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@ Lyn Alden
2025-05-20 22:32:27
I read Upgrade by Blake Crouch and wasn't a big fan. The outline of the story was promising but the execution was inconsistent, in my view. I'd give it maybe a 6.5/10.
It's set in the near future, with a specific event having messed everything up. A genius scientist that tried to solve world hunger by genetically modifying crops accidentally caused a global famine, killing 200 million and damaging the world economically and socially for decades in a way that it never fully recovered from. Gene editing is now forbidden, and since the technology is accessible at pretty low cost, there are police forces dedicated to surveilling for usage of it and raiding peoples' houses to prevent another catastrophe.
The main character, the son of that scientist, gets infected with a disease that changes his genes and makes him superhuman mentally and physically in a world where that's outlawed. And thus his adventure begins to find out who infected him and what to do.
Without giving spoilers, probably my main issue with the story was the villain. She was badass with a cool background and setup, but then her motivations didn't really make sense. And the majority of the book is about the philosophical and external conflict between the hero and this villain. Solid outline and idea, but felt rushed and not as well thought out as it could have been. Some elements felt preachy in the sense that it feels like the author set up this conflict, which didn't really need to happen, in order to make a point. By fine-tuning the plot a bit more, I think it could have been executed better and more believably and preserving the overall outline.
https://blossom.primal.net/06c3ecd539990a1254120d88739b18cbaa20e5c627aacaaef1321240c4f707d5.jpg