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A review by kmsharkey
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
1.0
Throughout the entirety of this novel, I kept flipping between two beliefs. Either the author thinks that we, the reader, are stupid, or that he has written a really, REALLY dumb protagonist. I finished the book, and decided that it's both.
The foreshadowing was terribly set up. It was pretty clear that Jason had been switched out for another when Jason 2 hid his face, his skin, knew exactly where he lived. This was HIS experiment from so long ago, only on a much larger scale, but he doesn't realize what's going on until page 100, where we, the reader, get a play-by-play as he explains it to Daniela-not-Daniela? My man, we were there with you. You can absolutely omit this for our sake. Jason learned things a good fifty pages after all the evidence was laid out to the reader.
And then--the paragraphs. Someone tell this man you can put more than one fragmented sentence into a paragraph. I understand that it's a stylistic choice, but come on. If all your "paragraphs" are approximately four words I'm just going to gloss over all that.
The pacing was... atrocious. I understand that it began to move faster to show how protagonist Jason was losing his grip on it, but by the time he learned that there were countless other Jasons there too confirmed his blatant, irredeemable stupidity. You literally saw a version of you, bloody in the corridor, and maintained the belief that it was just you three? You're a terrible scientist, Jason. Idiot man. The least likeable, most inhuman protagonist I've seen in a long time.
The way he describes Chicago makes me think he just pulled up a map and decided he was an expert. The way he writes the many unnecessary sex scene radiates this vibe that he's either a) never written sex before or b) wanting to remind his readers at every opportunity is that Jason is just So Sexy. Even Amanda, who shows up for, what, fifty pages? cant keep her hands off him. Okay.
It took me weeks to get through, like, chapter two. Then I read the last 200 pages of this in a day, not because I was on the edge of my seat, but because I wanted it to just be over. I'm taking this back to the library and hopefully I'll forget it ever existed by the time I walk out those doors.
The foreshadowing was terribly set up. It was pretty clear that Jason had been switched out for another when Jason 2 hid his face, his skin, knew exactly where he lived. This was HIS experiment from so long ago, only on a much larger scale, but he doesn't realize what's going on until page 100, where we, the reader, get a play-by-play as he explains it to Daniela-not-Daniela? My man, we were there with you. You can absolutely omit this for our sake. Jason learned things a good fifty pages after all the evidence was laid out to the reader.
And then--the paragraphs. Someone tell this man you can put more than one fragmented sentence into a paragraph. I understand that it's a stylistic choice, but come on. If all your "paragraphs" are approximately four words I'm just going to gloss over all that.
The pacing was... atrocious. I understand that it began to move faster to show how protagonist Jason was losing his grip on it, but by the time he learned that there were countless other Jasons there too confirmed his blatant, irredeemable stupidity. You literally saw a version of you, bloody in the corridor, and maintained the belief that it was just you three? You're a terrible scientist, Jason. Idiot man. The least likeable, most inhuman protagonist I've seen in a long time.
The way he describes Chicago makes me think he just pulled up a map and decided he was an expert. The way he writes the many unnecessary sex scene radiates this vibe that he's either a) never written sex before or b) wanting to remind his readers at every opportunity is that Jason is just So Sexy. Even Amanda, who shows up for, what, fifty pages? cant keep her hands off him. Okay.
It took me weeks to get through, like, chapter two. Then I read the last 200 pages of this in a day, not because I was on the edge of my seat, but because I wanted it to just be over. I'm taking this back to the library and hopefully I'll forget it ever existed by the time I walk out those doors.