Wow, this book was a ride! It was such a well-crafted apocalypse with a terrifying premise. Forgetting oneself is a horrible thought, but add onto that the magic in this book and it's all the more scary. But it's also brilliantly done.

The cast of characters and different perspectives always keep you interested and drive you to read on, and the relationships built between characters are so investing. I absolutely loved how multicultural this book was - so many people of colour and even some gay representation.

I'm so happy I got to read this book because I loved it. At times it could be a little predictable but not in a bad way (but in a heartbreaking way) - and there were definitely twists I did not see coming. Also, this book made me cry, which I very much applaud Peng Shepherd for doing. This book is so worth checking out and I'm definitely going to be buying a copy to have on my shelf.

I am really into apocalyptic novels of late and this is an innovative and extraordinary one. It is a truly outstanding debut for an author that I will be putting on my "ones to watch" list. Peng Shepherd, I salute you!

After reading the synopsis, I got unbelievably excited about the prospect of diving into this, having that amount of pure anticipation is a rarity for me. I'm usually cool, calm, and collected. I knew then that it was going to either - live up to my uber-high expectations and blow me away, or disappoint me beyond belief. There are such a lot of writers who create a highly original concept, but fail miserably in their execution, meaning that the unique premise is wasted. Luckily, that was far from the case here.

"The Book of M" is set in the not-too-distant future and tells the story of a mysterious natural disaster that causes people's shadows to disappear, shortly followed by their memories. This phenomenon gives the individual the use of a strange type of magic, but it comes at a high price - each time they use it they will be robbed of a memory. Many try to resist the urge to use this magic power, but for most the temptation is too great. As the victims forget more and more of who they are, reality begins to bend to reflect their fractured recollections, plunging the world into a terrifying, ever-shifting alternate landscape.

This is a surreal and rather creepy read that I enjoyed immensely, although I did find that the pace in the middle section of the book was a little slower than I would've ideally liked. The language flowed beautifully and naturally and I appreciated the multiple points of view. The way Shepherd has structured the novel around these varying perspectives gives you a look at what each character is thinking/feeling at the time. There are some stunning twists involved in the plot too, which caught me off guard! For a debut author the worldbuilding is exquisite and I appreciated that the characters were drawn from diverse backgrounds and were developed well. All in all, this is a superb dystopian thrill ride following the characters as they fight for survival, a haunting and thought-provoking read!

Many thanks to HarperCollins for an ARC. I was not required to post a review and all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

The Book of M is a one of the best post-apocalyptic fiction I have read in recent years, and it’s hard to believe it’s a debut novel. It’s a poignant examination of human memories and connection, filled with powerful and surrealistic imageries. The last pages of the novel still haunt me, and I keep catching myself thinking about the book’s shadowless world. I did have some issues with the book which I will discuss below, but overall, this book marks Peng Shepherd as an author to be watched – I can’t wait to see what she will come up with next.

A strange and impossible event has flipped the world upside down. People all over the began losing their shadows, and with it, their memories. They fill in the gaps in their memories with imaginings that takes literal form, filling cities with warped streets, strange buildings, and extraordinary creatures. The forgetting starts small, the name of a street or a household object. It then spreads to encompass the memories of loved ones, the ability to speak or breathe. The entire spectrum of the Shadowless’ inexplicable condition is showcased in The Book of M to great effect, it’s simultaneously frightening and mesmerising.

The Shadowless and their disappearing memories was inspired by Zero Shadow Day, an astronomical phenomenon restricted to a few geographical locations in India. Twice a year, during a few precious moments, shadows disappear due to an alignment of sun and earth. I loved seeing how the author took this idea and transformed it into an expansive and imaginative post-apocalyptic landscape. The writing is descriptive and vivid, creating a foreboding and surrealistic atmosphere. While the book switches constantly between four different point of views, they each provided a different perspective on the world and meshed together seamlessly. Each point of view also narrated the plot at slightly different timeline, so the book felt like a puzzle that readers had to put together.

