Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

6 reviews

nikrib's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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

1.0

How this managed to have such positive reviews and a tv adaptation is beyond me. Hopefully this narrative translates better on screen than it did for however many pages of misogynist and overplayed chaotic multiverse drama readers trudge through to get to the (happy?) ending. The characters are all flat, insufferable and static. The female characters essentially have no role other than debuting every time this author needs to sprinkle misogyny into the narrative and painfully attempt to intertwine family values (or lack thereof). The protagonist is said to be incredibly smart but hates his life. Then multiverse jump to now he wants his old life back. Then multiverse jump again to he’s banging his wife (but also not his wife)? What is the true overall moral here? No, I didn’t “miss it” or fail to “recognize it”, there just isn’t a decent moral written here. The descriptive language is atrocious and I sincerely hope the author’s other books aren’t also written in this fashion. From the very first chapter readers can already tell this book is written by a “man’s man”. ..Yeehaw.. There seems to be a consensus amongst the positive reviews that readers who enjoyed this book just like multiverse concepts, sci-fi, and so on. Well, sure, but does that really hold on its own? There’s plenty of books and media that deliver on multiverse concepts. This wasn’t it. I almost DNF a few times when the narrative was excruciatingly slow and counterintuitive, but I pressed on due to my wife and I wanting to watch the tv show adaptation (it had a decent commercial!). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Gaslighting, Murder, and Gun violence

Moderate: Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Racism, Toxic relationship, and Body shaming

ldpaige's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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

3.5

This book had me bingeing 150 pages in one setting. I think this reminded me how much I love a good action book from Blake Crouch. The thesis of the whole work landed well for me and the book was just good. It took you on a ride and that's the kind of book I like! The ideas of

the multi-world moment had me thinking and was something fresh and different from what I normally read.

There were elements that did have me rolling my eyes and somehow, the story got tied in a nice little bow. I actually would have liked a darker ending. That's just me though.

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed Dark Matter and would suggest it to someone who wants a book that they cannot put down!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Toxic friendship, and Murder

Moderate: Stalking, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Violence

melaschnie's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gun violence, Death, Drug use, Violence, Kidnapping, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Stalking, Suicide, Grief, Medical content, Terminal illness, Death of parent, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Vomit, Alcohol, Forced institutionalization, Abortion, Child death, Toxic friendship, and Torture

maddie_can_read's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense medium-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

3.5

I really liked the premise of the book, some in interesting ideas, but didn't love the execution.

I didn't think the characterization was great

Wished Jason felt more developed/ more science-y. He felt very dude-bro to me. Didn't like that he didn't feel guilty about Jason 2's Daniella dying. Wished Daniella was more developed, I didn't feel like I knew her at all. Really didn't appreciate that the only other female character, Amanda, was seemingly just chucked in with Jason so that he'd have someone to freak out with/ talk to during his adventure and was not fleshed out as a real character. Like she just gave up her entire world for a colleague?

. 
The main character felt like he was making really stupid decisions a lot of the time which took me out of the book a bit because it made me think about why tf he wasn't doing something else

like him continuing to go into a quarantined world, him and Amanda not trying to find more ampoules - like they can go into any world, so they could've definitely found some more go bags with more ampoules ? Why didn't they ever try to find the friend that made the secret ingredient?

The writing felt a bit clunky sometimes, felt like it was written more to be a screenplay for tv show or movie

like when Jason goes into his other self's house and it just goes on and on repeatedly "like this is different in my house"

. But this did make the novel easy to visualize.

Pacing was a bit inconsistent, felt like it wrapped up too quickly given how much build up there was.
A bit too predictable. 

I was hoping the romance plotline was going to be more engaging/ interesting and felt disappointed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Blood, Gun violence, Kidnapping, Medical content, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Stalking, Torture, Alcohol, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Drug use, Gore, and Violence

Minor: Abortion and Rape

wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

1.75

The good:  I enjoyed the UberChat.  I felt that right when that was introduced a different ending could have spawned that turned into a lighthearted rom-com and I like to imagine that.

The bad:  I knew pretty early on that this was not going to be a favorite.  I don't read a lot of thrillers in general but I enjoy sci-fi so I figured I would give it a shot.  I couldn't stand the main character.  And thus, the book was doomed in my eyes.  The pacing was jumpy, and the plot was predictable (as in, I guessed what really happened in the first chapter and the main character didn't figure it out until the ~50% mark).  There was some promise for some thoughtful introspection but the approach was heavy-handed at best.  Some of the descriptions were vivid and others were flat out whacky.

I don't know if I will try another book by the author, but I don't think I was the intended audience for this work so who knows what the future holds.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Abandonment, Body horror, Classism, Confinement, Torture, Pandemic/Epidemic, Rape, Self harm, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Toxic friendship, Drug use, Gaslighting, Gore, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Sexism, Violence, Alcoholism, Cancer, Car accident, Child death, Infidelity, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, and Toxic relationship

lindseyrenee's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Stalking and Murder

Moderate: Blood, Grief, Gun violence, Death, Forced institutionalization, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Injury/Injury detail, and Toxic friendship