Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Imagine you live in Boston where suddenly most people begin losing their shadows (aka ‘Shadowless’, which inexplicably leads to the erasure of all memory and loss of mind (aka ‘Forgetting’). After a couple days holed up in an apartment building you lose power and water. Weeks go by. For four or five months you remain and do not go outside as society collapses around you – yet somehow you still see police lights at night. You are running out of food and consider suicide as you begin to starve. Then one day, your sister arrives from Iran with airline peanuts. Mysteriously, airlines aren’t flying to Boston but to Providence, Rhode Island because it is ‘empty of people’. This is where I stopped reading The Book of M (about 20% in). Full disclosure – I like post-apocalyptic fiction in the vein of the The Road, The Dog Stars and Station Eleven, so this is not a question of content. I even like the central premise of the book whereby people lose their shadows as a first sign they begin to lose their minds (aka ‘Forgetting’. Where this book really falls down is in two key areas: 1.) Logical consistency in the world the writer creates and 2.) the quality of the writing itself. I am perplexed as to how this book has received so many positive reviews. Expanding on my initial paragraph, in a world where people are losing their shadows and their minds and society breaks down, you would not see police lights 4-5 months later (where are the police cars getting fuel if there isn’t electricity or running water?). Yet most unbelievable is that an airline would fly to a city ‘empty of people’. Airlines would not be flying at all as all impacted countries would be quarantined until a cause for the ‘outbreak’ was determined, to say nothing of all of the human being afflicted by the Forgetting that operate said airports and airplanes. Other logical inconsistencies: 1.) An Iranian student in Boston seems to know less about the shadowless crisis in Boston than her family does living in Iran. The student, Naz, hears people ‘screaming in the night’ on the first night of the outbreak, but spends her time debating whether to call her boyfriend because ‘what did two and a half months [of dating] mean, really?’ (Later we find she has a key to his studio). In the meantime, Boston is quarantined and the airport closed without her seeming knowledge - but her family in Iran knows. 2.) Naz’s sister leaves her university (and research and studies) in Iran so she can go home to her mother’s house to talk with Naz on the phone as the crisis unfolds in Boston (why not just call your sister from the university?) 3.) The building Naz is holed up in does not seem to have one television, conveniently forcing Naz to remain on the phone with her mother and sister to get news (instead of using her phone to get news…?). In Iran, Naz’s sister is trying to pinpoint Naz’s location by asking her questions like the street she is on, what the building looks like, etc. (Why not just ask the address and plop it into Google?). Keep in mind - Iran has not been impacted by the 'epidemic' 4.) Within a half hour of most everyone in Boston becoming shadowless, the National Guard ‘encircled the metropolis and blocked all exits in and out’. Impossible given the sheer size of Boston, to say nothing of the chaos likely ensuing as nearly all citizens – including those in the National Guard – grapple at the same time with their impending ‘Forgetting’. 5.) Within a half hour, conveniently a Bostonian has already lost his mind (even though countless other examples earlier in the book show a gradual ‘Forgetting’ taking days but more typically weeks) so that said National Guard can kill him on live TV. 6.) For another party holed up at a report in Virginia, the next day after the outbreak in Boston begins, the staff at the resort gladly arm their guests so they can walk down the hillside to a grocery store (why not drive, why do they need to be armed?). When they arrive at the town where the grocery is located, the scene is described as chaos (but with unarmed families present). Yet the grocery is still well stocked enough that their group of five can purchase a month’s worth of food. 7.) This group of people watch Boston unfold on TV which is described by them as follows: "I braced for the eerie, deserted silence of Boston...' yet Naz describes Boston as loud and out of control. It goes on and on and on like this. And I have not even broached the subject of bad writing in this book. Don’t waste your time – stop reading this review, go buy and read Station Eleven instead. Or The Dog Stars. Or The Road.