A Thriller With More Puzzles Than Payoff

I am a huge fan of sci-fi novels with thriller aspects in them. Dark Matter, Three Body Problem and many other novels remain classics in this sub-genre. And I assumed that Recursion, another book by Blake Crouch, who wrote Dark Matter, would be the same. But the reality was different.

There are many reviews on books out there. I’ll try to keep this review as short as possible. Note that there might be a few spoilers!

The Good

As with any Blake Crouch novel, the good in this book comes from its characters; their actions seem reasonable, their persona has depth and is not one-dimensional like other famous novels. The first few chapters of this novel are still my favourite.

The depression of Barry and Helena’s confusion when she gets the sudden offer. Everything is interesting. Each character individually is interesting and has a lot going on. But the problem starts when they all meet.

The Bad

Things start going awry in the middle. We start our journey with Barry, obsessed with saving his daughter. Slowly, things change, and once he meets Helena, he saves her. A relationship starts to form between them. But let’s take a break here.

How was Barry’s motivation cleared? What happened to Meghan? Is she alive? Dead? Did Barry accept her death? But when did this happen? He was too obsessed with saving Helena that the discussion regarding Meghan flew out of the window.

Why and when did their relationship even develop? I mean, Helena spent 4 months with Barry and fell in love with each other, then time leapt, and the new Barry fell for her(?) and suddenly Barry died, and Helena lives without him, and slowly when Barry starts living, Helena dies? Finally, Barry comes to the original timeline and meets Helena at the end.

After a point, neither Helena nor Barry, who loves each other, were the original ones we knew. So, why were they in love? Why was their interaction as obsessed as it was shown? What is happening?

The Confusion

Coming back to the original review. The relationship wasn’t the only thing confusing here. Marcus is too light-hearted a guy for someone who has travelled to multiple realities. I mean, logically, he should be somewhat subdued, right? And for most of the plot, why was he obsessed with killing Helena? Couldn’t he have done that with his time travel?

The conclusion.

You should have understood the vast number of questions I have for this novel. I never even mentioned the major flaw I had, the Marvel problem. The stakes for this plot are too damn high! It involves the FBI, the Chinese and Russian Governments, guns, chases and many other things. The characters seem too tiny to be able to influence anything that happens in the book.

The interesting characters at the beginning become a one-dimensional character by the end. Notice how I said a character instead of characters? That’s because Barry, Helena, and the others seem to behave the same way in the end.

Of course, I have these many points to pick only because the story had a vast potential to be another masterpiece. It’s an interesting novel to read, nonetheless. I might have focussed too much on the Bad, but that’s because I naturally expected the best from the author of Dark Matter.

This was my first full-length book review, and it might have a lot of bias. But that’s the part about being on a platform like Medium, right? I’m not the only one writing a review! Many others highlight the “good” of this book, so be sure to check them out, too!

Share what you feel about the novel in the comments!

Thanks for staying till the end! I hope you liked what you read. Until Next Time! ✌️