This latest story from Blake Crouch was another nail biter. The intricate plot and pacing of the story kept me engaged the entire time. This story centers around Logan who has been infected with a virus that literally upgrades him. He has improved mental and physical capabilities, These changes have left him wondering if this virus is a blessing or a curse? Who is behind this? As Logan tries to uncover the mystery he is faced with making decisions that can change the world.

This was just as cerebral as Crouch;s other books and fans will not be disappointed. This doesn’t take you through as many twists and turns as his other books but deals with larger global issues that I found thought provoking.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

#NetGalley #Upgrade #BlakeCrouch

I have been a huge fan of Blake Crouch's writing ever since I read the the Wayward Pines trilogy. I pretty much read everything he writes as I'm never disappointed.

I have to be honest and say that this book scared me. The entire time I was reading I kept thinking -- you know, this shit could actually happen....maybe it already has? What if scientists/doctors really started tinkering with the human genome to make us "better''? Where would it stop? And would it really be done to make things better or for other darker reasons?

I totally binge read my ebook ARC copy of this book as I made a 1500 mile move from NC to CO in June. I'm bouncing around in a freaking rented moving truck, with my eyeballs glued to this ebook the whole way because I couldn't stop reading. Great story! I just read that Crouch's book Dark Matter is being made into a television series. This story would be an excellent series as well! It takes a lot to freak me out....and this story had my brain busy with all sorts of moral and ethical inner debates. How far is too far when it comes to medical breakthroughs and scientific studies of the human brain and DNA? If we mess with our genetic code are we gambling with something we should leave alone? Or is manipulating our genetic code part of our inevitable evolution?

I love it when a book sends me into deep thoughts! This is why I read everything Blake Crouch writes!

**I voluntarily read a review copy of this book from Random House Publishing/Ballantine. All opinions expressed are entirely my own**

Sci fi isn't a genre I gravitate towards. I typically read 1-2 books in the genre a year but I'm a huge fan of Dark Matter and Recursion and have recommended them over and over again. Upgrade was on the short list of books I could not wait to read this year! ⁣
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Blake does a fantastic job of weaving science into our world that it doesn't feel like sci fi to me, but quite believable. In this case, science has progressed so gene modification is easily possible, but not heavily regulated. ⁣
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This has a much simpler plot, logic, and is nowhere as mind blowing as his previous. Honestly, I found it sorry to say, boring! That unputdownable feeling wasn't there. The science was cool and not the issue - it was semi over my head, but digestible. I just thought the story itself was intriguing to start but really fizzled out. I was not invested in Logan's character and struggled to want to follow his journey. But my biggest issue is I thought the family dynamics with his mom and sister were not built up enough, very little history for each character to care and be invested in either relationship or understand their reasoning in the present day.

Crouch is one of my go-to authors! Dark Matter is one of my top 10 books of all-time. While Upgrade didn't grab me as much as that one did, it was still a very enjoyable read. One thing that I like about Crouch's books is that they make me think, and give my brain a workout. Some books are just easy "beach reads" that you can skim through while your mind is thinking of the other things you need to do once you put your book down, but this isn't one of those, It's not overly science-y, but it will make you think and pay attention. I'd recommend reading it when you're in a frame of mind to really pay attention to the book. As always, looking forward to his next release!

This didn't disappoint! Great premise (I'm up for pretty much any genetics-related sci fi), lots of fun twists and action, obviously will translate really well to the big screen. I am super fond of the ending. Crouch will continue to be an auto-read for me!

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book, in exchange for a fair and honest review.

OK, a lot of science here! I do not consider myself a science person, but I recently read The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race - while I certainly didn't fully grip a lot of the science, I did get a general understanding of gene editing, how it works, and some of the ethical issues. As soon as I started reading Upgrade, I appreciated that background.

But don't let a lack of science knowledge stop you from reading it. Crouch explains it all well enough to appreciate the story, even if you don't feel quite qualified to go to work in a gene editing lab!

Reading the blurb will give you a basic idea of the overall plotline. But what it won't give you is the human part of this book, which is strong. All of the characters are well drawn and they all make sense, in thinking about their actions and motivations. I felt that I liked and understood all of the main characters - Logan, the protagonist, of course, but also his sister, his wife and daughter, his partner, and his boss. What they did and why they did it all made sense to me, even if I didn't agree with their actions.

