Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

13 reviews

katiefurms's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Not only is this an incredible concept for a story, but it is so phenomenally well written that i could not put it down. Absolutely incredible book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Abandonment

Minor: Addiction, Body horror, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Cannibalism, Car accident, Abortion, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Dysphoria, and Pandemic/Epidemic

kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

A sci-fi thriller, this book kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. It was interesting and well-written. The story is compelling, unsettling, and fantastical. parts of the science-y description/explanation were outside my realm of comprehension but all in all this book is incredibly accessible to all readers. The chapters are really long but the writing style made the book fly by for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Confinement, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

now_booking's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

This is my second book by this author and it was again mind-bending and confusing and yet absolutely wonderful. 

Even though I don’t read much sci-if, I was completely mind blown by this complex eminently human story of love and trying to find your way home when you are irrevocably lost. In this humanity, it was very similar to Recursion in being a sort of love story and an epic journey as much as it is about science.

The premise is that Jason is living a happy if somewhat “basic” and unspectacular life with his wife and son. While he and his artist wife, Daniela, might not have fulfilled the promise of spectacular careers in physics and art, having sacrificed that for building their family. They are more or less happy, until Jason is kidnapped and thrown into a multiverse and has to battle the dangers of infinite possibilities as well as all the different facets of himself to see if there’s any way to get the stars to align and find his way back home. 

For me, I adored every aspect of this. Jason as a character was compellingly human. Perhaps a bit too perfect, but a great, well-developed character to carry the story. The multiverse provides ample opportunity to challenge and stretch Jason and give us a sense of what he’s made of. And through that, we insert ourselves into the story and begin to think of what we would do and how we would react if we were in his shoes. This was sad, exciting, traumatic, adventurous, fun and I cannot recommend this enough.

If there are weaknesses, I think it’s in lots of loose ends. I also wondered how come Amanda’s place in the multiverse was never explored. Logistically-speaking, what are the implications for the characters in the way the book ends. It’s hard to explain what I mean without spoiling the book but I feel after the level of detail with which the sci-fi premise was put forth, the resolution was a little too abstract. That said, I did enjoy this and highly highly recommend even for non-sci-if fans. It’s absolutely brilliant. After I read Recursion, this was recommended to me a lot, and it has not disappointed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping and Grief

Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Mental illness, Violence, Medical trauma, Stalking, Abandonment, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Infidelity, Forced institutionalization, and Classism