Thanks to Netgalley for this review copy :) This book is available now!~

So after having been <a href=https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2021217616?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1>blown away by Dark Matter</a> 3 years ago, I was so excited to see anoter Blake Crouch novel. I haven't read Recursion yet, but after yet another mind-melting sciency romp it's definitely on my shortlist the next time I'm ready to have every second of free time consumed by a book.
Seriously, I could not put this down. Once I hit the 30% mark, I had my Kindle app open every spare second, trying to squeeze in a few pages whenever I could.
The premise of this book is that sometime in the not so distant future, gene editing is wildly advanced, and after a well meaning scientist tried to play god and inadvertently caused a famine that killed 200 million people, it's now hella illegal. If you've read the blurb, you know that the main character winds up with his genes "upgraded" against his will and now possesses superhuman intelligence, memory, strength, etc. He is then sucked into crazy plot to inflict this "upgrade on a global scale with end goal of saving humanity from itself, which will of course have massive global consequences, mass death, "only you can stop it" yada yada yada.
If I'm going to be honest, it's a little ridiculous. Some of the characters are over here with 200+ level IQs making decisions that would have had me like ??? If I hadn't been trying to rip through pages as fast as my measley "slightly above average" IQ could handle because i.just.could.not.stop.turningpages
Disclaimer: There is a lot of science thrown into this book, so take that into consideration if you're looking to pick this up. I can't say I understood most of it, but it's presented in a way that makes it approachable and not overwhelming.

Upgrade is fun twisty read tackling the subject of gene editing and the complicated ethics surrounding it amongst the backdrop of an intense cat and mouse game. I enjoyed this book immensely. Heavy on science but completely understandable from a layman’s point of view and super interesting. Definitely makes one think of the upsides and downsides of tinkering with evolution. Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book!

Wow! This was my first Blake Crouch book and I immediately have to go back to the archives for more. Upgrade is an inventive sci-fi thriller that had me engaged the entire time. Logan Ramsay is the son of Miriam Ramsay, the infamous geneticist who triggered the worlds biggest mass extinction event. He is working for the GPA (Gene Protection Agency) when a raid goes wrong - he wakes up in a hospital bed and seems to be infected with a virus. When he recovers he starts to realize that he is suddenly more...everything. Stronger, quicker, smarter, faster....
As Logan learns more about his "Upgrade" he starts to realize that it is up to him to stop what has been set in motion.

This was an incredible read - I especially loved the subtle references to the future world that this is set in. It was action packed with nuanced characters, relationships, and stories. It left me feeling hopeful!

Upgrade by Blake Crouch is out now. Even if you, like me, aren't generally reading sci-fi don't miss out on this one!
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House for the ARC.

Upgrade is another sci-fi winner by Blake Crouch. Main protagonist Logan was hard for me to emotionally connect to, but I was hooked by the heart-pounding action, the fascinating imagined power and scope of gene engineering, the world on the verge of collapse--and the most intense, high-stakes sibling rivalry imaginable.

<blockquote>If there’s a solution, it has to lie in reaching us from our ambivalence. Our apathy.</blockquote>

Upgrade presents a future version of our world in which humans are teetering closer than ever to extinction because of a crumbling environment. SoHo and southern Manhattan are underwater, eating synthetic meat is the norm, and geneticists who have tried tinkering with the human state in a desperate attempt to shift the future of homo sapiens have largely been punished and jailed.

Logan Ramsey is in charge of investigating suspected gene scientists who are up to illegal activity, and while investigating a suspicious situation, he is injured by an odd explosion. In the hospital he has headaches, a fever, and body aches, then his symptoms subside.

In one of several key situations in which Things Aren't What They Seem, Logan realizes that he's been infected by a virus--one designed to make him seem uninfected, then to modify his very genetic structure. He’s becoming stronger and smarter every day--but he’s also being hunted down for potential destruction. And all of this seems potentially linked to his deceased, brilliant mother's life's work--from before she was banned from gene experimentation after things went terribly wrong.

<blockquote>Maybe compassion and empathy are just squishy emotions. Illusions created by our mirror neurons. But does it really matter where they come from? They make us human. They might be what make us worth saving.</blockquote>
Because Logan evolves to a state void of emotions and is focused on physical and mental efficiency, he feels more like a fascinating machine to be admired than a complex character to care about. He's driven by dispassionate science, reason, and knowledge. He expresses complex, messy feelings early in the book, and he recognizes an echo of this toward the end, but because he behaves largely like a robot with a human appearance, I didn't feel emotionally invested in his character.

