Review: Dark Matter

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

On the way home from the local bar, Jason Dessen is ambushed by an unknown assailant in a geisha mask. After being injected with something, Jason wakes up and his world has been turned upside down...

As I mentioned in the past, I tend to resist books with any amount of hype attached. I even passed on this when it initially came up on Netgalley. However, the gang at Goodreads made me change my mind. So, yeah, the gang was right. Every once in a while, a book feels like it was written with my admittedly peculiar tastes in mind. This is one of those books that caught lightning in a bottle.

As with reads like The Man from Primrose Lane and The Great Forgetting, I'm going to keep this as vague as possible to retard spoilage. Dark Matter is a thriller with a science fiction bend. The What-the-fuckery level is quite high and I wolfed it down in two sittings. It's so damn readable I want to punch Blake Crouch in the junk.

Jason Dessen made for a great lead, a scientist with a loving family and a life he wasn't that enthused about. When he wakes up in another life, he quickly finds himself driving up diarrhea drive on four flat tires.

Since this wasn't my first ride on the weirdness wagon, I tipped to who the masked man was before the big reveal. However, I had no idea the magnitude of the mind fuck headed my way. I pretty much cleared my calendar to wolf down everything after the first 24%. It was that damn gripping.

The ending was great. I kind of guessed how things would go but Crouch hit the ball out of the park.

I don't really know what else I can say without spoiling things. I didn't think Blake Crouch could top Pines but top it he did. Dark Matter is a Twilight Zone episode written by Phillip K. Dick. 5 out of 5 stars.

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