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The Book of M Book Review

Peng Shepherd's debut novel, The Book of M, won't be an easy one to forget (see what I did there!). With a thoughtfully devised cast of characters set in an almost-impossible situation, reading your way through this dystopian standalone is both an action-packed adventure and a thought-provoking journey. 

Peng Shepherd was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona, where she rode horses and trained in classical ballet. She earned her MFA in creative writing from New York University, and has lived in Beijing; London; Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia; and New York City. The Book of M is her first novel. To learn more, visit her online at pengshepherd.com. You can find more of my reviews of her work here.  

One afternoon in an outdoor market in India, a man's shadow disappearsā€”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. 

The Book of M is totally not something that I would have usually read! But because I had the ability to read it at no cost, and I am interested in reading Shepherd's second novel, The Cartographers, I wanted to see what her first novel was like, to get a taste for her writing. I was pleasantly surprised and delightfully confused while reading The Book of M, for several reasons. The overarching reason is that while Shepherd's writing is neat and her characters interesting, I did not feel like I had as good a grasp on the world as I wanted, which would have made it a better read for me.

Starting with the neat writing and interesting characters. There's a really interesting premise in this book: if you lose your shadow, you forget your memories, but you may also gain some magic. Instead of telling the story in maybe a predictable dystopian way, Shepherd crafts characters to tell the story that you wouldn't traditionally think of. Ory, Max, Naz, and the amnesiac are all very compelling characters, whose voices are distinct. Especially early and later in the book, these characters' voices are what kept me drawn to the story, when everything else was confusing. I really appreciated how different each of these characters are, as well.  

The one thing I can't quite get past is how exactly everything works in this world. I didn't feel like we got a true explanation of how the shadowless's magic works, and so when it was used, I was often confused about the limitations and consistency of it. I was also frustrated by the sagging middle of the storyā€”I simultaneously felt like nothing was happening while too many things were going on. While the early chapters were incredibly strong, I felt like the middle chapters did not continue that strength, and then the only reason the later chapters felt so strong was because of that plot twist. So, I wasn't entirely sold on the plotting of this book, is what I mean to say. It just leaves me a little confused, but also because of Shepherd's writing, I almost feel okay being confused? It's a very weird feeling.

Shepherd also chooses really relevant and thought provoking themes. By the end of the novel, I knew I would be thinking about the elephant story of painting and memories for a long timeā€”especially because in the last chapter, Shepherd harkens back to the elephant story while the character is painting. Very clearly to me, the writing is so neat and concise, and very deliberate. It makes the themes feel both very pointed, while also making the reader feel like they're discovering these lines of thought on their own. It's a neat balance, and Shepherd strikes it. 

I am really excited to read The Cartographers because it's giving me major The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and The Starless Sea energy (something about the covers? about the description? who's to say!). And of course, once I finish, you'll be able to find the book review alongside all of the other book reviews I have of Peng's work, which can be found here. 

*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*

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