The stakes couldn't be higher for Crouch's protagonists--pending global destruction and the elimination of the human race. So everything that occurs is a Big Deal, and Upgrade offers detailed, heart-stopping chases; the most intense sibling rivalry imaginable, interesting scenes of superhumans' outsmarting each other; and noble desires to "save the world" that conflict with others’ similar desires in crucial ways--and with potential global consequences. Crouch's crash course in a dramatic potential world of genetic advancements and transformation is captivating.

<blockquote>Never before had I seen Homo sapiens so clearly—a species, at its most fundamental level, of storytellers. Creatures who overlay story on everything, but especially their own lives, and in so doing, can imbue a cold, random, sometime brutal existence with fabricated meaning.</blockquote>

I received a digital advance reader copy of this book courtesy of Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley.

You can find my rave review of Blake Crouch's Recursion (mentioned in the Greedy Reading List Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore) here and my review of the wonderful Dark Matter here.

Upgrade by Blake Crouch is a Sci-Fi thriller that asks the question: what if humanity’s only hope for a future lies in genetically engineering a way to make people think smarter?

Logan Ramsay is happily married with one daughter. He lives in Washington D.C. at a time set in the near future. He works as a special agent for The Gene Protection Agency. The GPA was formed after a failed gene editing experiment created by Logan’s late mother caused a great famine. During a raid, Logan is blasted by a device of unknown origin. Over the next few weeks, his DNA dramatically changes. He becomes smarter and healthier. The GPA puts him under house arrest and tells his family that he has died. Eventually, he is rescued by the only other person who has received the same upgrade.

Logan and the other person come to an impasse on whether they should use their knowledge to upgrade mankind. The other person thinks it will be the only way to keep humans from extinction. Logan thinks that it will take the humanity out of humans and does not want to do it. The other person decides to kill Logan to keep him from preventing a worldwide upgrade. Thus a game of cat-and-mouse ensues.

I mostly enjoyed this story but felt it got bogged down with too much scientific information on DNA and gene editing. 3.5-stars rounded up to 4-stars. Many thanks to #NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Ballantine Books for my advanced reader copy. This book was published on July 12, 2022.

What a twisty adventure this was and I thoughly enjoyed every page. I especially loved that ending
I highly recommend this fast paced sci-fi. it was so good it will keep you on the edge of your sit.

P.S. I would have read this so much faster had life not got in the way.

My thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Speculation about the brain’s capacity has long been a topic of science fictions writers. We daily live with differences in intelligence, education, diminishing capacity and disease as we age, and wonder about environmental factors on what our brains are capable of doing. Mayim Bialik is hawking brain supplements. The idea that we only use 10% of our brain’s capacity, however, is a well-studied and debunked myth, but it’s fun to play “what if?” In the 1956 classic Forbidden Planet, Morbius artificially doubles his intellect by the use of an alien relic. Recently both Luc Besson’s Lucy and Limitless based on the 2001 novel The Dark Fields by Alan Glynn toyed with the fictional concept of using the brain to its fullest capacity through the use of a drug. Bestselling author Blake Crouch takes a new approach to this theme in his latest book Upgrade by changing the actual structure of our DNA to increase not only intelligence, but improve other physical traits as well through the vehicle of a virus.

My father tested at a genius level intelligence quotient (above 160) –I did not– and it was as frustrating as it was interesting to watch the way his brain worked while I was growing up. I totally agree that people’s brains work differently and that IQ is a very narrow method for trying to quantify that process, but it was clear to me and anyone who knew my father that he was working on a whole different plane. One of my favorite games as a child was to rattle off long lists of numbers for him to add or multiply. It was faster to tell him the problem than I could manually input it into a calculator. Perhaps this is why Upgrade was appealing to me. I share my father’s DNA. Could mine be altered to be like his with a few tweaks? Could anyone else’s?

Main character Logan Ramsay has a just slightly higher-than-average IQ at 118, this doesn’t even meet the threshold for gifted, but is nowhere near his mother’s incredible intellect. Her fictional brain ranks her as probably the smartest person in the world. Working in her chosen field as a geneticist, she tries to genetically modify Chinese rice to stop a specific kind of rice blight. Her motives were good. Noble. Her delivery system could have amazing impact on world hunger. Instead, her creation mutates unpredictably and creates a plague which nearly wipes out the world’s food supply, even changing weather patterns. As a result, the world outlaws genetic modification to people and food. Also trained as a geneticist, having worked with his mother, Logan is forever attached to her crime.

