Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
“We're more than the sum total of our choices, that all the paths we might have taken factor somehow into the math of our identity.”
Author
Blake Crouch
Publisher
Pan Macmillan
Genre
Sci-fi Thriller
Number of Pages
353
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Summary
Imagine this scenario. It's family dinner night. Your spouse insists you pay your friend a quick visit at a local pub because they are hosting a celebration for receiving a prestigious award. You meet your friend. You’re on your way home with ice cream for your family and then you’re abducted.
Abducted to a world that you never knew existed. Where all your sacrificed choices have come true, but you don’t have your family with you. Meanwhile, a supposed impostor starts living with your family in place of you. You would do everything in your power to get back to your family and your world, wouldn’t you?
My Review
I’m going, to be honest, and say that this was my first sci-fi thriller book and I loved it. Absolutely brilliant, twisted, and unbelievable.
Do you read the short reviews on the covers of books that go – brilliant, breath-taking, genius, and so on and so forth? For the first time, I’ll say I believed all that the reviews had to say. It was simply that good.
It was close to 400 pages long. But the gripping plotline made it a breeze. It isn’t exactly time travel but you could say it's multi-world/multi-verse travel.
Jason Dessen is my new fictional favorite. Although I could attribute a multitude of reasons for this favoritism, I’ll choose one simple reason he chose family over professional success and never once regretted his choice.
Final Verdict
I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of Blake Crouch’s immersive writing and I’ve decided to do 2 things. One is to check out Recursion and Wayward Pines by the same author, which is even more popular than this novel. And second I’m definitely not giving up on the sci-fi genre. I’m in love.
Who Should Read This
Sci-fi readers, definitely cannot miss this. But if you are new to the genre, this novel is the best place to start.
Blake Crouch
Blake Crouch is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. His international-bestselling Wayward Pines trilogy was adapted into a television series for FOX, executive produced by M. Night Shyamalan, that was Summer 2015’s #1 show. With Chad Hodge, Crouch also created Good Behavior, the TNT television show starring Michelle Dockery based on his Letty Dobesh novellas. He has written more than a dozen novels that have been translated into over thirty languages and his short fiction has appeared in numerous publications including Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Crouch lives in Colorado with his family.
- Top Quotes from Dark Matter-
- “It's terrifying when you consider that every thought we have, every choice we could possibly make, branches off into a new world.”
- “No one tells you it's all about to change, to be taken away. There's no proximity alert, no indication that you're standing on the precipice. And maybe that's what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens, but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes at you out of nowhere, when you're least expecting it. No time to flinch or brace.”
- “If you strip away all the trappings of personality and lifestyle, what are the core components that make me me?”
- “We're all just wandering through the tundra of our existence, assigning value to worthlessness, when all that we love and hate, all we believe in and fight for and kill for and die for is as meaningless as images projected onto Plexiglass.”
- “He says, “Every moment, every breath, contains a choice. But life is imperfect. We make the wrong choices. So we end up living in a state of perpetual regret, and is there anything worse? I built something that could actually eradicate regret. Let you find worlds where you made the right choice.” Daniela says, “Life doesn’t work that way. You live with your choices and learn. You don’t cheat the system.”
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