In a marketplace in India, the world watches as the people celebrate that moment every year where their shadows disappear just for a second, before going back to their festivities. But there is one man, Hemu Joshi, whose shadow doesn’t return. It has left him permanently and soon so will his memories.
Orlando loves his wife Max. They saw the news about Joshi and thought it was contained to India. Then, while attending a friend’s wedding, they receive the bad news. It has hit America and it’s coming for them too. After living in solitude for years, the worst has happened. Max has lost her shadow and soon she won’t remember Ory or the life they have shared.
Mahnaz Ahmadi is Iranian but lives in the USA, training to compete in the Olympics for archery. She hasn’t spoken to her mother since she left her home country. Preparing for a training session, she sees the news about Hemu’s disappearing shadow and fears the worst. Strapped for cash and not able to see her family again, she lives in fear of never knowing what happened to her sister.
The amnesiac has no recollection of his past, losing his memories in a vehicular trauma. Starting anew when the news about India hits, his doctors whisk him away to see if he can help determine the cause of the shadowless epidemic. A man without a past but still possessing his shadow, could he be the key to unlocking the mysteries of Hemu’s ailment and saving the world?
Essentially, The Book of M is a love story. Orlando is trying to stop the love of his life from losing her memory and then after she disappears, he is trying to find her in the wasteland of Shepherd’s near future. It doesn’t feel like a romance though. Yes, it tugs the heart-strings, but it doesn’t have the soppy feel of a romance novel. Not even close.
The story revolves around four main characters—Orlando, the man desperate to find his wife; Max, the woman who will do anything to remember the life she previously led; Mahnaz, a loving sister and woman warrior; and The One Who Gathers, a mysterious stranger and collector of lost souls, who everyone has heard of but no one has ever seen.
The narrative is told from three different viewpoints, with the majority of chapters ending with Max’s current whereabouts, her plight captured on a voice recorder she received from Orlando when she became a shadowless. Transitioning regularly between viewpoints, this story could have felt tedious. In reality though, Shepherd jumps POV’s flawlessly (mostly) and gives the reader a unique insight into the ruined world that has eventuated from the population losing their memory.
Throughout the story, I found myself continuously enthralled with the plight of the characters. When it reached a point where the action died down, regular twists and turns were thrown in to maintain the interest of the audience. The Book of M opens on Orlando leaving the safety of his hotel come apartment to forage for supplies, as any food the couple had initially found has all but been completely consumed. Desperate to keep Max comfortable until the inevitable happens, Ory sees a deer and plans to capture it for sustenance. Until he sees it no longer has antlers, tiny wings taking their place.
Basically, it opened with a bang. The pace throughout is relatively continuous, although there were a few lulls in the story to start with. While some twists were thoroughly predictable, the finale will leave the reader enraged—you will be sure you know how it turns out, then it will all turn on its head and leave you angry and sad and just a giant ball of every strong feeling you could ever have.
The character development was spectacular. Each main character was thoroughly fleshed out and had a believable back story—Ory and Max were lovers determined to stay together to the end; Mahnaz just wanted to see her family one last time; and The One Who Gathers, while initially shrouded in secrecy as to their identity, pulls the entire cast together, rounding out the entire crew. This delivers a hard-hitting narrative which will cause the least emotional person to feel for the plight of everyone involved.
Although all characters were well written, the stand out was Max. Despite the fact that she is running away from one person and towards what could be seen as false hope, she still packs a punch with every paragraph involving her. The sequences relating to her voice recorder are masterfully executed with her gradually losing her memory in an order that is both logical and heartwrenchingly painful.
Secondary characters are in no way forgotten either. While initial interactions are seemingly coincidence, it soon becomes obvious that everything within this monster of a novel happens for a reason. Sometimes a horrible, soul stealing reason but a reason nonetheless.
While world building would usually be an important part of a review, all you need to know is that the characters are on a run across the United States, heading towards New Orleans in search of The One Who Gathers. The scenery has changed so much however, that at times you can’t compare it to what you already feel like you know. A rampaging Statue of Liberty causes chaos, The Whitehouse becomes less a seat of power and more just a building inside, which people hope to survive the coming storm. It’s interesting but not integral because the characters carry the story better than any expert world building ever could.
Overall opinion? This monster of a book will tear your heart out and stomp all over before rinsing and repeating. By the end, the reader feels so engrossed in the story that its ending will leaving you reeling in shock. You may think you know how it ends, but Shepherd throws in a final twist that will make you want to throw your book at a wall. If there is any novel the author of this review would recommend from the releases so far this year, it’s The Book of M.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
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.
