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.

So I love all of Blake Crouch's novel but this to me felt like it was a bit too much. I thought the science-y part of it just went over my head and I kept skimming a bunch of it. However, the action and pace of this was fantastic - I love that aspect of it. And as always a highly original concept and story and a fairly satisfying ending - very real.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for my free digital copy.

Once again Blake Crouch has written a high science concept novel that is not only readable, but at least partially intelligible for those with little knowledge of genetics.

This action-thriller featuring a wrongly accused man under pursuit (This felt very
Hitchcockian to me!) propels this wild ride while still keeping the story grounded because of the consequences at stake.

Something that has really stuck out to me from the two Blake Crouch works I have read, this and Dark Matter, is the amount of heart behind these undeniably fun-to-read sci-fi thrillers. There's always so much emotion tied to his main characters in terms of family, love, and loss.

This novel also presents hard questions about humanity, the future of this planet, and the ethical route to save both. (Think Chidi's trolley problem from The Good Place.)

Side Note: Blake, Upgrade would make a great movie. Get👏 on👏 that👏 film👏 deal

Thank you Penguin Random House & NetGalley for this e-ARC! Upgrade is out NOW 💙

I give Upgrade by Blake Crouch 3.75 stars ⭐⭐⭐✨

Fast-paced, scary, compelling science fiction about genetic engineering and the end of the world! Couldn't put it down.

Ahhh, good old Blake Crouch. As always with his books, I love how he explains things even though I’m sure 40% still goes over my head. I found this fascinating and completely terrifying. Found it timely. I need all of his books to be movies and tv shows please and thank you. I also need another book from him, stat.

Technical and Excellent

5 out of 5 stars
When I start a Blake Crouch technothriller, I know I’m in for a ride. I know that when I read his or Eliot Peper’s books, I’m going to be taken to a world that not only could happen, but the way the story is written feels like is bound to happen. In Upgrade, Crouch was able to write a near-future that was so believable (even outside of the premise of the story) that it felt like, “oh no, this is where we’re headed.”

Logan, as a character, was the perfect mix of traits to make his story and emotions believable. He was tasked with the herculean task of preventing a bigger problem on top of learning about all the changes that were happening to him. There were stories within stories, and Crouch did a great job creating different waves of “completion,” for lack of a better term. Some subplots would come up and get solved, or some would lead to the bigger plot. And the bigger plot had twists and turns that kept me riveted to my seat.

I thought that Levya did a great job with the performance of this one. He was able to add a lot of emotion and feeling to the book without overperforming it. I felt like he became Logan, which helped the story be even more believable.

Overall, I thought Upgrade is in the top two books by Crouch I’ve read. Recursion is the other one, and both of them left me with this feeling of unease but also satisfaction as well. His writing style shines here, and I thought it was one of his most technical books.

Speaking of Peper and Crouch, I would LOVE to see the two of them come together and write a technothriller to knock my socks even further off. But, Peper included Upgrade in his 3 books email (these emails are excellent, I love getting them) along with an interview he did with Crouch.

I'm never disappointed by Blake Crouch's books! He has a way of taking a super out there scientific concept and turning it into something that seems like it could happen in the near future. This was super fast paced and I had a hard time putting it down. It touches on being the child of a famous "villian" and how that causes a strain on sibling relationships. I will continue reading everything Blake Crouch releases!

Published by Ballentine on July 12, 2022

It’s obvious to rational people that any number of existential crises threaten human survival, from climate change to bioweapons to environmental destruction. Upgrade asks whether boosting human intelligence would solve those problems. One side of the debate suggests that a genetic upgrade, unleashing full human potential, would make unintelligent people realize that the planet cannot sustain humanity’s current behaviors. The other side suggests that the problems are not caused by stupidity but by selfishness and greed, attributes that might well survive a genetic upgrade.

The protagonist, Logan Ramsay, works for the Gene Protection Agency. His mother was a brilliant geneticist who attempted to make a blight resistant strain of rice by introducing a genetically engineered virus that would be spread by locusts. The virus mutated and wiped out much of the world’s food production, creating a worldwide famine. Logan worshipped his mother but lacked her brilliance. He was working with her when the famine spread. That connection was enough to earn him a prison sentence. His knowledge of genetics was enough to get him a job at the GPA when his sentence ended.