Of all the different viewpoints, I particularly enjoyed Max’s chapters. She lost her shadow at the beginning of the novel, and seeing her thoughts and transformation was an incredibly emotional experience. If you have the chance, I highly recommend the audiobook. Max’s chapters were narrated by Emily Woo Zeller, who’s voice and performance enriched Max’s character. I also enjoyed the Ory and Naz’s chapters immensely, although I felt they were quite similar in tone. The remaining narrator is the mysterious One Who Gathers, and their chapter shed a completely different light on the unfolding situation. Their chapter included one of my favourite relationships within this book, shared between two men who are learning to live with the loss of their memories.

I found the pacing of this book to be good, I got through the 17 hours audiobook in a matter of days. The mystery of the Shadowless and Max’s journey kept me digging for more. However, I have heard from other reviewers that they found the book slow – and I admit I would have found it difficult to finish the book so fast without the aid of my audiobook, there is a large section in the middle that felt largely repetitive.

The book has a very diverse cast of characters coming from a multitude of ethnic backgrounds, and I appreciated the inclusivity of the various cultures in the books. However, I had a major issue with The Book of M due to the tragic deaths of the only gay characters in the book. While I understand that this book takes place in a post-apocalyptic landscape where there are numerous deaths – seeing the only two gay characters die while heterosexual characters managed to survive worse odds felt uncomfortable. The death of one of the gay characters were also a catalyst to advance a main character’s storyline and set him on the ‘correct’ path. It’s 2018, the book is released during Pride Month, having a tired and hurtful trope rear its head really affected my enjoyment of the book.

Overall, The Book of M was a memorable debut with a haunting ending. However, I have some reservations about the book due to the pacing and the appearance of the hurtful ‘bury your gays’ trope.

For an apocalyptic novel, I found The Book of M innovative and surreal. The story has several points of view about the events going on during the worldwide happening where forgetting occurs after losing your shadow followed by magical powers that pull to continue using until all is forgotten. Only one patient who Is referred to as the Amnesiac is the only one untouched by the shadowless epidemic and the most likely to save all that’ remains of humanity. Almost along the lines of Alzheimer’s or dementia related I thought, but I was disappointed that the cause of what makes one person loose a shadow and not the other was never mentioned. It does drag somewhat in the middle where the storylines of Ory & Max, Naz, and The Amneisiac, also known as The One Who Gathers, finally comes together after Ory meets the Red King and teams up with Naz to find Max leading everyone to Louisiana, where The Amnesiac brings the shadowed and shadowless together to find the cure to returning shadows to people again. The end was shocking to me because through all the trials and persevering that Ory endures making it a love story where at the end you want him to find Max, his wife and driving force of his quest.. Ory does find what he is looking for but not as the reader had hoped for.

This book was so good and so creepy. It already started out giving me the creeps. That we could lose our shadows at any time and with that our memories is such a scary thought that I think will reach everyone on such a deep and jarring level.

It features different POVs, that truly enhance the experience and give you so many different ways to experience this crazy apocalyptic world, in which only the imagination of the crazed shadowless seems to be the limit. The Characters featured are so diverse, in fact only one of the four people who tell this story is white. Not that the colour of your skin still matters in this crazy world, but it's still amazing to see such diversity in books. 

The characters are very well fleshed out, at no point I felt like their decisions didn't make sense or I couldn't understand them. They were amazing and reasonable and I their interactions and the developing relationships between them were very realistic. 

The Book of M is a perfekt blend of characters and world-building. While the characters drive the story, the world gets revealed piece by piece and it left me wondering what could be possible at every corner. 

Some plot twists weren't super surprising to me, the end still made me gasp out loud though, and that is not something that happens a lot. The only negative remark I have is, that it took the story quite some time to get started and at points it moved a bit slow. I understand that it had to take some time to take flight, especially to explain the rules of the world and what happened to make it this way, it was just hard at times to move forwards for me. I still enjoyed this book so much and would recommend it to anyone, who is interested in this genre or wants to branch out.

