WhiskeyintheJar reviewed Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Sci-fi thriller
4 stars
He says, “Listen to me. You’re going to be scared, but you can make it yours. You can have everything you never had. I’m sorry I had to scare you earlier, but I had to get you here. I’m so sorry, Jason. I’m doing this for both of us.”
Oof, well, that was a wild intense ride. Told from Jason's point-of-view the reader is on the ride with him as he starts off his normal day of saying goodbye to his wife Daniela and his son Charlie before supper as he goes to meet a friend for a quick celebratory drink. Instead of making it home, he gets kidnapped, taken to an abandoned warehouse, told to strip, shot up with some drugs, and then thrown into a box. He wakes up surrounded by people he doesn't know but seem wildly excited to see him.
And maybe that’s what …
He says, “Listen to me. You’re going to be scared, but you can make it yours. You can have everything you never had. I’m sorry I had to scare you earlier, but I had to get you here. I’m so sorry, Jason. I’m doing this for both of us.”
Oof, well, that was a wild intense ride. Told from Jason's point-of-view the reader is on the ride with him as he starts off his normal day of saying goodbye to his wife Daniela and his son Charlie before supper as he goes to meet a friend for a quick celebratory drink. Instead of making it home, he gets kidnapped, taken to an abandoned warehouse, told to strip, shot up with some drugs, and then thrown into a box. He wakes up surrounded by people he doesn't know but seem wildly excited to see him.
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.
What follows was a multiverse thriller with heart. I watch Rick and Morty, so I'm pretty, well, versed, in the multiverse concept. I do not, however, have a PHD in physics, so while I got a little glazing at moments when the author got into the weeds of describing, I think it was detailed enough to seem credible and explanatory for understanding and believing for a fiction story. If you haven't watched Rick and Morty and/or you're smarter than me, then your mileage will vary. From the moment Jason1 starts the ride, I was hooked and flew through this book.
And maybe I can let go of the sting and resentment of the path not taken, because the path not taken isn’t just the inverse of who I am.
When Jason manages to escape the world that Jason2 came from, with a psychologist named Amanda, the bleakness sets in as he becomes lost in all the different doors of roads taken and not taken. While, as the reader, you can get a little lost in the sheer enormity and complexity of the multiverse theory, I think the author still managed to get the emotional aspects in there, especially when, a bit fortuitously, Jason finds his world again, and we get him reuniting with his Daniela and Charlie.
Daniela says, “Life doesn’t work that way. You live with your choices and learn. You don’t cheat the system.”
As Jason fights to get his life back, the last half had a surprise that I should have seen coming (but I don't have a PHD in quantum mechanics!) and really started boggling my mind. The thriller aspects of this are pretty much the star of the show but, like I mentioned, the emotional moments when Jason reflects about choices not picked almost got me teary for a moment, because I think everyone thinks about The Choices that obviously forked their lives, if you believe in the Many-Worlds interpretation. It gives readers a moment to think about how other versions of themselves are out there living those lives and I do think, like Jason, makes you more appreciative of the fork You took (unless you're the Jason who had chunks torn out of his back).
A thriller that had me not wanting to put the book down with some hitting emotion. Does Amanda get her own story??