Genetic experiments have been outlawed, but rogue geneticists continue to meddle with DNA. Logan’s team is raiding a gene lab when he stumbles into a trap. A virus infects his body, leading to an upgrade of genes that control intelligence, perception, muscle development, and other bodily systems. Logan doesn’t quite turn into Superman, but he’s smarter and stronger than everyone else. Why that happened is a mystery I won’t spoil.

Logan’s sister has also been upgraded. She wants to make the virus more easily transmissible, upgrading all humans to save the planet from human stupidity. Unfortunately, about 13% of the population exposed to her version of the virus will die. Well, you can’t save the planet without breaking a few eggs.

The novel becomes a thriller as Logan tries to locate his sister and thwart her plot. As the two antagonists try to kill each other, they are momentarily troubled by memories of good times growing up, but one advantage or disadvantage of the upgrade is the ability to compartmentalize emotion, switching it off as might a sociopath.

An epilog begins with a touching moment before it morphs into a preachy essay. Fortunately, most of the novel doesn’t linger over humanity’s drive to kill itself. Readers turn to thrillers to escape from reality, not to become depressed by it.

Upgrade offers a fair amount of escapism with fast moving action scenes. The novel reads like a treatment for a movie. In addition to chase scenes, shootouts, and several explosions, the story features familiar action movie elements: a misunderstood protagonist who tries to do the right thing while he’s being chased by government agents who view him as a criminal; the protagonist’s forced separation from his wife and daughter to keep them safe; siblings torn apart by differing loyalties.

A screenwriter making a movie version of Upgrade might delete some of the novel’s heavy-handed preaching. Or a studio might have Morgan Freeman come in at the end to give the preaching some gravity. Either way, I would probably enjoy the movie, just as — despite the epilog — I enjoyed the novel.

RECOMMENDED

Upgrade is my first Blake Crouch book, and I can't believe I have waited this long. I am not a science person but when I tell you, this kept me reading and I actually understood everything, I am not exaggerating. So much of this can relate back to our world today yet while still being completely fantastical is wonderful. This is an extremely smart book, and I won't stop thinking about this one for a while.

Mr. Crouch has written a novel that is frightening in its possibility.
Genetic research is used to try and stop a plague of locusts and results in a great famine as a side effect.
Later this person develops an UPGRADE to the human species in order to mankind…except it is not perfect and she is dying….so she uses it on the only two people she believes are capable of finishing her work.
A thriller for sure, and sadly plausible too.
I do recommend.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me this ARC.

wow wow wow!!! my first blake crouch novel but definitely not my last. thank you netgalley & the publisher for the arc!

This is my 3rd Blake Crouch book and he did not disappoint. I can now say that I’m a Blake Crouch nerd. I did want to see more from the upgrade and what it could do. And I wanted to learn more about his mom and sister. Also, I missed the love aspect.

Another excellent Blake Crouch novel. It had me hooked from beginning to end. And as always the ending left me feeling breathless and filled with emotion. I will always read novels by this author because they never fail to give readers a gripping and compelling novel. Being set in a dystopian future where the world is threatened by the harm we commit is incredibly timely. I would recommend to all sci-fi lovers.

I get completely absorbed in all of Blake Crouch's books and Upgrade was no different!! No complaints or constructive criticism here. five stars all day long!

I don't typically think of myself as a sci-fi girl, but Crouch might be converting me.

Recursion and Dark Matter are two of my all-time favorite books, I've recommended them to friends and colleagues upwards of 50 times. Upgrade is officially going on that list now, as well.

This story was the most science-heavy of the three, in my opinion, but that was alright because the context clued me in, even when I didn't understand the jargon. I will admit that I initially thought this whole concept was a little far-fetched.. until I read The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson afterwards, and realized how truly close to this reality we might actually be. I found the morality/ethical dilemma (in both books) to be the most fascinating aspect. I absolutely love the pacing and the intensity of Crouch's novels, and this one was no exception. I read it all within 24 hours, same as his others, because I absolutely HAD to know what the end result would be.

This one felt so cinematic, I'm not surprised to hear there is potentially going to be a movie adaption. I can't wait for that, and I'm going to be gifting this book to friends in the meantime.

Five shiny edge-of-my-seat stars.

