Poor Madison May! She keeps getting murdered and she never sees it coming.
Each time, there is Maddie, going about her life as an actress or a student or a real estate agent when bam!, this obsessive guy shows up, professes his multi-world love for her and kills her. The police are rightfully puzzled, but what could they do against a world-hopping traveler? Enter Felicity Staples, a journalist trying to figure out what happened to Maddie, who soon realizes there might be more to this than just a seemingly random murder.
Whenever I come across a book that's set in a multiverse, I'm always excited to read it and curious to see where it goes with that concept. And this ends up being a fascinating take on parallel universes. It touches upon all the ideas I'm interested in, including how one goes about picking the next world to travel to and what happens to the version of the person already there.
But if you're not a science buff like me, don't let the science fiction part deter you. This is sci-fi at its lightest. There are no extraneous technical details to get bogged down in and no prior knowledge needed to understand. Once you accept the concept of parallel universes and being able to travel between them, all that's left is a thriller. And what a riveting one it is.
The pacing is fast, the action nonstop, and it all builds into a satisfying conclusion. One of the most interesting byproducts of setting a story in a multiverse is that you get to play around with the concept of slightly different versions of the same person. And it's clear the author had a lot of fun crafting all the versions of Madison May.
This has everything I enjoy in a thriller, albeit with more locations and slightly different versions of the same people. It took an interesting premise and made it into a unique story, one that both entertained and surprised me. This is my first time reading Max Barry, but it won't be the last.
Readaroo Rating: 4 stars
My heartfelt thanks for the copy that was provided for my honest and unbiased review.
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