I am giving this book 5 stars so as you can imagine didn't hate much at all. I can see how some might falter through this book. Some might love the beginning more, some the end. Some might hate it all. It's a very peculiar book as you don't quite understand where the story is going, or where it wants to take it's characters and that may feel a little like disjointed story-telling to some. Others may get lost in all the characters and miss the plot. Understand going in that yes there is some fantasy and magic elements, it is a dystopian novel although it doesn't quite begin that way. But most of all it is a character driven plot... the plot is the characters and vice versa and depending on how that makes you feel will probably effect how you like this book. So not so much my dislikes but what I realized others may find frustrating as I read. I did put this down as I said.. there were times where it felt like too much information and then too much characters but in completing this book I realized it was every bit as much as we needed to know to get to the end!
Likes:
I loved the characters.. I loved the very premise of some losing their shadows and others not and what the meant for the very sanity of each character whether your shadow remained or disappeared. The magic that came from it all and the gradual shift in the world that was once like ours but then was not. That the dystopia that the world became was gradual and unknowing (will it turn out bad or good with all the changes that were happening). The Indian folklore, No Shadow Day that I never knew existed. I loved just so many things in this book to even mention. My favourite character was the Amnesiac. Him and Hemu those charachters had me leaning so far into my book each time it reached there parts. Exciting, and I just never knew what was going to happen next.
The book follows Orlando Zhang and his wife Max, Naz Ahmadi, and The One who Gathers (or the Amnesiac) points of view. Only max being shadowless and you only hear her perspective through a tape recorder as she continues on her journey. Each point of view is unique each coming from a different sense of desperation all trying to discover the same thing... why this happened and how they can fix it.
This book was my favourite read so far this year and I truly do recommend you pick it up and give it a try. But let me know in the comments... Have you read this yet and if so what did ya think? If not, do you want to read it??? and what's making you excited to pick it up?
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SPOILERS
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Can we just say that ending with Max really being Ursula... I mean I just never ever would have thought. And the amnesiac's shadow turning into Gajarajan and talking.... BLEW MY MIND!!!
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