You are the next step in human evolution: Upgrade by Blake Crouch #bookreview #Upgrade #NetGalley

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. 

🧬🧬🧬🧬.5

Hi and welcome to my review of Upgrade!

I had been waiting with bated breath for the new Blake Crouch novel, I was 100% ready to have my mind blown, and while Upgrade was not my all-time favourite story by this author, I did have a great time with it.

Upgrade takes us to a dystopian future. If you’re already anxious about the future of the world, beware that Upgrade does not paint a pretty picture of our future if we continue down our current path. In this way it is definitely thought-provoking, also in that it raises the question whether it’s human intelligence or compassion that might save the planet, which I felt was a really interesting issue to ponder.

Upgrade is told from the perspective of Logan Ramsay. The son of the most (in)famous scientist the world has ever known, Logan works for the Gene Protection Agency after a stint in prison for assisting in the execution of a great theory that didn’t work out so well in practice. Genome manipulation has become quite common and the agency and certain acts are in place to protect people from outlaw scientists messing with things that should not be messed with.

Upgrade kicks off with a raid during which Logan gets hurt. His wounds heal but before long he starts to feel different: he can concentrate better, read faster, multitask better, and he needs less sleep to function better. Quite frankly, I was just a tad jealous. He reminded me of Peter Parker after getting bit by a radioactive spider, except Logan was injected by a DNA-altering substance. Yeah, that’s not scary at all 😳

With great power comes great responsibility and it will be up to Logan to prevent humanity from being killed to save humanity. (The mind boggles, doesn’t it.)

I don’t have a scientific bone in my body, and Upgrade does have quite a lot of science, which inevitably went mostly over my head. This is often the case when I read this author, so that didn’t take me by surprise and it didn’t affect my reading pleasure at all. This topic did grab me just a little less than other topics previously broached by this author in earlier books, which is what made this a not quite five-star read for me.

Despite the science, the pace in Upgrade is relentless. This would make an excellent film, a real blockbuster with kidnappings, and mad scientists in hi-tech labs, and high-speed chases, and blinding explosions. And a lone wolf with a guilty conscience and a good heart to root for.

Upgrade is a fantastic sci-fi thriller that I would happily recommend to fans of the genre.

Upgrade is out in digital formats, audio and hardcover on 7 July.

Massive thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.