The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas

The Blurb:

A cursed book. A missing professor. Some nefarious men in gray suits. And a dreamworld called the Troposphere? Ariel Manto has a fascination with nineteenth-century scientists--especially Thomas Lumas and The End of Mr. Y, a book no one alive has read. When she mysteriously uncovers a copy at a used bookstore, Ariel is launched into an adventure of science and faith, consciousness and death, space and time, and everything in between. Seeking answers, Ariel follows in Mr. Y’s footsteps: She swallows a tincture, stares into a black dot, and is transported into the Troposphere--a wonderland where she can travel through time and space using the thoughts of others. There she begins to understand all the mysteries surrounding the book, herself, and the universe. Or is it all just a hallucination?

About Scarlett Thomas:

Scarlett Thomas was born in London in 1972. Her widely-acclaimed novels include PopCo, The End of Mr Y and The Seed Collectors. As well as writing literary fiction for adults, she has also written a literary fantasy series for children and a book about writing called Monkeys with Typewriters. Her work has been translated into more than 25 languages. She has been longlisted for the Orange Prize, shortlisted for the South African Boeke Prize and was once the proud recipient of an Elle Style Award. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing & Contemporary Fiction at the University of Kent in the UK. She lives in a Victorian house near the sea and spends a lot of time reading Chekhov and Katherine Mansfield. She is currently working on a new novel and a memoir about the year she reached 6th in the UK for her age group in tennis. Follow her progress and support her on Patreon - www.patreon.com/scarthomas

My Review:

The End of Mr. Y by Scarlett Thomas was an awesome start to this year's reading. Combining a good suspenseful thriller with a liberal amount of quantum physics that explains how thought, language and consciousness are linked to time, inter-dimensional travel, wormholes, the universe and the very nature of it's existence gave for a mind-blowing reading experience. It sounds very deep, and maybe it is, but written in such an engaging way, I couldn't put the book down. It stretched my mind beyond my normal genre preferences of either crime or historical fiction. I didn't think I would enjoy this book and believed I would find it hard going. I couldn't have been more wrong.