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Laddar... The Book of M: A Novel (utgåvan 2018)av Peng Shepherd (Författare)
VerksinformationThe Book of M av Peng Shepherd
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Gå med i LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken. Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. The writing was ok. Most of the characters were pretty boring and generic, especially the two main characters Orlando and Max. They live in a dystopian future, where most of the world's population was wiped out because of an event that left them without a shadow. When we meet Max, one of the shadowless and Orlando, her husband, a relatively short time later the world is in disarray. Most infrastructures have collapsed, food is limited and people are crazy. So I guess that cliche will live on forever. On his way back from his daily scavenger hunts for food, he discovers Max is missing. WHAT?! Anyways the rest of the book is pretty much focused on the extremely tedious misadventures of Orlando trying to find Max. I tried to remember one interesting detail that involved either one of them and it was hard. Max's lack of direction and volition was so aggravating. Her character arch was severely lacking in depth and progression. Everything she does or doesn't do is designed to make Orlando's journey more impactful and interesting. The two all-stars Naz and the Amnesiac are primarily used as bait, an enticement to see what else is behind the curtain and it fails. Naz, a kickass Olympic archer is regulated to being Orlando's rebound girl. While the Amnesiac's story is just there. Does it explain anything? No. Is it integral to the plot? Not, really (except towards the end). I really wanted to like this book because the premise fascinated me, but the story was ultimately too vanilla for my taste. ( ) This is a beautifully written (and narrated) book about the end of the world (as we know it), the importance of memory, and elephants, among other things. For me it was also an analogy for alzheimer's, and the gradual slipping away of self as it is experienced both by the victim and their loved ones. I can see Shepherd can be a good writer when she eases off the violence and finds other ways to move a story along. I love the way she describes deepening dementia. At first, I think my sister fought her dementia, but now she has leaned all the way into it and is more comfortable, no longer angry, very loving. There's a book I read a few years ago that sticks with me, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande; M reminds me of it. Just how much should you limit a person's life in order to protect them? I like the way Shepherd illustrated this question that most of us will have to ask or have asked about us eventually. There's a quote that comes up on atheist forums often, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.” Meaning don't use intelligence or reason, rely on emotion to make your decisions. I love how Shepherd illustrates this with the Transcendents. So, overall I think it's a pretty good book with potential for much better in the future. I bought this book as a "blind date" from my local bookstore, which means I had no idea what book it was until I got home and took off the wrapping paper. On the paper, someone had written "If you liked Station Eleven, The Stand, and The Dreamers, then give me a try!" I had never done this before, but gave it a shot. Was not disappointed. I had never even heard of this book before, so I went into it completely cold. Great storytelling, some well-foreshadowed "surprises" that served the story well, and were not meant to be twists for the sake of twists. Might have to do this blind-date thing more often. I’m ambiguous about this book. When I first began reading this, I thought this was going to be absorbing, and it is… in parts. Unfortunately, as the strangeness progresses, the author initially lost me quite early on (about 140 pages in) when something so bizarre happens, it truly makes no sense until much later. There are moments that are gripping, but moments I happily sped over. Some of the book feels overly long, or overly descriptive. I became invested with the characters, but maybe not as much with some as I should have. Parts of it are incredibly sad — made me think of what it must be like to live with someone who has Alzheimer’s, or to suffer from it — and the story has a shock or two. This is definitely one where you have to park your disbelief at the door. This is a tough book to review — on the one hand, it’s incredible. It’s certainly imaginative, certainly unique in a way that makes me want to applaud the author. Yet some will think it bizarre and it’s one I’m happy to put into the charity pile or to pass on to my local library. I think this story could’ve been told more concisely, and with more emotion to make it a keeper, but despite this, it’s an amazing concept.
...this is a deeply layered book ... Those who love brain puzzles will find much enjoyment in The Book of M, which is impeccably well-written ... Alas, the book eventually does not succeed in holding one’s interest because, at almost 500 pages, it is overlong and, by the mid-way point, things start getting sillier and sillier. Peng Shepherd, the book’s author (making her debut here), has a penchant for writing her characters into corners that are inescapable ... There are plot twists that you don’t see coming, but they, too, may make your eyeballs roll ... All in all, I found The Book of M to have a crackling good start, a ponderous mid-section and an unintentionally hilarious finale ... It is an entertaining book. Shepherd has constructed an exceedingly thoughtful and clever story that is perfectly paced and intricately plotted, producing a narrative filled with a genuine sense of urgency, thrilling twists and jaw-dropping revelations. Instantly absorbing, The Book of M is a scary, surprising, sad and sentimental story that will be deeply felt by readers while capturing their imaginations and hearts. An apocalyptic future in which an epidemic dubbed the Forgetting robs large swaths of the world’s population of their shadows and memories—causing them to work dangerous magic—sets the scene for Shepherd’s exciting debut.... Though its characters sometimes slide into tropes, Shepherd’s debut is graceful and riveting, slowly peeling back layers of an intricately constructed and unsettling alternate future.
"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"-- Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
Deltog i LibraryThing FörhandsrecensenterPeng Shepherds bok The Book of M delades ut via LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Pågående diskussionerIngen/ingaPopulära omslag
Google Books — Laddar... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyKlassifikation enligt LCBetygMedelbetyg:
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