This was suuuuch a good book! I kept getting chills throughout and Crouch's writing was riveting and always kept me on the edge of my seat!

Dark Matter is a very well written book, based on an intriguing concept about the reality we perceive and what might happen if that reality is breached, and we wake up to find that someone else has taken over our life. What wouldn't we do to get back what we've lost?

Jason Dessen is unlucky enough to find that someone else has not only assumed his identity but is now living in his house with his family. He is a reknowned physics professor, who has devised a new and remarkable theory of time and reality.

The plot is inventive and moves along well until the last quarter of the book when he tries over and over again to return to his real self and the wife and home he loves. These multiple attempts become both hard to visualize and repetitive. I really wish that Blake Crouch could have come up with a different resolution.

It's impossible to deny the reality of our helplessness. Aside from each other, this box is the only constant we have. A very tiny boat in the middle of a very large ocean. It's our shelter. Our prison. Our home.

Jason a father, husband and teacher at the local college in Chicago is content with where he is and who he. Everything changes when he is kidnapped after meeting with a friend at a local bar. His masked abductor seems familiar has he drives to a deserted building with a strange request. He is given a drug and when he awakens, he tries to go back home but home is not home. He keeps thinking of his wife and son and is determined to get his life back. What he realizes is that he doesn't know the side of him that got him where he is now. As he discovers what he must do, will he survive? Will his family survive?

This book reminded me of the movie Inception and was very sci-fi. A thriller that keeps you at the edge and makes you question what is reality. Very well done as it keeps you in the know and in the dark at the same time. Intense with heart.

A Special Thank You to Crown Publishing and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.

I do not read Science Fiction very often, and when I began this book I didn't realize it was Science Fiction, but I did enjoy the book for the most part.

Jason Dessen is a physics professor at a small college. He is married to a beautiful woman Daniela (Dani) and has a teenage son, Charle. One night, on the way home from a celebration with a friend at the local bar, Jason is abducted. He is forced into a SUV at gunpoint, Jason is and told to drive to an old, abandoned powerplant. After being told to strip, he is forced to the basement of the building where he is given different clothes to put on followed by an injection. When he wakes up, he is no longer in the powerplant. He is no longer in his own world, he is in a secret scientific laboratory where he is not married, does not have a child and apparently invented a box, that enables you to visit alternative worlds. You do not go forward or backward in time, just to another alternate world of the same place where you entered the box. In the alternate world he is in, Jason didn't marry Daniela, but stayed in academia and perfected his thesis until it became possible. He wants to return home to Daniela and Charlie but there is a problem. This infinite universe is filled with forks in the road with each fork leading to a different life for Jason Dessen. With a limitless number of paths, how does Jason find the path to lead him back home?

I got sucked into this story right from the start. I wanted to know what was going to happen and how would Jason get back home. The multiple lives he visited were amazing, some sad, some scary and some boring. Towards the end it went a little off the rails, but it is Science Fiction. It makes you think about your own life and what it would be like if you had made different choices along the way. As I said in the beginning, I am not a Sci-Fi reader so that is why I gave it 4 stars, but I am sure if that is your genre or choice, you would have given it 5 stars.

I absolutely loved this book! The whole premise, characters, and situations were very unique. Being a Science nerd, I really enjoyed the Physics references within the pages. I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

Beads of frustrated sweat are forming on my brow as I consider what to say, knowing most of it would qualify as a spoiler. What I *can* safely say is that, just like with The Sixth Sense and Crouch's Wayward Pines, you
should read this now before someone or something spoils it for you. So many people have raved about this book, so you're probably delaying, fearing it won't live up to the hype. Don't hesitate -- just pick this up and read!

Here's a brief summary of what I can disclose:
One evening Jason Dessen is contentedly home with his wife and kids. Later that evening, out on a brief errand, he's abducted and beaten by a man who starts asking him bizarre questions.

When Jason wakes up, he is in a lab he doesn't recognize. Nothing makes sense. He can't remember the people who obviously know and admire him as a prominent scientist. Gut wrenchingly, it also appears he has no happy family life. There is no family at all.

What happened? Where is the good life Jason remembers, and what is this sterile life he finds himself in? The deep and emotional journey Jason must go on to find out who he is and what is real is both thrilling and agonizing.

"Will I keep fighting to be the man I think I am? Or will I disown him and everything he loves, and step into
the skin of the person this world would like for me to be?"

For so many authors, the tension-building is their strength, and a sputtering half-climax is our reward for
barreling toward the end like we're driving a stolen car. However, Crouch's ending for Dark Matter does not
disappoint.

Even though I know what happens, when Dark Matter makes it to the big screen, my heart will be
racing just like everyone else's.

Quirky, I suppose, but a whole lot less interesting that it presents itself and bordering on obnoxious

Good but oddly confusing, might benefit more if the reader was less occupied with trying to keep track of details and more able to focus on the happenings.

I have read every book that Blake Crouch has ever written and watched as his writing has matured from his early quick read slasher novels, were easy reads but not much depth. I normally do not venture out of mystery, thriller genre with a little horror thrown in on the sde.. Blake's latest book, "Dark Matter" demonstrates a whole new level of writing. Not only in genre, but in depth of the protagonists embroiled in a plot that shows great imagination and good amount of suspense. I look forward to his next adventure in fiction.

Wow! What a story. Great for fans of "Sliders" and "Back to the Future". I thought I had it figured out and then it threw me a curve ball. Loved it!

Jason Dessen has a good life. Not the life he once foresaw for himself, that of a brilliant research physicist. But he's married to the love of his life, well employed, and has a wonderful son. Then a masked man assaults Jason, takes him outside of town, drugs him, and when Jason wakes everything has changed. He's still Jason Dessen, but his work in quantum physics was never set aside for a family, the his son never born, the woman he loves is dating his best friend and is a celebrated artist, and the man everyone believes him to be has done the impossible. But some mysteries should never be broken open, and everything is now at risk.


Ok, here's the thing. I wanted to like this book. Alternate-universe, hard science fiction thriller? Sounds amazing. It's not a bad book, though I find it works better as audio rather than print due to a narrative style favoring short, abrupt phrases. But I ended up bored (and to be honest, at times annoyed). It doesn't differentiate itself from any other alternate/parallel/nested universe SF that I've encountered (admittedly, the ones I'm familiar with tend to be films). Seven Monkeys did it well, so did Existenz, or The Thirteenth Floor. Layers within layers, confusing the true reality, and different versions of the protagonist. Maybe this book is so lauded because this sort of narrative is more popular in screenplays than novels? I wanted to be thrilled and surprised, what I got was well written but honestly pretty standard.

Sci-Fi is not my go to genre but boy did this book take me by surprise. I LOVED every word of this story. I can't wait to read more by Crouch.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC of this book.
This was definitely a book that was impossible to put down. I loved the plot, the characters and the action until the end. I could definitely buy the concept of the book and found it compelling until the end when it became almost outlandish and the love story became the most important thing. Nonetheless, worth 4 stars. The writing is not the best but it suits the novel. Definitely worth a read.

Whew, what a wild and exciting read. Never a dull moment with this book. Definitely recommend this book. I can't wait to read other books by this author.

Very fun read. Apparently Roland Emmerich is attached to direct the movie, which doesn't excite me in he least, a director with a cinematic eye such as Rian Johnson or the obvious, Christopher Nolan, given its Inception-like elements, would make the prospect of a filmed adaptation more appealing. That said, read the book, it will only take you a couple of days to finish.

my heart is racing. SO good. Interesting, fast paced, terrifying, overwhelming.