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Dark Matter

Blake Crouch

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Oct 15, 2017 El rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fictiony, 21st-centurylit

It didn't take me long to read this book, so I can say that it is high on the scale in terms of readability. It's another one of those books that people write these days that just scream to be made into a movie - not that there is anything inherently wrong with that, it just lends itself to a different reading experience.

This is a bit of a mind-fuck, which was one of the things I found appealing about it. It was not as creepy (psychologically or otherwise) as I would have liked, especially consi It didn't take me long to read this book, so I can say that it is high on the scale in terms of readability. It's another one of those books that people write these days that just scream to be made into a movie - not that there is anything inherently wrong with that, it just lends itself to a different reading experience.

This is a bit of a mind-fuck, which was one of the things I found appealing about it. It was not as creepy (psychologically or otherwise) as I would have liked, especially considering I was told that this would be a good October-month read. But I also don't know quite how to classify this - science fiction thriller that goes a bit supernova as you read? Sure, let's go with that.

Jason Dessen leads a pretty decent life, things are working out for him - maybe not the way he would have expected or wanted, but there's absolutely nothing completely wrong. But things do get wonky pretty fast, about the time he is knocked unconscious by a masked abductor. When he wakes up and returns to his life, it's not the life he left. He embarks on a journey to find out what happened to his life and, if possible, get it back because his new-life-post-abduction is not the life he wants.

There are elements of Philip K. Dick here - specifically in some of the relationships and interactions which made me remember the short story, The Adjustment Team which was turned into that Matt Damon movie, The Adjustment Bureau a few years back.

There have been complaints about Crouch's writing style, and I can't disagree with that. At first it was fine, but when you have 340 pages of it, it wears on the soul pretty quickly. Paragraphs are not a thing that Crouch seemed interested in when he wrote this book. Almost each sentence is its own paragraph. This moves the story along of course, but it's frustrating to those of us who don't dig that sort of thing. It's like that complaint I have so frequently with a lot of fiction that is published today, wherein it appears the author understands that their readers have no attention span, so they write in a way that someone without an attention span might appreciate. Then the rest of us have to suffer with what feels like sub-par writing.

He grabs my arm, jerks me back onto my feet.
Pointing the gun in my face, he puts my flashlight back into my hands.
I stare into the mask, my light shining upon the weapon.
(p23)

The whole book is like that. Once in a while he throws in a full paragraph, but as the book progresses it seems those whole paragraphs lessen even more.

I was interested enough in the story to keep reading, and therefore it didn't take that long to read. It smelled like a book that should be read in quick succession. If I put it down for too long, I might lose any interest in returning to it.

In any case, I will probably watch the movie at some point, just to see if they can make happen what it seems like Crouch wanted to accomplish, but it's harder to portray in the written form than possibly done on the big screen.

Give it time; it'll happen. ...more

12 likes · Like · see review

May 26, 2017 Nadine in NY Jones rated it did not like it

Shelves: everyone-loved-it-except-me, psych-psych-psych, authors-i-don-t-ever-want-to-read-a, fantasy-and-sci-fi, suspense-thriller, dick-lit

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This was Not Good. I kept reading, because soooooo many rave reviews had me hoping it would get better. (It did, but it never really attained "good." Was it worth reading? I don't know. There was a moment when I had set the book down, and was puttering around my desk, and I wondered - for a second - if I was me. And that was kind of a cool out-of-body-reality moment that I would not have otherwise experienced. So, yes, I guess it was worth reading. But I probably won't read anything else by this ...more

11 likes · Like · see review

Sep 23, 2017 Ryan rated it really liked it

Shelves: borrowed, 2017

One of the simplest books I’ve read in a while, but also one of the most satisfying. As a good friend pointed out, the trick is turning off the brain and not getting caught up in the endless permutations and commutations of your own life.

7 likes · Like · see review