I very much enjoyed reading this - it was a fast ride, and I wasn't really sure until the end how it was all going to come out!

This book was a lot. For one, I am not a science major of any sort so when the gene talk started I was like “huh…kay” but the best thing about Blake Crouch, and what reminds me of Andy Weir in his work, is the character is describing the science in a way that only a scientist could understand and then in the following words, sort of brings it down to a level the average person can understand. I, as an average person, appreciate that.

I also appreciate the story it told and the question it asked. What would you do seeing the world going how it is?

The answer isn’t easy and we follow Logan, a member of the GPA, whose had his genome modified and it turns him superhuman. Why? Because someone wants him to fix the human race so that we can fix the world. Climate change has taken tolls on the planet, the starts of which we’re already seeing, especially with Lake Mede drying up the way it is.

However, the “solution” that was foisted on him, was against his will and carries side effects that people really shouldn’t be comfortable with. It wasn’t easy for him and the ramifications it had on his family.

Now Logan has to stop this upgrade from being deployed all over the planet.

It’s a well paced book and it’s one that had me on the edge of my seat. It was good, it was tight and it made me think. What would I do? What can I do?

Toward the end of the book, Logan says that humanity has a compassion issue and it’s something I agree with.

The book asks a few questions and while I don’t have answers, I do have a review. And I would recommend this book to basically anyone who enjoys sci-fi.

It gets a five (5) star rating from me.

I received this eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Holy shit! Upgrade. This book is so good. I ripped through this book in a few hours, couldn’t put it down. The idea for upgrades was super interesting to me, and the author told this story in a very compelling way. I loved the characters and the future setting. It is just enough in the future where I could picture certain things because of how things are now. This was my first time reading this author. I cannot wait to read more by this author!

This was such a cool concept and I loved the characters and all the action. This was my first read by #BlakeCrouch and I’m already eager to read his other books!

***THE SCI-FI THRILLER OF 2022***

This one was un-putdownable for me! Blake Crouch does it again with a sci-fi thriller masterpiece! I was a huge fan of "Dark Matter" but I think I may have enjoyed this one even more!

This sci-fi novel takes playing God to a whole new level. If you could alter the very genetic makeup of humans, would you? If doing so could change our entire existence and give us all a fighting chance, would it be worth it? What about the risks and everything that would be put at jeopardy with such a discovery? The stakes are high, and the plot is thick~ I really like how Blake Crouch takes parts of reality and science and mashes everything together to create such mind-blowing and terrifying plots - his works of fiction really come to life.

Thanks a ton to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Ballantine Books for providing this amazing ARC for review!

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 4/5⭐️⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
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𝗪𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝: This book is quintessential Blake Crouch: a fast-paced thriller with sci-fi elements that aren’t overwhelming to a layperson. I loved the premise of this one, set in the (not-so-distant??) future with a world that is crumbling due to inaction over climate change. The imagery that Crouch provided felt very impending and the crisis itself felt much more grounded in reality than his other two books, which was very sobering to read about.

I absolutely loved about 98% of this book. Crouch has a way of making you question the feasibility of the technology he imagines, and reading this one definitely led me to feeling pretty grim about humanity in general. I found the book to be very fast-pace, especially in the beginning; and I was eager to pick it up every day. If like smart, cinematic sci-fi thrillers, I would definitely recommend this one, and wouldn’t be surprised to see it adapted on the big screen.
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𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞: This is probably the most science-y of the three Blake Crouch books I’ve read, but still very manageable for your average dummy (AKA me). My only other issue with the book was the ending, which I cannot articulate without spoilers so you’ll have to head to goodreads to read more!

“We don’t have an intelligence problem. We have a compassion problem. That, more than any other single factor, is what’s driving us toward extinction.”

Blake Crouch does it again! You are seeing this book all over and it really does live up to the hype, although Dark Matter still remains my favorite. I think it’s best to go in blind, but it’s basically about gene editing/manipulation and the consequences that has on humanity.

The book is gripping from the get go and doesn’t slow down. Crouch writes about some very complicated subjects with ease in a very digestible way and while I am a science nerd, I don’t feel anything was too difficult to understand. Some readers just may not be interested in all the technical details. I found it fascinating and incredibly thought-provoking.

“If there’s a solution, it has to lie in rescuing us from our ambivalence. Our apathy.”

