Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Dark Matter is the thriller you are not going to want to put down, and in fact, may not be able to. Blake Crouch has written good books before, but Dark Matter is his best, most complete, and most satisfying novel to date.

Dark Matter is the story of Jason Dessen, a university professor with a beautiful wife and son who goes out one night for a drink and wakes up in a different life. Not just a different life, but his own life, minus the wife and kid and instead of a teaching job, the greatest professional success in his field he’d ever imagined. Jason is desperate to return to the life he knew and be reunited with his family.

This book is a scientifically plausible and fascinating thriller with amazing concepts and page-turning action. What really grounds this book, though, are the strong characters and relationships. Jason tries to reconstruct what has happened to him and find a way back to the woman and son he loves. This takes him down a path that is both mind-blowing and thrilling. There are a number of twists and turns in this book, a few of which you might see but most of which will just blow your mind.

Dark Matter explores the choices we make and how these choices are both influenced by who we are and influence who we become. It does this in the context of a story filled with characters you care about and does it at a thriller’s pace. I enjoy a fast paced thriller, which this is, but the character depth is what takes this book to the next level.

Blake Crouch has written his best book to date and one of the best thrillers of the year. He’s displaying all his skills and joins some of the best writers in the field today. Fans of Harlan Coben, Michael Crichton, Joseph Finder and thriller lovers in general will find a lot to like in this book. If you’ve ever wondered about the road not taken, you’re going to want to read this book. Highly recommended!

I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of this book.

Description: “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. Hiswife 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.

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