This is a new twist on the human becoming something else thriller. Logan Ramsey's genome has been hacked. He is changing in unique ways. He learns faster, reads faster, and is getting sharper and sharper. As he realizes how this will affect him, he learns that this will be unleashed on humanity. As he realizes how bad this will be, he also realizes that he is the only one who can do anything to stop this. Can he stop this?

This is my third book by the author. I really enjoyed the premise. The goal should be for a better humankind, but is it ethical to manipulate it through science? I enjoyed the main character and found his familial relationships interesting. In the end, this one was too science-y for me.

I'm not sure if I even blinked while reading this. I enjoyed the nonstop action and the author's ability to make you get things without overexplaining, like Logan's relationship with his daughter and wife, and the backstory of how he ended up in prison and working for the GPA. The near-future world was fascinating, like lower Manhattan being navigable only by boat, and the US finally having a hyperloop. A gene editing thriller could be a bit much or heavy-handed, but this was perfect and I loved the ending.

Blake Crouch seriously does it again. This one was so good, that my husband was rushing me to finish it so he could get to it! Crouch does an amazing job of mixing thriller and sci-fi in a way that it so easily digestible for any reader and making you not want to put the book down! There were multiple points where the science aspects were way over my head, but I kept reading because I needed to know what happened to Logan! Highly recommend literally anything my crouch. I cannot wait until the next!

Never in a million years did I ever think I would be reading science fiction In fact, I have spent much of my reading life AVOIDING it because the few books I attempted to read either couldn’t hold my attention, or made me feel like those memes with the math equations flying around the person’s head.

And then Blake Crouch came into my life and I started looking forward to his books with such anticipation—I was like “who am I?!?” My anticipation leading to being able to read Upgrade reached a near fever pitch, and when I was gifted a galley, I quite literally dropped everything to dig in.

Once again, Crouch drops us into a work where STUFF IS COMPLICATED. There are themes and layers and the SCIENCIEST things happening here, and I found myself having to slow down to really grasp the stakes at the start of this novel. Of Crouch’s many talents, the sharpest perhaps is his ability to distill this very science-heavy, complicated information in way that never makes me feel dumb, even when I have to go back and re-read something in order to understand it. It never fails to completely amaze me the amount of work that goes into crafting this wild story that is so deeply rooted in real science. No really, Google it!

Maybe the most terrifying thing Crouch’s work is, though they are often dystopian or not-of-this-world, they are still 100% believable. Upgrade perhaps is the most relevant and believable and will leave you breathless and haunted. If you’re anything like me, you’ll put the book down and sit in silence for a long while, contemplating the gravity and impressiveness and a little bit of terror of what you just read.

Blake Crouch never disappoints with his mind-bending thrillers!

Logan Ramsay works for the gene protection agency (GPA) to thwart the plans of scientists who intend to modify genes for personal gain. Logan’s mother was the matriarch of gene research and modification before her life’s work to end world hunger turned into the “Great Starvation” causing a sizeable part of the world’s population to die off. One night at a raid in Denver, he triggers an IED in a house’s basement that was packed with a gene modifier. At first everything comes back clean, but before long, Logan starts to notice that his intelligence is enhancing as is his body structure. Logan knows that if the GPA finds out that his genome has been modified, he will be isolated and studied until they are confident they can contain what he will become. But Logan also learns that what happened to him is just the first step in someone’s attempt to upgrade the human race so that they don’t face extinction in the future.

If you pick up a Blake Crouch book, you know that you are going to be in for a wild ride that will likely result in sleepless nights while reading the book and after reading the book because you keep thinking about it for months. Upgrade was no exception to his formula. However, he changed tactics a bit and strayed from his usual focus on quantum entanglement to human gene modification. He has also moved from being more current day to a time of a dystopian world after disasters.

If you’ve researched much into genetics, you will find quite a bit of the same acronyms show up in his book. Even if you haven’t, Crouch does a great job of giving readers just enough information to follow the technical jargon without having to have a biomedical degree just to keep up. He never gets into the weeds, but makes it feel like you are reading a medical thriller. The suspense is always top notch and its easy to connect with the main protagonist from the beginning. I always look forward to his books.

There is quite a bit of foul language (understandable from the characters) but doesn’t take away from the storyline at all. If you love suspense thrillers that will leave you thinking for weeks to months afterwards, Upgrade should be on your shelf!