Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

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Synopsis:

“Are you happy with your life?”

Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious.

Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits.

Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.” 

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.

Dark Matter is a brilliantly plotted tale that is at once sweeping and intimate, mind-bendingly strange and profoundly human—a relentlessly surprising science-fiction thriller about choices, paths not taken, and how far we’ll go to claim the lives we dream of.

When I began reading Dark Matter, I wasn't sure that I liked the writing style. It felt like the author was talking at me by having the main character narrate and describe everything himself rather than having the author describe things and being inside Jason's head to know how he is feeling. I'm happy to say that I grew accustomed to the style of writing and was able to understand and enjoy where the author was coming from as far as the voice of the book. It also helped when dialogue was introduced between characters because I didn't focus as much on Jason's voice in the story. 

I know that it probably sounds like I didn't like Jason but I actually really appreciated him as a character. He was different. He was a scientist through and through. He looked at problems and the world through such a scientific lens that everything was a piece of the puzzle or a breadcrumb for him to follow in order to solve it. I was an intriguing way of looking at the world and I found that I didn't want to stop reading because I wanted to know what he would uncover next. His emotions jumped off he page and I felt them right along with him. I liked that he was geeky and not a person that would be in a fight or even begin one in the first place. He had so much drive and determination when it came to what he really wanted. I wouldn't say that he really needed to grow as a character because I liked him to start with but the author did help him to grow through his experiences in the book. He seemed like a more exhausted, fuller, and completed version of himself by the end of the book is that makes sense. 

I loved the story! It reminded me of a young adult trilogy that I read by Claudia Gray called The Firebird Trilogy except Dark Matter was of course a more adult version. I thought that it was a well thought out story and the ideas presented were interesting to consider. It was so thought provoking and a testament to how far a person will go to get back the life was stolen from them. Is there such a thing as good enough or close enough or does one need things to be exactly as they were? I liked how the author put so much emphasis on how much power that the choices we make have. Every choice creates a ripple effect and you never know what exactly would have happened if you had chosen a different path. 

I loved the direction the story took up until things started to get weird for me which was around page 255. The story became a bit more difficult for me to follow at that point. I wish that the author wouldn't have taken it that far but it didn't deter me enough that I stopped enjoying it. I couldn't seem to wrap my head around that particular idea because I just came away with more questions.