Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

85 reviews

ababytapir's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

4.5

Like Recursion, Dark Matter is fantastically mind-bending and all too easy to read in a day. It's incredibly violent and thought provoking. If you like your sci fi thrillers tinged with horror, existential dread and romance, this is the book for you. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, Kidnapping, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Stalking, Drug use, Gun violence, Murder, Death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Torture, Child death, Abortion, Self harm, War, Violence, Death of parent, Suicide, Car accident, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Cancer, Pregnancy, Rape, and Terminal illness

If you struggle with derealisation, dissociation or depersonalisation, or any sort of identify disorder, this book could potentially be incredibly triggering. Proceed with extreme caution. Violence warning: There is an incredibly detailed description of a gory epidemic/pandemic. There are multiple gory descriptions of dead bodies, murder, and horrific natural disasters. There is a long kidnapping scene. There's multiple instances of stalking.

goldenlake's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking, Kidnapping, Forced institutionalization, Death, and Violence

dangarias's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Violence, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail

ninasloft's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Kidnapping, Medical content, Grief, and Violence

Moderate: Terminal illness, Forced institutionalization, and Child death

Minor: Abortion and Abandonment

iono's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-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? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Pandemic/Epidemic, Stalking, Confinement, Drug use, Child death, Sexual content, Blood, Abortion, Gun violence, Rape, Medical content, Violence, and Infidelity

Minor: Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Death of parent, and Forced institutionalization

linwood's review against another edition

challenging tense fast-paced

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

3.25

While I felt the need to finish this book, I am not certain that I enjoyed it. It is dark, tense, violent and often lonely. There are some surprising moments and it raises questions for the reader about humanity and science. I recognize the talent of the author and that it is well written, however the experience of reading it is not a pleasant one. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Blood, Gun violence, Confinement, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Kidnapping

one_womanarmy's review against another edition

dark informative sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

An excellent romp through quantum entanglement and multiverse theory, with Blake Crouch's usual romantic nihilism and fast violence to keep the blood pumping. A grand finale collates around a somewhat over explored set of central themes.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Gun violence, Violence, Death, Torture, Infidelity, Grief, and Confinement

blau_elmo's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

When it comes to thrillers, this book is pretty fantastic. The plot itself is extremely enthralling, a premise built to hold infinite possibilities.

The horrors and hopes, suffering and torment that the protagonist endures for the sake of love is heart-wrenching at times, but always it feels deserved, seeing how well he treats her throughout the book.

When the grand twist happened two thirds into the book, I was legitimately shocked at how seamlessly Crouch introduces something that should have been so obvious into the mix. The ending also brought forth many points of consideration, like

which version of him deserves his wife? Given that they are almost all fundamentally the same, isn't it sort of messed up that the rest have to live without her?

A thriller that uses psychological horror and creates a poignant but hopeful ending? Absolutely riveting.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Kidnapping, Pandemic/Epidemic, Death, and Violence

sarah_amy's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

What would you do if you were forced out of your own reality and thrown into several other realities of paths you had not taken (or were simply lucky to avoid based on other decisions in your life)...all the while several alternate versions of yourselves were experiencing the same thing? Could you get back to your original life? And what if several other versions of you believed that life belonged to them?
A mind-bending, gripping journey that had me hooked. I couldn't wait to see how it was going to end but I also didn't want it to!

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Content Warnings

Minor: Kidnapping, Stalking, Torture, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Drug use, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Apart from the kidnapping that occurs that kicks off the major plot of this story, most of these triggers are either briefly mentioned or the protagonist sees the aftermath of what he has assumed to these people. Most of the time does not go into great detail apart from acknowledgement they look to have suffered/are suffering. Most graphic comes near the conclusion, during an alternate universe where there is a pandemic - the effects of the disease go into a little more detail, and some of the injuries one or 2 of these alternate Jason's have suffered.

fkshg8465's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Rounding up to five. This is the third of hood books I’ve read, and each one hits the sweet spot for me. I love this author’s mind. The way he writes opens up my mind. I’m going to read every one of his books between this year and next. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Death, Grief, Abandonment, Rape, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Gore, Gun violence, Pandemic/Epidemic, Violence, and Sexual content