Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

147 reviews

calliebuczkowski's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Kidnapping, Stalking, Abortion, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic

tyras_bookshelf's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I really liked the book, fast paced and entertaining even if the science felt like nonsense at times.

It’s mostly sci-fi but the overall theme of the book is like “choose love” but also “life is full of choices and we have to be okay with ours”.  

*spoilers ahead*

The ending was too open ended to be enjoyable to me. Knowing the elements of the box (and the rules that the book set up), I don’t trust that they are just safe at the end. Charlie came back around to be such a central part of the ending when he barely felt like a character throughout the book so that didn’t feel realistic either. I think it would have been more poetic for Daniela to have chosen the world. Ryan should have been a bigger part of the story too. 

The book was actually pretty violent and weirdly sexual at times- or like too focused on it. I thought it was interesting that Daniela could only tell Jason1 was the real one by having sex with him. 

Crouch kinda wrote himself into a hole with the Jason’s outthinking themselves because if they’re the same then why wouldn’t all the Jason’s have come to that same conclusion? but I’m choosing to believe that jason1 was so fundamentally attached to his world that he was the only one who could think that way to outsmart the others. 

Some of the plot points weren’t explained away well enough like letting all the other Jason’s get to v1 world was too easy and I didn’t track how that happened. And the ending was like “and they all lived happily ever after”. Yes, there was a bunch of murder at the end but we don’t get to see the new world they walk into? After all that build up, the payoff didn’t feel as sweet. 

I liked it, I recommend but much of the science and prose was quickly skipped over so I could stay with the plot. Overall, pretty good read and very creative.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Medical content, Kidnapping, Stalking, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Sexual content

michael_richter's review against another edition

emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, and Murder

Moderate: Stalking and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Abortion

courtney_g's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

This book can certainly be triggering at times. There are a lot of graphic scenes that are described in very strong detail. I felt this made the book so much stronger but it could absolutely make it tough to read for others. I really enjoyed this book and will go on to recommend it to many other thriller-loving friends. Now to see if the movie is up to par with the book (it almost never is, haha).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Gun violence, and Murder

Moderate: Kidnapping and Pandemic/Epidemic

cardanrry's review against another edition

dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, and Murder

dev921's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

megwatrin's review against another edition

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Loved it, except for the ending and the plot hole: 

How come did Jason2 send Jason1 back to his world? They had no explanation for it.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic

allisonwatt89's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Kidnapping, and Murder

amsswim's review against another edition

emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is science fiction I would recommend to everyone. Great read. Makes you reflect on everything you have done in your life as well.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Drug use, Gun violence, Terminal illness, Medical content, Medical trauma, Stalking, and Death of parent

Minor: Cancer, Chronic illness, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, and Car accident

lemilysnikda's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I wanted sci-fi but got thriller and… romance? I went into this with no context, which is my fault, because I’m not a fan of thrillers. I think if you enjoy thrillers and want to dabble in some sci-fi elements, you may really enjoy this. 

*spoilers from this point on*

Great concepts, dull characters, fine execution. This could also be me being really late to the party here, but I’ve consumed so much media in recent years with the concept of a multiverse that interesting ideas alone can’t do it for me. Here, I think the protagonist was intended to be likable, but I actually found him to be pretty annoying and almost always two steps behind.

I’m also super picky about romance, and the way Jason Desson thinks about his wife is like he loves her as a concept but not as an individual. Exemplified by the fact that he was cool with getting with his wife’s doppelgänger and how he continually fixated on other versions of her knowing they weren’t her. Also why couldn’t he and Amanda be totally platonic?

I would’ve liked to have seen more development of Jason 2 and Amanda. Or maybe his son that he barely thinks about until they’re reunited.

Maybe not my cup of tea, but still a good story and easy quick listen on a long drive.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Torture, Blood, Kidnapping, and Murder

Minor: Abortion