The Book of M

What defines a person? Your experiences? Your personality? The emotional bonds you forge? What happens when you forget? Are you still you if you don't remember who that is? The Book of M tackles these questions and takes an intimate look at what happens when some people forget but others remember.

We enter on Max and Ory in an abandoned hotel, running out of food and supplies. Max has lost her shadow, which means she will soon start forgetting. Everything. (There are rumors that Shadowless have died because they forgot to breathe or eat.) We learn it's been a few years since the phenomenon started happening, and flashbacks tell us the story of those early months. Like any good dystopia, it is a world-altering process. Governments are gone because no one remembered to run them. Food and other supplies are dwindling because farmers, shippers, manufacturers forgot what they were doing and how to do it.

But with the forgetting comes - magic, of a sort. Ory comes across a deer in the forest that instead of antlers, has wings sprouting from its forehead. Because someone forgot that deer shouldn't have wings - and so it happened. Forgetting that something can be destroyed can make it indestructible. Forgetting that you left a place can take you back to that place. Forgetting a place exists can make that place no longer exist. It's not a very controllable kind of magic. And it's dangerous - you can never be quite sure what you'll forget, and you can affect other people with it.

And the forgetting starts with losing your shadow. Ory gives Max a tape recorder, so she can record things she might forget. He posts signs around their hideout to remind her of things, like “Let no one in. Ory has a key.” and “Don't touch the guns or the knives.” But Max knows she is a danger to Ory, and so while she can still remember enough to function, she runs away.

The book mostly concerns Ory and Max's journeys across the country; Max trying to find something she's forgotten, and Ory trying to find Max. The adventure is gripping, heartbreaking, and at times confusing. (Mostly on Max's end, as magic warps things around her.) There are a few side characters who also have viewpoint chapters. Naz Ahmadi is an Iranian girl training for the Olympics in the US - in archery, which comes in quite handy. We also have The One Who Gathers, a mysterious man in New Orleans who has gathered a flock of shadowless.

If you ever played the roleplaying game Mage: the Ascension, and remember the concept of Paradox, this book reminds me of that a lot. (Is it a surprise that I'm a tabletop RPG geek? It shouldn't be. I own almost all of the old World of Darkness books, and currently play in a D&D game, and hopefully soon a second D&D game!) Anyway. Paradox. Where doing magic too far outside the bounds of acceptable reality punishes you, so you have to weigh the potential consequences against the magic you want to do.

I really enjoyed this debut novel; it is a very original take on a dystopia, and raised a lot of questions about personality, memories, and what makes a person the person you remember.

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Engaging from the very first pages, brilliant writing and ideas with some sci-fi without the need to explain absolutely everything. Loved it.

If I'm honest the title is what attracted me to the book and I had hoped it would be a brilliant read - and it absolutely was!

The story kicks off immediately into the first few pages where people have start to lose their shadows, and the knock on effect is that they forget, they forget all sorts of things, then they forget their name, or forget their parent's names, or that they had a husband or wife or children, then forget how to speak. Then more mind bendingly, they forget that a thing is a thing, an in doing so reality changes around them - such as forgetting that a place exists then all of a sudden that place really doesn't exist taking all it's inhabitants with it.

The story follows a few key characters dedicating chapters to telling each of their story and the effect this epidemic (of sorts) affects their lives. So the story is very much about humans even though it lives inside an almost magical epidemic.

I like that the story doesn't particularly try to explain how the shadows are lost or why and why it affects some people faster than others.

A wonderfully written book that swept me along. Definitely recommend.

The Book of M is a fascinating post-apocalyptic story examining the intersection between memory and identity by looking at what may happen if people around the world began suddenly losing their memories. First, they lost their shadows, then their memories???but as they forgot, what they forgot became real, changing the world around them.

Though it is overlong and I didn't love any of the characters, it's a creative story well told that I kept thinking about after finishing it. It's one of a kind, and I loved that it presented more questions than answers, leaving it up to readers to dissect what the different pieces mean.

Full Review on My Website

I don't know if I have ever cried this much from a stand-alone book. The last 30% of this book was just me crying on and off for 4 hours. The way everything came together and yet didn't quite fit right at the same time was absolutely heart-wrenching. 

At first, I thought that this was only going to be about Ori and Max, and it kinda was but also lots of different stories came into it. Many different people came together and apart and it was great to see how so many experienced the world. In the beginning, I was annoyed that there were so many flashbacks. But I just didn't really like the starting point. Because it was really just one flash forward. 

It ended in a good way and yet not in a good way. But it did have an end, which I am glad for. I really don't know how to feel about this book other than that it was good, but it also ripped my heart out of my chest, how dare you. 

Recensie van audioboek (via Storytel)

Dit boek stond al een tijdje op mijn te lezen lijst, want ik vond het gegeven super fascinerend: schaduwen verdwijnen en met hen ook herinneringen. Toen ik op zoek was naar een nieuw audioboek om te luisteren tijdens het schoonmaken, was ik dan ook super blij te zien dat deze beschikbaar was.
Het was echt wel een boek om te lezen in tijden van een globale pandemie en waar social distancing een ding is, haha.

Fascinerend en met momenten hartverscheurend boek dat ijzersterk begon, maar uiteindelijk een beetje aan zijn betovering verloor naar het einde toe, ondanks de genereuze introductie van magie. Alhoewel het boek genoeg aanzet tot nadenken en een paar bijzondere plotwendingen tot een goed einde brengt, vind ik het vooral jammer dat er uiteindelijk geen verklaring komt over het waarom en het hoe van de verdwijnende schaduwen.

Epic and original

Some minor spoilers follow. Nothing major.
The premise behind this had me hooked from the start. Such an original and clever concept that had me champing at the bit to find out how it would all play out...
...until about half way through when it became more of a traditional post apocalyptic story with warring factions etc... At this stage I was beginning to tire as it seemed to stray from what made it so enjoyable to me. This was also a very long read so it felt at the time that these sections were unnecessary filler...
...until later in the book when you realise that this section is actually essential to the final outcome in what becomes a very circular tale.
The ending is as beautiful as it is tragic, and made me forgive the middle section of the book.
This one will stay with me for some time.

A fantastic debut.

“The Book of M” is a standalone novel written by Peng Shepherd. The novel is set in a near future world, where people are losing their shadows and with that they also start to lose their memories. The novel follows Ory and his wife Max, they are living an as normal life as they can after the ‘forgetting', but everything goes wrong when Max loses her shadow, and eventually, she runs away to protect Ory as, the more she forgets, the more dangerous she will become. Ory goes after her, hoping to find her before her memories fade completely.

The novel was interesting, with the shadows disappearing, and that causing peoples memories to fade as well, it was very interesting, I really enjoyed the first part of the novel, but I started not to care for some of the characters. We also don't find anything out about why the shadows were disappearing. So, in the end, it was a good novel, so I gave the novel a 3/5 stars.