The Book of M

A Novel

By: Peng Shepherd

Narrated by: James Fouhey, Emily Woo Zeller

Length: 17 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

Set in a dangerous near-future world, The Book of M tells the captivating story of a group of ordinary people caught in an extraordinary catastrophe who risk everything to save the ones they love. It is a sweeping debut that illuminates the power that memories have not only on the heart, but on the world itself.

One afternoon at an outdoor market in India, a man’s shadow disappears - an occurrence science cannot explain. He is only the first. The phenomenon spreads like a plague, and while those afflicted gain a strange new power, it comes at a horrible price: the loss of all their memories.

Ory and his wife, Max, have escaped the Forgetting so far by hiding in an abandoned hotel deep in the woods. Their new life feels almost normal, until one day, Max’s shadow disappears, too.

Knowing that the more she forgets, the more dangerous she will become to Ory, Max runs away. But Ory refuses to give up the time they have left together. Desperate to find Max before her memory disappears completely, he follows her trail across a perilous, unrecognizable world, braving the threat of roaming bandits, the call to a new war being waged on the ruins of the capital, and the rise of a sinister cult that worships the shadowless.

As they journey, each searches for answers: for Ory, about love, about survival, about hope; and for Max, about a new force growing in the south that may hold the cure.

Like The Passage and Station Eleven, this haunting, thought-provoking, and beautiful novel explores fundamental questions of memory, connection, and what it means to be human in a world turned upside down.

©2018 Peng Shepherd (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers

5 zillion stars to this epic story!

This book deserves ALL the stars!! ALL!! It’s brilliant, beautifully written, and one of the most hopeful post-apocalyptic books I’ve ever read. The Book of M is by far my favorite read so far of 2018. Whenever I think of my favorite all time epic books in this genre (The Stand, The Passage, and Swan Song) The Book of M will now and forever more be in my list.

I’m not sure how to even tell anyone what this book is about. It’s a story about how most people lose their shadow and with it, little by little, all of their memories, until they don’t even remember that they need to eat. Also with the loss of their shadow comes the ability to do magical things, like putting wings onto the head of a deer. But for each magical act, more memories are lost until there is nothing left of the original person.

We follow the journey of Max who after two years has finally lost her shadow and run away, Ory her husband who travels the countryside looking for her, Naz who was an Olympic archer in the time before, and the Amnesiac who lost all of his memories due to an accident before The Forgetting.

I seriously had major chills all up and down my spine as I read the last few pages of The Book of M. My heart!! I am sure I won’t be able to get this book out of my head for a long while and have already caught myself looking for my shadow several times!

Peng Shepherd is a new author that I will be watching out for. If her first novel is this amazing, I can’t imagine how incredible her next ones will be!!

I did a reread by Audible and it was even better this time around!

ehhhh

I struggled at some parts and almost googled to see how it ended. The story is a little incredulous, but the book is well written.

Started strong and fizzled out

I thought it was going to be great when it first started, but as if progressed the story lost it's sharpness and detail. At times I had to go back and to listen again thinking I missed something only to find I had not,,some parts just didn't feel clear or complete.

... but I wanted to know WHY!

Well written and interesting. Not really surprising until you're reeeeaaalllllly surprised lol

The best books allow me to live as someone else for a while. #nailedit 😊

Sci-Fi here on earth!

Just quirky enough to keep me interested. Reminded me of Girl With All The Gifts and a couple of others that are Sci-Fi but not aliens and outer space. Occasionally I got confused about names, but that is really my only complaint.

major cliffhanger!!

good book, kinda hard to follow at first. interesting story, hate the ending. would recommend.

Not bad but not great

I didn’t dislike this book by any means but I didn’t love it, either. I’m apparently different from everyone else and could not stand the male narrator. He sounded so monotone and lifeless to me. I almost gave up on the book completely until the female narrator began. While she was a bit over dramatic, she brought life into the character that the male narrator did not.
The story was interesting and fun, and I enjoyed it. There were a few parts where I got lost though and didn’t really understand what was happening or what the solution was. This may have been a different experience if I were reading a paper book but it was hard to follow audibly. The ending caught me by surprise, which was great! My overall impression though was “meh”.

A good story with mediocre characters

This was a good story, but I had a hard time relating to/identifying with the characters. There was a very surprising plot twist at the end. I am glad for that because, otherwise, I think I would have felt like I wasted 17 hours of my life on the book. If a good story is more important to you than good characters then this is a worthy read/listen. Of course, you may relate to/identify with the characters more easily than I.

Hmmmm

Liked: the idea of the story and the writing was well done. Character development was good. Strong start. I liked the end purpose/mission.

Disliked: I wanted to understand the shadowless more, including their powers. There were descriptions but no reason to why and how. Some had more power than others. Also, I found that it dragged in the middle. I found myself tuning out. I’m not a fan of the female narration. It was too dramatic. By the end, it fell flat for me. The big twist was not as impactful, by this time I just wanted to finish and move on.

Stunning debut

A magical story that's somewhere in between fantasy and sci fi. Highly recommend! narration is also superb. Keeps you hooked