The Book of M: A Novel

by Peng Shepherd

James Fouhey (Narrator) and Emily Woo Zeller (Narrator)

"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"--

• ISBN10: 0062803158
• ISBN13: 9780062803153
• Publish Date: 5 June 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperAudio
• Edition: Unabridged edition
• Format: Audiobook (MP3)
• Duration: 17 hours and 6 minutes
• Language: English

Reviews

[mrs_mander_reads]

This book is super weird - in a good way. I love how Shepherd examines the importance of memory and how it's stored. So, so good.

[empressbrooke]

Despite the intriguing premise and promising start, by the halfway point I was just BORED. If I had realized this was a post apocalyptic survival horror situation I would have been more likely to stay away. There are four different POV characters and nothing really happens in any of their storylines. There are some really random and goofy battle scenes. There is a lot of scrounging for supplies and a lot of traveling. The POV character Naz has even less of a character arc than the other three, to the point where I am not sure what the purpose of her inclusion was. I think the end is supposed to tug on heartstrings and then horrify in its twist, but I felt nothing at all except being relieved it was over. The whole last quarter is just a mush of weirdness that is an entirely different tone than the rest of the book. Cannot recommend this one.

[Beth C.]

Dystopian, but not horror - unless you count the idea of slowly losing your memories, and knowing that you are, until the day that you forget to eat. Or to breathe. Or to stay with others and wander off never to be seen again. Because your memories are tied to your shadow, and once that's gone, soon enough what makes you who you are will be as well. It happens suddenly, then spreads, though it's not contagious. Here we cycle back and forth between 3 different perspectives as these people work to figure out what is happening and what their place is in this new world. And (no spoilers) - watch out for that ending. It'll get ya.