**I have received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest feedback**

Wow, what a unique subject for a book!! I accidentally came across the author on twitter if i am not mistaken mentioning her book so i was really happy that i was approved for an early copy through netgalley!

The theme was quite unusual but very interesting and intriguing, at least for me! :D a great combination of genres which can create very different feelings to the reader!! better though dive into this book without knowing a lot of things about it!

Definitely give it a go!!

This is quite a surreal book, though the other book I think I have described as 'surreal' on this blog was Paris Adrift and this book is not at all similar to that. What I mean is that, where most dystopian stories tend to feel quite real, they are scenarios in which we can imagine the world or imagine ourselves, I didn't feel that I could in this case. I think this is largely down to the fact that the 'shadowless-ness' is never explained. I'm not criticising that fact, I actually think to have found a way to scientifically rationalise this process would have taken away from the tone of the book, but it does make it feel less of a dystopian novel and more fantasy? But that still isn't quite the right genre for this book. I'm not sure there is a genre this book fits into, which is pretty neat when you think about it.

This is a multiple POV story, the main focus being on Ory's attempts to find Max and Max's attempts to go South. I thought that Max's parts were a little stronger, perhaps because it was interesting reading the experience of someone losing their shadow and then progressively losing their memory? I still thought Ory's role in the story was important, but Max was a preferable character in my opinion. There are other POVs in this book, including an Olympic level archer and a man with amnesia. The way in which these people fit together in the story was very interesting, I liked that it wasn't too predictable, but it also didn't feel like a huge reveal, as I think that would have taken away from the tone of the book.

What is the tone of this book? I actually found this book quite quiet and gentle, which is odd given that some of the things that happen within the story are quite high action. I'm not sure that the writing of those moments was powerful enough to create a contrast, this feels quite one level. Having said that, I thought that the more quiet tone suited some parts of the story more, the idea that people slip away gradually, not suddenly, this isn't a violent occurrence, it is something quiet. That fact simultaneously makes this process so much kinder and so much more terrifying.

What I will say is that this book has quite a lot of (what I have referred to in my notes as) pontificating. There's a lot of examples of people telling stories from mythology or people using quite in-depth metaphors to try to explain various situations. For the most part, this works and is cleverly used but there are a few occasions where it feels like this book is trying to sound very clever, I personally don't respond particularly well to that.

Overall, I thought that this was a good example of adult fantasy/dystopian fiction. I think that it has some incredibly powerful moments within the story and that the characters are, for the most part, interesting people. The only things that made me not adore this book was the lack of contrast within the storytelling and the moments where I felt like I was being talked at through the book rather than being taken on a journey.

My rating: 4/5

I received a digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I love books that are not easily classifiable - and this is just that. It is speculative fiction but also incorporates a feeling of magical realism, it is a romance (and it is really not), it is just absolutely lovely. I adore the premise above all else: at some point in the not so distant future people start losing their shadows and with them, slowly but inexorably, their memories. First the small things but then bigger and bigger things until they forget to breath. With the loss of memories come weird powers: if a person without a shadow remembers something wrong, that thing becomes just so. Peng Shepherd uses this to create achingly beautiful scenes that edge on unsettling.

The book is told from four perspectives:

Orlando Zhang (Ory), whose wife has just lost her shadow and left him behind, is single-minded in his pursuit of his wife,
Max, his wife, is losing her memories and keeps recording herself speaking to her husband to make sure she does not remember him wrong,
Mahnaz Ahmadi, an Iranian archer, is stuck in Boston, far away from her family and most importantly her younger sister.
The Amnesiac has lost his memory in an accident and as such has a unique understanding of memory loss and its effects on sense of self.

