DARK MATTER BY BLAKE CROUCH

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

*****NO SPOILERS, I SWEAR.*****

”What if all the pieces of belief and memory that comprise who I am--my profession, Daniela, my son--are nothing but a tragic misfiring in that gray matter between my ears? 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?

And if I have lost my mind, what then?

What if everything I know is wrong?

No. Stop.

I am not losing my mind.”

There is nothing more frustrating to a reviewer than reading a book that can’t be written about. Almost every piece of information I could give you about this book is a ***spoiler***. Now, my definition of a spoiler and other people’s definition of a spoiler are not always the same, but in the case of this book the less said, the better.

I was very fortunate to watch the movie The Sixth Sense without having a clue about the plot, which is a minor miracle since I’m highly exposed to plots of movies and books, but I was... over the moon... to watch that particular movie without knowing the twist of the plot. So with The Sixth Sense (That plot has nothing to do with this plot, just to be clear.) in mind, I am going to resist the urge to write and write and write about how cool this book is.

The first order of business is to convince your friends to read it with you because you are going to want to discuss this book over numerous bottles of wine and a platter of cheese and pretzels. The cheese and pretzels only so you can drink more wine. It would be cruel and unusual punishment to have a designated driver, so my thought is that you should have this book discussion at someone’s house and bring your PJs. Stay over and maybe, if you have the right reasonably attractive friends, you can have….

”...fumbling, groping, backset-of-the-car, unprotected because who-gives-a-fuck, protons-smashing-together sex.”

So keep that in mind, so that you don’t get TOO DRUNK while discussing this book.

Now, anyone familiar with Blake Crouch should know he is a twisty, a twizzler, a zigzagger, a trickster. He bamboozled me in Wayward Pines, and now he has gone even further with Dark Matter. The great thing about this TWIST is that it isn’t just a one off twist...oh no...this is a twist that keeps wrapping itself around other twists until you start to feel little explosions in your head of all those overloaded brain cells.

It’s okay, you have plenty to spare.

By the end of the book and certainly after the protons-smashing-together sex, you will be fully convinced that “...we’re a part of a much larger and stranger reality than we can possibly imagine.” You will also be convinced that you need to read more Blake Crouch books, so you might as well go ahead and factor that into your book budget and *erhhh* food budget right now.

”What might have been and what
has been
Point to one end, which is always
present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we do
not take
Towards the door we never
Opened.
--T. S. Eliot, ‘Burnt Norton’”

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and Crown Publishers in exchange for an honest review.

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