Blake Crouch writes some interesting thought-provoking and twisting stories with questions about morality, humanity and what lines a man might cross to be with his family. Upgrade, another really solid stand-alone novel from the author hits on some great questions about humanity and the road some take. Just because man has the ability to control a certain aspect of nature ‘for the greater good‘ should they?

Logan Ramsey grew up with a brilliant mother who tried to stop a famine by using genetic alteration. But like so many of man’s best attempts to help something unexpected happens and the mutations keep going. This caused the “Great Starvation” and 3% of the population was wiped out. But the ramifications are more than they expected, it totally changed how society thought of food and what is considered food. Logan has lived with that cloud over his head for most of his adult life, even though his part in it was minimal. Now he works for an agency that monitors and arrests those who are practicing illegal gene modification. His life is forever changed yet again when he enters a building on a tip only to be hit with an explosion with a gene editing program that Upgrades him into a new king of human. Stronger bones, resistant to all known viruses, clearer memory of all the events of his life and much much more. But now he is illegal and on the governments most wanted list.

Logan and his semi-estranged sister have been tasked by his presumed dead mother to Upgrade everyone in the world in an attempt to save it. But Logan remembers how poorly his mother’s first attempts to save the world went and asks the question, “will making people smarter really help with saving the world?” Logan isn’t so sure no matter how much Kara his sister is. Logan wants to save the world for his family sure, but will upgrading everyone really do that and is he willing to pay the price?

This story was a little different to me than some of Blake Crouch’s others. While there is a lot going on, I was really happy there were some parts I could visually skip through because it was a lot of DNA sequencing stuff and numbers that you got the gist a ton of stuff was changed in Logan but I didn’t need a gene specific rundown for myself to make it believable. It did add to the authenticity of the story though. The beginning we pretty exciting and the last half of the book definitely had a good flow to it but there are parts during Logan’s transformation and subsequent isolation that took a bit more to get into. There is more fighting in this book I think than I’ve seen in some of the others written. It was interesting to see what had become of our world in an alternate not so far from now future in Blake’s mind.

While not my favorite out of all of his works, it is still a really solid story of a man doing his best to save his family, even if it is from himself and save the world. I did like the epilogue as bitter sweet as it was. Upgrade took some extreme steps genetically to play with ideas but I like the questions it asked. Just because you are the smartest doesn’t mean you are the the best equipped to solve the worlds problems and you just might create more with your hubris. I really liked my time with Logan though, he was a good man trying to help the world in spite of the damage he was a part of causing to it. If you are a fan of Crouch’s works, I think you will find so many of the elements that make him a popular writer in this novel.

Crouch is the successor to someone like Michael Crichton, who wrote great sci-fi thrillers that also contained enough science to make the reader think. I didn’t like this book quite as much as Dark Matter, but it was still very good.

If you could upgrade your DNA would you do it? This book will leave you thinking about that and so many other things regarding genetics, science, and the future. The story was fast paced, and I loved it. Open your mind, open the book, and enjoy! I can't wait to see what Blake Crouch brings us next!

This book should not be missed. Blake Crouch has wowed me in the past with Dark Matter and Recursion which are amazing books in their own right. Blake has completely outdone himself with Upgrade. As long as you can get through reading quite a bit of medical terminology, thriller fans will absolutely love this stunning novel. I recommend you do not start reading this book if you have prior plans because you will not want to do anything else until you finish this absolutely breath taking novel. This has definitely been one of my favorite novels of 2022 and Blake Crouch has vaulted himself into the thriller novelist that should be read immediately when he releases his next books. Enjoy and savor this novel. This is a sci-fi thriller that will stick with you long after you have turned the final page. I would rate this book 6 stars if I could. Run to your local bookstore to purchase this book!

Blake Crouch has done it again. He is the master of all things futuristic and science fiction. Like all of his books, this was a 5 Star book for me! I don't know how he could top this work! Brilliant!

Very thought provoking!
Many thanks to Random House Publishing and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

I LOVED this novel. It was fast, brutal, and heartbreaking. The science was written in an explainable way. The main character was flushed out well. I can't wait to read more by Blake!

Blake Crouch is a master of the accessible scifi-thriller, and this book was no exception!

In the future, genetic manipulation is possible and highly illegal. Logan has his genes upgraded without his permission, and ends up being the one person who can possible save humanity.

Blake Crouch has always done a fantastic job of making you think about humanity, the future of humanity, and how it is possible to both save the world and end humanity.

Read this book. And after that, read his other titles.