My favourite parts by far were those concerned with Max - her journey into forgetting is mesmerizing and her resilience is wonderful. Spending time in her head made what was happening on a grander scale much more personal and affecting. I also loved spending time with Ahmadi - I love sibling relationships anyways and hers just made me weepy. The Amnesiac's story at point had a feel of fairy tale, which obviously I adored. My problem lay with Ory (and his perspective encompasses the bulk of this book) - he did not feel like a fully formed person to me. For most of the book he is single-minded in his pursuit of Max, never pausing, never considering her as a person in her own right, to be honest. I have some spoilery thoughts that might explain this but even so, I never really got along with his point of view - even though some of the most stunning scenes were from his perspective.

Overall, I adore the way Peng Shepherd structured her book - I am often a huge fan of multiple perspectives and here they are handled expertly and with a brilliant sense of timing. I thought her language flowed beautifully and her imagination is just breathtaking, many scenes unfolding cinematically in the best possible way. Her use of imagery and colour really added to this already wonderfully layered story.

Ory and Max are holed up in a hotel resort as the Forgetting commences; worldwide, people are losing their shadows and also their memories. As Max loses her shadow, can Ory and Max ever find one another again? Can New Orleans remain a haven to gather those who wish to remember, or will the mysterious Transcendence conquer all? Intriguing and clever, I enjoyed this book a great deal.

When I had requested this book on NetGalley, I had a rough idea as to what it contained. I thought, you know, a maybe post apocalypse world and people forget their memories in this one. It sounded intriguing, people just randomly losing their memories soon after they lose their shadows? Why wouldn't it sound interesting? I thought, well, this could be entertaining.

Peng Shepherd changed my idea of what a post apocalyptic genre should be, her writing is so vivid and gripping that I literally could put down the book. I really loved that there are different povs, different symbols for each of them and you can really see the desperation and love and the very humane wish to still be alive after losing their shadow. The really good thing about the book? Can I pick one? I doubt it but let's say, one of the best things about the book was its pace, it never really lagged. There was always something happening and all the action had some meaning, some hidden plot that would unfold later.

The main characters, Max and Ory, they broke my heart, they truly did. Their love and and devotion towards each other shone throughout the story. Max and Ory have been married for a while when the story starts, they have been hiding in the woods for almost two years without losing their shadows. This blessing doesn't last long, one day, Max's shadow is gone and Ory desperately tries to prepare them both for the eventual loss of Max's memories. This section was fraught with heartbreak, terror and love, Ory forces Max to follow some basic rules and they work for a while.

There comes a day when they are finally separated. They each go through their own journeys and reading it makes everything feel very, very real. As they both travel through a vastly different America than the one we know of, they meet with many secondary characters who have voices of their own and whose personalities shine through without overwhelming us.

It's almost like music, this book. It starts out slow and quietly, slowly building up it's pace and near the end, it is frankly phenomenal. I know, I would be hard pressed to be find a book like this one in the same vein. This book seriously makes us wonder if this really is a debut novel, the sheer control with which Shepherd writes, the way she wrapped up lose points and the ending itself. Goodness. There were a few moments when I genuinely cried because I was just moved so. This will remain in my heart for a long, long while and once I start losing my memories of it, I will re-read it again, just to feel all this again.

With apocalyptic fiction, it's easy to get caught up in the thrill of survival, of fighting whatever menace is plaguing the planet. There's a certain escapism in killing zombies or running from climate catastrophes. That high-octane brand of adventure serves many novels well. It's more rare we get a novel that just explores the in-between moments and lives within the tragedy without conquering it, but that's what Peng Shepherd has pulled off in her wonderful debut. In The Book of M, no amount of government funding, scientific genius or combat prowess can alleviate the simple human quality turned inevitable apocalypse: Forgetting.

In brief, this is an incredible novel. Weaving enough fast-paced twists to satisfy our escapist urges with insightful considerations of what it means to live in a disintegrating world, The Book of M juggles multiple storylines with different chronologies without ever becoming confusing. It raises just the right number of questions to keep you on your toes but not frustrated--What causes the shadowless to lose their shadows? Is there a cure for shadowlessness? Who is the eponymous M, and what is the book the title refers to? Not all of these questions are answered. Leaving on a hopeful note, Shepherd's satisfyingly open ending provides sufficient closure for ease of mind but still leaves much to the imagination.

