A review by nikrib
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

How this managed to have such positive reviews and a tv adaptation is beyond me. Hopefully this narrative translates better on screen than it did for however many pages of misogynist and overplayed chaotic multiverse drama readers trudge through to get to the (happy?) ending. The characters are all flat, insufferable and static. The female characters essentially have no role other than debuting every time this author needs to sprinkle misogyny into the narrative and painfully attempt to intertwine family values (or lack thereof). The protagonist is said to be incredibly smart but hates his life. Then multiverse jump to now he wants his old life back. Then multiverse jump again to he’s banging his wife (but also not his wife)? What is the true overall moral here? No, I didn’t “miss it” or fail to “recognize it”, there just isn’t a decent moral written here. The descriptive language is atrocious and I sincerely hope the author’s other books aren’t also written in this fashion. From the very first chapter readers can already tell this book is written by a “man’s man”. ..Yeehaw.. There seems to be a consensus amongst the positive reviews that readers who enjoyed this book just like multiverse concepts, sci-fi, and so on. Well, sure, but does that really hold on its own? There’s plenty of books and media that deliver on multiverse concepts. This wasn’t it. I almost DNF a few times when the narrative was excruciatingly slow and counterintuitive, but I pressed on due to my wife and I wanting to watch the tv show adaptation (it had a decent commercial!). 
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