Logan has worked to disassociated himself from his mother’s crimes and now works for the government, uncovering and arresting people who violate the anti-genetics laws. As a scientist, this work is painful, but he also feels it as a form of atonement. Logan loves his wife and child and strives to be for them what his mother never was for him. To protect them…until he begins to notice changes in himself. Now the government agency he works for wants to study him.

In most of stories where the author increases a character’s intellect, they generally decrease emotions, like being smarter means you have to be more logical and therefore don’t have capacity for emotions anymore. Even Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory seems to suffer from a lack of empathy. I’m happy to say that was not the case with my father. He was as loving and compassionate as he was brilliant. Crouch’s character seems to struggle, but does hang on to emotions, especially the love of his family, through a majority of the story. While he does report some diminishing, love is his highest motivator. I applaud that Crouch wrote his main character this way. Still, he writes himself into an inevitable ending rather than taking a twist like Limitless. The writing is good, it’s both bold and imaginative. Reads like a thriller, full of action and not bogged down in the science which, to me, is interesting. Excellent read, liked it a lot.

My Rating: B+ Liked It A Lot

Review of Upgrade by Blake Crouch

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I went into this with a bit of hesitation. I loved Dark Matter but didn’t love Recursion. I am so glad I did read this one because I really enjoyed it. It was so fast paced and action packed I flew though the audio thanks to @prhaudio and @ballantinebooks and also read it on @netgalley in the evenings. What made it so good other than the main character was that it seems like this scenario could actually happen which is terrifying.

Logan works in DC for the Gene Protection Agency after a dark past with a mother who altered genes and incidentally killed many. But when he suddenly develops fevers and symptoms he realizes his DNA has been altered or in this case “upgraded”. He is sharper with better senses, significantly smarter, doesn’t need sleep etc. Then to his horror he realizes an evil plan doesn’t end with him, but rather starts with him and he may be the only one who can stop it.

I'm a Blake Crouch fan. I'll read anything he writes. This one was no exception, and although it's not my favorite of his novels it was still a very good read.

In an alternative near-future, genetic modifications are outlawed because of some past missteps that had horrible consequences for humanity. Our main character is a law enforcement officer in the big gene-protection agency. On one raid, he is exposed to genetic material that gives him super-everything - intelligence, speed, strength, senses, etc.

But there is something deeper and more nefarious to the reason he, specifically, was targeted for this mutation. Off our hero goes on a quest to figure out the what and why and to try to save humanity from what might be coming.

It's fast-paced and intelligent, like Flowers for Algernon crossed with The Bourne Identity. This wasn't what I would consider the best of Blake Crouch - I got bogged down a bit in the science at times (and I'm a scientist!), the political ideologies were a bit heavy-handed, and I didn't really care for the ending. But I still think it was worth reading!

3.5- Having loved Dark Matter giving it 5 stars and enjoying Recursion with 4 stars I had high hopes going into this book. Very strong start to this book with lots of action leaving the main character with an “Upgrade” to his own body through what at first seemed to be accidental means and the story reveals why this happened to him and his main purpose. The middle portion is where I got a little bored in the fact it read like a script for a movie and I found a sudden change in events regarding the main character and sibling quite unbelievable. The end message to this book however was a good one and gave me food for thought.

Wow! What a total let down this was. This was my first Blake Crouch and I was VERY underwhelmed by this one. Upgrade started off on a great foot! I was totally into the storyline for the first 25-30% and then around the 45% mark, the storyline tanked for me. But I kept on reading and around 55% in I thought, “Okay. Maybe this is going somewhere.” NOPE. The rest of the story was NOT interesting for me. I felt like there was so much potential, but it all just fell flat for me. I was also expecting to read this and understand some of the science involved, but I felt pretty dumb. I think Project Hail Mary will forever hold the top spot of making science easy to follow. Anyways, i skimmed majority of this book and probably should have DNF’d but hindsight!

"Being smart doesn't make people infallible. It just makes them more dangerous."

It is finally here! Blake Crouch's Upgrade was one of my most anticipated reads of the year, especially given how much I adored his previous two novels Dark Matter and Recursion. If you haven't already read them, go ahead and add both of those to your TBR list too. His publisher sent me an advanced copy of this latest book months ago, and I read it lightning fast. I've been not so patiently sitting on my review ever since. As it publishes today, I can finally share my thoughts and encourage you to read it yourself.