The loss of shadows and, subsequently, memory is a quietly brilliant premise that befits the best of speculative fiction. Captivating and imaginative, it suggests at every turn without explicitly asking us what we would do in such a world. An answer is perhaps provided in the form of central characters Orlando Zhang, or Ory, and his wife Max. Ory is an everyman audience surrogate sort of character; his need to be universally sympathetic means that on some level, he has slightly less depth than expected for a lead. Similarly, Max feels stringently defined by her role as the wife Ory loves. Little is revealed about her life before the Forgetting, and the slow loss of her memories would feel more poignant if her personality had received greater development.

However, Naz and the amnesiac, whose true name remains one of the novel's big mysteries, make up for Ory and Max's vague backstories. Both have intriguing stories that benefit from spanning longer timelines that begin before the Forgetting. From the hectic streets of Pune to a Heathrow Airport gripped by terror as the world falls apart, we see the full scope of the apocalypse through their eyes. By combining all four arcs, Shepherd ambitiously shows both the large scale, worldwide catastrophe of the Forgetting and the small scale, intimate human story of a couple whose love is redefined amidst tragedy.

Beyond characters, who are drawn from distinctly diverse backgrounds, The Book of M's world building is sublime. The shadowless's powers to warp reality result in macabre, beautiful creations of the subconscious that too often turn deadly when someone is no longer able to differentiate between fear and reality. What manifests is a world straight out of Inception--a nightmare version of Inception. When a shadowless forgets that the Statue of Liberty isn't an automaton hell-bent on exterminating humans, New York City is decimated. Such is the strange and horrifying future that this book vividly explores, from Boston to New Orleans and everywhere in between.

Yet for all the fantastical elements, The Book of M hits achingly close to home. No fantasy, no science fiction is needed to fuel the fear of forgetting. Alzheimer's may not bring about apocalyptic reality warping, but the terror of witnessing a loved one slowly slip away is no less potent. Ironically, it's when Shepherd addresses the heartbreak of forgetting that her writing feels most lucid--whether it's love, loss or hope, few things are the same when characters don't know what they're missing anymore.

The Book of M is a thought-provoking premise addressed with powerful insights, and will stay with me for quite a while. I wholeheartedly look forward to whatever Peng Shepherd writes next.

Overall

Before I start let me just say that this book is not a bad book, but I had issues with it...

This book is difficult to review. I have a lot of conflicted feelings and view on it. The entire book feels more like a travel memoir than anything else; it's all observations and not many thoughts or discussions. Yes, it's a vivid world and stuff. Yes, it's confusing and the writing isn't always on point. Overall, it's all a bit bland, and you have to read between the lines a lot especially in the beginning.

You can almost divide the book in two and say the first half was slow, confusing and had several fact discrepancies and continuity issues. While the second half was not as slow, more magic and it's explained more so less confusing and fewer fact discrepancies. The first half can also be divided into two, where the first fourth of the book nothing really happens. The world is small and there are almost only two characters. The writing is not the best in the beginning either. I thought for a while that the differences between the two halves of the book were due to the evolving storyline, the characters get more information etc, but it's not. The second half of the book is just better. I'm very glad I didn't DNF it.

When I read natural disaster in the synopsis I thought more along the lines of tsunamis or earthquakes, you know something big and loud and massively disruptive in one area. That is not the case for this book. The type of "natural disaster" here is not big, nor loud, nor disruptive of one area. It starts small, then spreads. It's almost like an illness or a magical plague. First, only one person is without a shadow, then a few more, then a whole country is hit, etc. You get the drift; it escalates. It's quiet, like its creeping up on you. Yes, it is eventually disruptive but not until I was 30% into the book.

