Title
Dark Matter
Book Details
Genre: Science Fiction
Publication Date: July 26, 2016
Length: 342 pages
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 9781101904220
Book Description
‘Are you happy in your life?’
Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakes to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before the man he’s never met smiles down at him and says, ‘Welcome back.’
In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor, but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable. Something impossible.
Is it this world or the other that’s the dream?
And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe.
Author
Blake Crouch is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. He is the author of the forthcoming novel, Dark Matter, for which he is writing the screenplay for Sony Pictures.
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.
Follow Blake on his website, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads.
My Thoughts & Takeaways
Are you happy in your life? Do you have regrets? Do you feel like all the different choices you’ve made in your life matter or don’t matter?
Because you will after reading this.
“We all live day to day completely oblivious to the fact that we’re a part of a much larger and stranger reality than we can possibly imagine.”
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch really surprised me. I mean the cover was simple yet mesmerizing and the synopsis sounded so intriguing, but I was still really surprised.
I devoured it within 36 hours and while I love sci-fi, it’s not the genre that makes up the bulk of my reading. I got this as an add-on in my Book of the Month box and I’m so glad I did.
I now realize I need to go back and read the Wayward Pines series (and watch the show!) and read Crouch’s more recent novel, Recursion.
But, anyway, Dark Matter starts out like you’d expect a thriller would – with a pretty immediate hook. And, then it deep dives into something that reminded me a bit of the movie Interstellar and the books House of Leaves and Midnight Library rolled into one. Think Quantum Physics and the multiverse and other really intelligent verbiage that if you drop into regular everyday conversations with either really impresses or confuses people.
Jason Dessen is a physicist – a really brilliant one – and his wife Daniela is an artist – a really good one – but they’ve given up their career dreams for their idyllic and lovely family life with their 15-year-old son Charlie.
But, then everything changes in the blink of an eye and he’s left questioning everything.
I really can’t go any further without giving away anything. But, I’d recommend this to anyone who loves sci-fi, thrillers, existentialist thought-provoking type books, and even horror (depending on how you look at it).
