Reviews with content warning for Stalking - Dark Matter

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Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

52 reviews

savvylit's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

3.0

Dark Matter is a very well-paced thriller, with a few unexpected twists and turns. It reads almost like a novelization of an action movie: there is so much plot. So much plot and so little characterization. Sadly, any character who isn't Jason is an incredibly two-dimensional person. One of the worst examples of this is poor Amanda - who seems to exist solely as a plot device.

Another issue that I had with Dark Matter is that it took Jason so long to figure out that he was no longer in his own world. (This isn't much of a spoiler because this happens immediately in the story). If Jason was such a genius, then why does it take him so long to realize why his house looks different or why his wife is no longer his wife? Duh, dude. It's a parallel world.

Ultimately, Dark Matter did keep me interested until the end. However, I think that this type of thriller - all plot, all action - is not for me. I can definitely see the book's merits but I won't be picking up anything else like this any time soon.

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whatathymeitwas's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

4.0

Well that hit like a truck full of bricks.

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now_booking's review against another edition

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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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kaadee's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I feel like this book is what the Midnight Library tried so hard to do.
A philosophical book about how we have many facets and lives. It was enjoyable, so enjoyable I finished it in a day. There are many problems I have though

First off, the writing style. I’m not usually one to dog on a writing style (because I mean I’m not a published author so what say do I really have?) But specifically this writing style gets very annoying after a while. It’s kinda like this.
He runs.
He hides.
He cries.

I mean, I enjoy different sentences lengths but there were too many short sentence that took up a majority of the book.

My second problem is the cube. I mean, we barely know anything about it. What about the Jason who built the cube’s world? I feel like we get no explanation except for Amanda, which we learn basically nothing about. I mean, what happens to the cube after this? Will the cube be around forever? If Jason2 dies does that mean his reality dies with him? How is the cube still around? I feel like personally I just have a ton of unanswered questions about how the world works.

My third problem is Amanda. I really enjoyed her character, I mean what we got from it. We don’t really get any explanation to who she is except she was Jason2’s therapist. I mean from the story they seemed like lovers or something along those lines. Half way through she just ups and leaves???? I mean HELLO?? What happened to her? Is she ok? Is she happy? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS??

My fourth problem is the ending. I enjoyed it but I felt like something was missing. I feel like the story is unfinished (and maybe that’s for a reason) but I feel like this story could have REALLY benefited from an epilogue. What happens to them after they open a new door? Are they happy? The author put me through a whirlwind of emotions just to give me NOTHING 👏👏👏👏

There’s tons of things I like about the story though. I really enjoy Jason’s character and how much he strives for his family’s happiness, even willing to sacrifice himself. I enjoyed Amanda, I enjoyed Dani and Charlie.
I really liked the multiple Jason’s trying to kill him and especially the ending where they all look at him go into the cube. I thought the plot was really interesting I just wish it had a bit more in terms of good ending and explanation.
Otherwise it’s really good!

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lindseyrenee's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Incredible

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mateoj's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I have what i call "an English major's obsession with quantum physics", meaning that I absolutely adore narratives about things like time travel (or fucky time in general, like time loops) and, yes, the multiverse/parallel universes, but I am not a hard science person by any stretch of the imagination. Dark Matter is great in that regard—Crouch even says in one of the interviews that was in the back of my ebook copy that the science is accessible to a layperson because he himself is a layperson, and that much is true. the multiverse concept is given due justice here, especially the themes of identity and selfhood, but... the book in itself is not that good.
the thing about this story is that it hinges on the narrator/protagonist being just some guy; of course, you could write a multiverse story about someone wildly successful, but that's not the story Dark Matter is telling. unfortunately, he's just a little too much Just Some Guy. you root for him because he is the narrator, but i found his narration/internal monologue deeply irritating (this may have been compounded by the fact that i kept picturing him as my writing professor). the women in the story, even Jason's wife, didn't feel like actual people, just props to hold the story up; Jason's love for his wife and son is the driving force behind his actions, but who ARE they? all we get is how he feels about them, which is emotional but doesn't quite flesh them out enough. there was also

Amanda, who did nothing but save Jason's life a couple times and leave. she didn't have to have a bigger role, but some depth to the role she did serve would have been nice.

add to that some aspects of the plot that were genuinely laughable—

the chatroom? really?-—

and Dark Matter became, to me, some great ideas stitched together with a mediocre cast of characters and a mediocre plot.