The book has a very slow start. Not a lot happens in the first third of the book. there is some world building but not a lot. Even with the flashbacks, not a lot happened. Then 30% hits and stuff starts rolling. Still, it feels more like travel memoir than any other dystopian novel I've read (though they have all been YA ). Then halfway through, it somehow gets much better. After 80% I have almost no issues with anything.

Basically, this was not what I expected...

The Story

Firstly, the story is viewed from four perspectives; Ory, Max, Naz and The One Who Gathers. The book is also divided into five parts where the first part is only narrated by Ory as we are introduced to this world, the situation and one character at a time.

Secondly, this is a dystopian world and something weird is happening. People seem to lose their shadow, and shortly after their memory. One viewpoint takes us through the deterioration of losing one's memory after the shadow is lost (I won't say who), which is the most interesting viewpoint out of all.

It's set in the US as most dystopian books are, most specifically Arlington and it moves further south eventually.

Of all the twists and turns in this story, only the ending surprised me, and I actually liked it

World Building

It starts off as a standard dystopian world with what appears to only have two people in it. It's clearly post-apocalypse, not at the starts or just after something terrible happened. It's definitely after.

As the two characters move away from their hole and into the world it builds more, more characters are introduced both shadowed and shadowless. and the world becomes more populated. Their thought about the world is changing too and weird things happen.

Magic System

Basically, once you lose your shadow and you start to forget, weird things can happen. They way it's written into the book is very subtle and you may not notice, especially for the first half of the book. For example, someone brings Max a rose. Max thinks its nice but wouldn't expect to see any roses this time of year while she is walking around on the dead grass after she has taken off the frost from her tent. To me, it almost sounded like a fact discrepancy and I got very confused and frustrated. I mean it's getting closer to winter time and the frost on the ground in the mornings, the grass is very dead, and then someone finds a rose. Sounds a bit like a fact glitch, right? The word magic doesn't appear very often in the first half and you have to read between the lines quite often to even see it. With the rose, it turns out that this someone always has flowers in full bloom around her, in her hands, in her lap, in her bag, etc. Reading between the lines means this character has magic but it's not shown in context, it's delivered as a fact. This is one of my main issues with the writing style, everything is delivered as facts and just is, without any explanations or deeper context.

Towards the end, the magic becomes very fascinating, but again nothing is explained or questioned much, it's just stated, it just is. The magic is very related to the lack of memory. You forget that you cant make a flower bloom whenever you want, so you can.

What was annoying when I read it but more fascinating when I write this review and really think about it, is the way the people forget. The can forget who they are, who their mothers are, where they live, but also how to breathe, how to work a door, how to eat, and at the same time know that they have forgotten it. They are fully aware that they have forgotten their mothers, or where they live, until they forget the word and their meanings too. It was annoying in the beginning when everything was new. Nothing is explained in the first third of the book, again things just are.

The Characters

Almost all the characters in this book are people of colour, which to me fully represent how the US is today. Out of all of them, I think my favourite character is Max.

Max is Ory's wife. The book starts with her having lost her shadow a few days back and they don't really know what to do about it. This character has the most development through the entire book. I really enjoyed her viewpoints and her journey and I thought she was just a great person.

Ory is Max's husband. He is trying to get to grips with the fact that his wife has lost her shadow and he will soon lose her too. He wonders a lot about what she will forget first. I feel this is almost his only thought throughout the entire book.

Naz should have been training for the Olympics in archery, but no, she is running for her life across the states. I really liked Naz shes quite badass but still human with emotions.

The One Who Gathers - this is a weird one. I feel introducing the viewpoint of this character so early on was kind of a spoiler. At the end of the book, I realised that it was needed otherwise the ending would be very random.

I also realised by the end that the different perspectives were not occurring at the same time which erased some of the confusion I had throughout the book.

LGBT+?

