The Book of M - Peng Shepherd

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⭐ 7.0/10

(Originally written by Magdalene)

This book was a super interesting mash-up of literary, post-apocalyptic, dystopian, speculative fiction. People around the world are losing their shadows, which for some reason also makes them lose their memories, until they forget how to speak. It spreads so far and fast that soon the world is a total post-apocalyptic zone with few shadowed people left. It focuses on a group of people trying to find each other and hold onto their memories.

I was really interested in where this was going to go, but then it was a fairly slow-moving book until things got REAL crazy in the final third. It felt mostly dystopian to me and I was hoping these phenomena would get explained, but then it was just... magic. The writing was beautiful and there were a lot of poignant moments as we reflect on how our memories shape who we are, but overall it didn't totally work for me.

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