ARC Review – Upgrade

Upgrade by Blake Crouch is a sci-fi thriller set to be published July 12, 2022. I previously read Recursion by Crouch and really enjoyed it so decided to give this one a go and it was just as mind-bending and exciting as I was hoping.

Goodreads Description

At first, Logan Ramsay isn’t sure if anything’s different. He just feels a little . . . sharper. Better able to concentrate. Better at multitasking. Reading a bit faster, memorizing better, needing less sleep.

But before long, he can’t deny it: Something’s happening to his brain. To his body. He’s starting to see the world, and those around him—even those he loves most—in whole new ways.

The truth is, Logan’s genome has been hacked. And there’s a reason he’s been targeted for this upgrade. A reason that goes back decades to the darkest part of his past, and a horrific family legacy.

Worse still, what’s happening to him is just the first step in a much larger plan, one that will inflict the same changes on humanity at large—at a terrifying cost.

Because of his new abilities, Logan’s the one person in the world capable of stopping what’s been set in motion. But to have a chance at winning this war, he’ll have to become something other than himself. Maybe even something other than human.

And even as he’s fighting, he can’t help wondering: what if humanity’s only hope for a future really does lie in engineering our own evolution?

Intimate in scale yet epic in scope, Upgrade is an intricately plotted, lightning-fast tale that charts one man’s thrilling transformation, even as it asks us to ponder the limits of our humanity—and our boundless potential.

My Review

Another fun and exciting book from Blake Crouch. The idea of this book is so interesting and it really got me thinking. As with Crouch’s other books, the plot is fast paced and takes a lot of twists and turns. But within that, there’s some good discussions on pushing the bounds of science and what’s acceptable in the name of saving the human race. The discussions of Logan’s past and how that has shaped him were also super interesting and more than I typically expect for this type of book. There’s just so much in here and it’s so well done. In another author’s hands, this could be an unreadable mess or require 500+ pages but Crouch gets it all into a very readable and fun 350 pages.

I will say, this one was a little heavy on the science but I know nothing about DNA and that didn’t detract from my reading, my eyes just sort of jumped over the various letter/number combos for the different genes. Same thing for the various numbers that showed up a lot (heartrate, countdowns, etc.). It was a good way of showing how Logan’s brain worked but it was a tad over done for me.

This is more like a 4.5 star for me but I couldn’t quite give it 5 stars for two reasons. One, I didn’t really connect with the main character (Logan) at all. He has very little personality and this is sort of the point with the upgrade but it lowered the stakes a bit and didn’t let me get fully invested. Second, I’m bothered by the 1 year time jump that happens because I don’t understand what Logan was doing during that time except hiding. I was a little annoyed and confused by this.

Overall, this is a really good sci-fi thriller and I think fans of Crouch’s prior work are going to really enjoy it.

* I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.