There is a little bit of LGBT+ in here. In one of the flashbacks to when I all started, they were in a gay wedding united by a rabbi which I really liked. It was very sweet as a proper wedding should be. But that's it, and it's not made a big deal out if it, so there is no anit-LGBT+ comments or anything like that in this book which was really nice. It didn't even cross my mind while reading but it came to me as I started writing this review, that's how nice it was.

Writing

I have some small issues with the writing. Sometimes the writing misses small words out like "the" after a comma. Doing this makes the sentence lose its fluid feel.

There is also a slowness to the writing. There is a lot of travelling and observations going on which are well done and in enough detail, but then some action strings up and it's short and quick as if it doesn't matter but it's added to the text for seasoning. I usually read the action twice to make sure I fully understand what just happened.

Also, why does Max's point of view go from dialogue to storytelling? I liked the dialogue style writing, it was different from the other viewpoints. When it became more of a storytelling styled writing, it fell a bit flat and blended in with all the other viewpoints.

Lastly, there are a few discrepancies in facts and continuity issues. If these are not discrepancies but magic, fine, but they need to be in more context within the text and not laid out as fact. They stick out like sore thumbs to me. For example, in the beginning, it's mentioned that "Night now was oblivion" which makes me think there are no moon and no stars. Even with a new moon (no moon), you can see some stuff because of the stars. Later on, they are "watching the moon". So there is a moon? Is it really oblivion at night? I'm confused.

They also seal a door opening (no door) with concrete... Where would they get the concrete from, the water from and how on earth did they manage to get it to stand up without moulds? Concrete is a thick liquid. Doesn't make sense...!

These things infuriate me and I could go on forever.

Having read the end, some of the discrepancies can be explained by magic, fine. Some can't.

Summary

It's a weird read. There is a lot of reading between the lines to get a full understanding of what is going on in this world and who they are.

It's like magical realism in a dystopian world told like a travel memoir...

I didn't get emotionally invested on any level in this book. This isn't really much mystery or scariness to this type of dystopian world. OK, I wouldn't want to lose my shadow nor my memories, but there is nothing in the writing which makes me uncomfortable or scared about it either.

It is a fascinating subject and all the ideas introduced in this book that all becomes much clearer at the end, are all very interesting and fascinating. It was fully original and has a lot of potentials. It just wasn't entirely there yet.

I almost DNF'd it, but I kept hoping it would get better, and it did. I really liked the ending. I'm glad I didn't give up :)

I might have not had all these issues if I didn't read War Storm by Victoria Aveyard just before...

This book has gotten a lot of great reviews and people clearly like it. I didn't like the beginning, but by the end, I accepted it and almost liked it. I think the twist at the end had something to do with it. There is nothing like a twist you don't see coming ;)

The Book of M is a twist on the more common dystopian story, drawing together elements of science fiction and fantasy to craft a rich narrative of twists and turns that make it difficult to predict the outcome - as a good story should. I found it to be quite a stressful read on the whole, which meant I ultimately struggled to get through it the further into the story I got. This is not to say that The Book of M crafts a poor narrative, but quite the opposite. Dark, often frightening and thought-provoking, it's not an easy read because it's not meant to be, its exploration of memory, love and reality one that cannot help but make the reader consider the world around them.

An ambitious debut novel from Shepherd, following multiple characters, countries and times in an imaginative dystopian world.

This is a very well thought out and thrilling dystopian novel. Hauntingly written and thought provoking.

This is one of the most unusual dystopian novels I’ve ever read, reminiscent in style to Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven but very much its own creature. Across the world, people are losing their shadows. Once the shadow is gone, memories start to disappear too with a frightening collorary whereby the person afflicted gains greater and greater power to shape and twist reality. I’m not sure if this is in some ways a reflection of degenerative mental states such as altzeimers or dementia (or possibly even depression!) whereby the world becomes a strange and frightening place for the sufferer as all that is familiar and safe is siphoned away. Taken a step further the rising ability to affect reality could be reflective of the unwitting power a sufferer exacts over carers and loved ones? Either way this was beautifully written, evocative and compelling. A truly unusual and heart rending book.