Review of Upgrade
Upgrade is about human genetic engineering. In this case, a geneticist has figured out how to enhance human genes to achieve the best of everything. Strength, speed, perception, cognition, disease-resistance. You name it. Well, not everything and that is the problem.
Logan Ramsay is the first ‘beneficiary’ of this upgrade. It makes him a target and a science experiment. He loses his family. He goes on the run. Eventually Logan learns more details about the upgrade and the creator’s intent.
Trying to avoid spoilers, I will just say that when I read this part of the story, my first thought was this – what about the unforeseen consequences of the upgrade. After all, before the story started, Ramsay’s mom had been responsible for a world-wide starvation apocalypse – all because she was trying to fix a problem.
Ramsay will be the first to come to the same conclusion I did. This leads him to the tense, action-packed path to save the world in his own way. Logan is one of my favorite characters in books I have read this year. As part of his upgrade, he is forced to reign in emotions. And even though I did not realize it at first, even this defense was from his heart. And it led him to create a solution with a lovely twist that gave me an ending to smile about.
Through Netgalley, the publisher provided a copy of this book. My review is my honest opinion.
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About Upgrade by Blake Crouch
When the SWAT team gives the all-clear and Logan Ramsay steps into the basement, he has no idea that everything’s about to change. Then there’s the hiss of aerosol. The explosion. The shrapnel that punctures his hazmat gear. Logan wakes up to find himself in a hospital bed, attended by doctors in their own hazmat suits, his wife and daughter looking on from behind the glass.
The doctors say he’s been infected by a virus–one designed not to make him sick, but to modify his very genetic structure. In a world where the next-generation gene-editing tool known as Scythe is widely available–and has already reaped disastrous consequences–the possibilities are too many and terrifying to count.
Except that after the fever, the pain, the fear…the virus is gone. And according to his government bosses, Logan’s got a clean bill of health. But the truth is that with each day that passes, Logan’s getting smarter. Seeing things more clearly. He’s realizing that he’s been upgraded in ways that go beyond even Scythe’s capabilities–and that he’s been given these abilities for a reason. Because a holy grail of genetic engineering–one that could change our very definitions of humanity–has just been unearthed. And now it’s up to him to stop it from falling into the wrong hands.
Logan’s becoming something more. Something better. Even with the whole world hunting for him, he might be able to outthink his opponents and win the war that’s coming. But what if it’s at the cost of being himself?
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