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ggcd1981's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced

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

4.0

Rating: 4.0 estrelas

TRIGER WARNING: Gun Violence, Confinement, Dubious Concent, Moderate Sexual Content

Dark Matter foi bom, não foi ótimo, mas foi bom. Este livro foi indicado por VÁRIOS Booktubers, mesmo assim não tinha as expectativas altas porque o resumo em si foi apenas moderadamente interessante para mim. O que me fez ler esse livro na verdade foi o fato de que Ewerton o escolheu para ler junto comigo, assim para incentiva-lo a leitura adiantei Dark Matter na minha lista. Ler comentando junto com Ewerton foi divertido, porém fora essa experiência não tenho sentimentos fortes pelo livro em si. Isso não significa que achei o livro medíocre ou ruim. Na verdade, o enredo é original e posso dizer que nunca vi um filme/livro sobre dimensões paralelas parecido com Dark Matter. Por mais da metade do livro eu genuinamente não conseguia prever como Jason Dessen, o protagonista, resolveria o problema. Então o principal ponto a favor da obra é sua originalidade.

Pontos negativos houveram alguns poucos, nenhum realmente grave. O primeiro foi a escrita seca e fragmentada. Crouch escreveu a história em frases diretas e curtas, sem espaço para muita fluidez no texto. O segundo ponto fraco foi o personagem do filho do protagonista, Charlie. Eu não entendo porque sequer ele existia no livro. A todo momento o protagonista nos lembrava de seu amor pela esposa Daniela. Seu desespero em voltar para Daniela foi expresso em diversos momentos. Contudo os sentimentos expressados de Jason por Charlie eram pálidos em comparação do fervor do seu amor por Daniela, ao ponto que Charlie foi relegado a um dispositivo do texto para quando o autor precisava que uma ação fosse realizada por alguém que não Jason ou Daniela (Exemplo: Ligar o celular para que outros Jasons fossem capazes de rastrear o aparelho até a família). Por último, um ponto negativo subjetivo, porém foi um fator, não consegui me conectar a nenhum personagem, logo não estava investida em nenhum deles.

Apesar dos problemas mencionados a história foi original e manteve meu interesse. Não foi previsível e foi bastante cinematográfica (assistiria uma adaptação do livro para o cinema). No geral foi uma obra sólida de ficção científica que me entreteve e proporcionou boas conversas com Ewerton.

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s__'s review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.0

Pleasantly surprised! Was not expecting to like this book after it turned out to be a Sci-Fi thriller. It’s better of classified as Sci-Fi with the sub-genre as thriller, instead of vice versa. It’s for the readers who love anything remotely similar to Inception or The Matrix.

The main question the protagonist (Jason) has about who kidnapped him (& why) can easily be predicted by chapter 4 at most. However, what made this story great was the second half of the book. As Jason figures out a way to get back to the life he knew, the author leaves a bit of uncertainty to keep the reader guessing if that will really happen. The fast-pace of the second-half really saved this book from being drawn out and at times the scientific facts were not that easy to grasp, but....

considering the topic is quantum physics that’s expected

. I do think the ending could have been made better if.....

there was more uncertainty left, and it wasn’t exactly sure if they (“original” Jason and his family) got their happy ending. I thought the author would end it with one of the multiverse Jason’s finding one of the ampoules that “original” Jason had left behind in the hotel when he was trying to escape from a multiverse Jason. Indicating that the multiverse Jason could have followed “original” Jason and a had 1/♾ chance of ending up in the same world.

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clea's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

A brilliantly plotted science-fiction thriller which is mind-bending while being surprisingly profound and grounded. It is a story about choices, regrets and the fundamentals of one's identity. What makes "us" really "us"? Are we the sum total of our choices or do other constituents play a role in defining our true self?
The book was suspenseful with an interesting concept and loveable protagonists - it has everything a great thriller should have (maybe except for surprising plot twists; I found them all a little bit too foreseeable).

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wthanyell's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.0

A very fast-paced read. I am not one for understanding physics concepts but this book didn't overdo all the scientifics of the plot. It felt enjoyable & made me feel smart for understanding at least some of the theory it proposed. Mainly a plot-driven book so can't say it was fully perfect to me.

Plot: 9/10
Writing: 7/10
Characters: 6/10
Enjoyment: 9/10

Overall: 4/5

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