The novel opens in the not-too-distant future, a world that has seen today's pressing problems such as climate change, pandemics, and widespread starvation amplified to crisis levels. Logan Ramsay is an agent with the Gene Protection Agency (GPA), a federal organization tasked with upholding the laws against modifying DNA. The banning of this practice came in the wake of a well-intentioned, mass-scale genetic alteration that triggered tragic deaths across the globe. Simply put, in the wrong hands, adjusting an individual's biological nature on the molecular level has the potential to be weaponized by terrorist organizations. Logan and his team are raiding an illicit genetic lab when they trigger a trap and are shocked by a large explosion.

When Logan wakes, he sees the extent of his injuries. Tiny cuts envelop his entire body. The GPA places him into quarantine, worried less by the injuries than by the potential that Logan was infected by a rogue virus meant to alter his DNA. After days under constant observation, he is released from the hospital, assured that no virus made its way into his body. It is during his recovery at home, however, that Logan begins to notice subtle signs that contradict that assertion. It begins as he beats his daughter at chess, a rare occurrence in his household. Soon Logan can think clearer, recalling minute details from his past with ease. His body changes too. Logan is plagued by intense aches as his bones become denser, his muscles strengthening with each sleep. More startling is his ability to process large amounts of new information, becoming an expert in moments. This new mental acuity sees Logan eager to reckon with his past, a time that saw invigorating progress but devasting results.

I don't read a ton of science fiction. In fact, I often find works in the genre to be difficult to absorb. Blake Crouch, however, has become the exception. He's long been one of my must-read authors, and Upgrade only further validates this status. The novel imagines a world where adjustments to DNA can amplify traits or characteristics within a person. Crouch daringly shines a light on humanity's apathetic approach to dealing with a global crisis and employs his fiction to propose and question the bold solutions that could be on the horizon. There isn't an easy way forward, and Crouch's novel veers into the moral ambiguity that comes with tackling the complexity of issues on a global scale. He has a knack for layering intricate concepts into a breakneck thriller that unrelentingly propels the plot forward. At the heart of Upgrade lies a cast of characters who ground the futuristic world through universal themes of family, love, and loss. It is in these nuanced characters that the true brilliance of Crouch's storytelling comes alive, drawing the reader deeper into the world he builds, one mind-blowing page at a time.

4 ☆
"I was alive in strange times. There was a palpable sense of things in decline."

In Blake Crouch's latest sci-fi thriller Upgrade, we get a glimpse of a possible future. The year is some unspecified point in the mid-21st century. There are technological advances such as hyper-loop pod transportation between major cities and electric vehicles that can run for a long time on their solar charges. Climate change has altered the landscape as both Lower Manhattan and Miami are permanently submerged in water.

"Even here in America, we were still crippled by rolling food shortages, supply-chain disruptions, and labor scarcity. We live in a veritable surveillance state, engaged with screens more than our loved ones, and the algorithms knew us better than we knew ourselves. Every passing year, more jobs were lost to automation and artificial intelligence.

The future was here, and it was a f*cking mess."

Logan Ramsay, mid-forties, is still trying to atone for his participation in what his mother's genetic experiment unleashed upon the world nearly 20 years ago. Miriam Ramsay's IQ of 180 was the kind that appeared only once in a generation.

"Being smart doesn't make people infallible. It just makes them more dangerous."

Miriam was neither an evil genius nor a mad scientist. Nevertheless, her experiment in genetic modification had succumbed to the law of unintended consequences. And as one result, billboards now sport this message -

"Gene Editing Is a Federal Crime"

Logan has been working for 15 years with the federal law enforcement Gene Protection Agency. Shortly after Logan and his partner Nadine crossed paths with Henrik Soren, known for his trade in genetic materials, Logan began to experience changes. He could read faster, even if the material was complex. His vision became more acute. He felt sharper. He has been upgraded but by whom and for what purpose eludes him. Others around him soon notice the alterations and then it's shockingly time for Logan to face his future.

Science fiction isn't my usual bailiwick but it's been difficult not to have noticed Blake Crouch the past couple of years. I was invited by the publisher to review an ARC, and I delayed it until after I obtained a published hardcover. And clearly I have been missing out by not prioritizing some sci-fi thrillers. It wasn't 100 percent original as Jurassic Park featured gene editing and one scene reminded me of Neo in "The Matrix." There were a few slow spots in the plotline which coincided with technical information dumps, but they weren't prolonged. Upgrade for the most part progressed quickly, and I stayed up late so that I could finish it. (Losing sleep is a positive indicator for a book but not for my alertness the next day.)

Good sci-fi should resonate with the readers in their current circumstances. It should linger in mind as it dances lightly - not polemically nor overtly - with the big questions. And given the realities of 2022 - a pandemic in its third year, the economic problems it triggered, droughts and premature heatwaves, and geopolitical conflicts and instability - the world is facing a lot. Do we acknowledge these issues or do we ignore them?

