A review by maddie_can_read
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

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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