"We are a monstrous, thoughtful, selfish, sensitive, fearful, ambitious, loving, hateful, hopeful species. We contained within us the potential for great evil, but also for great good. And we were capable of so much more than this.

I couldn't do nothing."

Thank you to the author, Penguin Random House - Ballantine Books, and Netgalley for providing me with a digital ARC. Quotations in this review are from a published copy (ISBN 9780593157534).

Well, my goodness, this was one propulsive, can’t-put-it-down roller coaster ride of a book! Is it as good as Dark Matter? Nope, but really, I didn’t expect it to be, as I didn’t find Recursion as good as DM either, tho I liked it. The concept in this one involves many questions: If we are more intelligent, can we save the world? Would we save it? What if we could genetically ‘upgrade’ our brain? Would it be worth it? Should we have a say so in it? I mean, this book, in the wrong hands, would create some craaaaazy Fox News conspiracy theories.So, don’t read Upgrade with any ‘serious’ thoughts in mind. I find much to be implausible or possibly a bit Marvel-esque, super-hero-ish, but once I decided to just lean into it with the thought of pure entertainment, I enjoyed the hell out of this story.

This is my first Blake Crouch book, but definitely not my last!

This is a fast paced book set in the near future where parts of the US, like New York City, are underwater and surveillance by the government is on overdrive. After a genetic modification went horrifically wrong 20 years, the US has created the Gene Protection Agency (GPA) to monitor all gene modifications and arrest anyone who is found doing so.

Logan, a GPA agent, is injured on the job and strange things have been happening to him: better at multitasking, reading faster, and needing less sleep are just a few of the side effects of his genome “upgrade”. His upgrade is part of a larger plot to modify human beings into this enhanced version in an effort to save the human race. As he works to unfold the mystery around this, his past comes back to haunt him in unexpected ways.

Upgrade is a bit scientific-heavy, but it’s clearly well researched and written in a way that’s easily understood. One of the most terrifying things about this book is how easily it is to imagine a world like this. In some ways, the characters are forced to confront moral dilemmas we encounter in our present world. It asks questions like what it means to be human and how much are we willing to sacrifice to save the human race, who some might argue isn’t even worth saving.

Upgrade is a thought-provoking, intricate novel about humanity through a scientific lens with a fast moving plot. This will easily be one of my favorite reads this year!

Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine for a copy of this book.

This was a fun read. Not as good as Dark Matter (to me at least), but still enjoyable. The premise was neat and I really liked the world the story took place. With that, nothing really stuck out to change this from a “fun” read to outstanding. Some of the action and plot changes seemed trite and predictable. Here is hoping Crouches next book really pulls me in.

an amazing, thrilling and mysterious book that I could not put down. So fast paced and gripping, this was so much fun to read. Blake Crouch is an amazing author!!

“Imagine not feeling human anymore.” // Blake Crouch
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⭐️⭐️⭐️
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I love Blake Crouch’s other work, so I was really looking forward to another sci-fi banger from him. Lots of commentary on what makes us human, environmental health, and how far scientific discoveries should go in the face of those factors. This didn’t have the same un-put-downable-ness of Crouch’s other work for me, but as always I feel better able to understand science that otherwise is gibberish for me when I read his books.
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Thanks to @netgalley for this early review e-copy! Upgrade is out now!
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[ID: Hand holds tablet with Upgrade cover on screen in front of blurred bookshelves.]
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#Bookstagram #Bookstagrammer #Booksta #Readstagram #ReadersOfInstagram #Books #Bookish #Bookworm #BookLove #Upgrade #BlakeCrouch #NetGalley

From the mind of thrilling sci-fi reads “Recursion” and “Dark Matter” comes a new thrilling page-turner centering on biology and the nature of humanity. Included in Apartment Therapy's July "New Books" Roundup.

In Blake Crouch's newest book 𝗨𝗣𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗗𝗘, the ability to change DNA is available, but it is now banned after a genetically modification experiment (lead by the Logan's mother) backfires and causes The Great Famine. During an explosion at an illegal labs, Logan's genes are modified to "upgrade" him. From there, the book turns into a cautionary tale on what the needs of humanity in order to survive.

In theory, I love the idea of an genetic upgrade from improved bone density, reduced sleep needs, faster reading ability, better concentration, etc. However, everything comes at a cost. For me as a non-scientist, 𝗨𝗣𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗗𝗘 was powerful, especially in the current state of the world we live in. The epilogue alone was 5 stars.