My friend has a super sweet book subscription and she is nice enough to share with me, so that means I got to read a sci-fi thriller that I’d never heard of written by someone I’d also never heard of! But this is a good thing. It’s expanded my horizons and if I really didn’t want to read it I would have told her so, but I trust her book judgement. And I was right to! Dark Matter by Blake Crouch was pretty awesome.
The book follows father and husband, Jason, who despite giving up on some potentially life changing science in his twenties, gave that all up to be with the woman of his dreams and raise a family. He seems to have no regrets, even after running into an old college friend who seemingly stole his thunder by winning a prestigious prize in the scientific community. You quickly forget about that, though, because Jason is getting kidnapped and drugged.
Oh yeah, he’s also getting sent to an alternate universe. The multiverse to be more precise. He figures out that his early works were morphed into something successful in this other world, but that means he pursued science and not the domesticated life he created with Daniela and Charlie. While intrigued, this is not Jason’s life, so he needs to get back to his real one. With the help of a rogue colleague, they try just that.
The book drops these two into some pretty dystopian environments, and while some are tolerable, Jason is almost going crazy trying to get back to his real home. And they’re running out of time. Jason alone eventually finds success, but that’s still only half the battle won. In the most trippiest moment, he realizes that there are dozens of himself in this world all trying to get to his family. Some wild twists go down at the end to match all of the twists that occur throughout the novel, so this is quite a satisfying read.
With all of the action and having zero clue what was going to happen next, I devoured this book pretty quickly. It’s also really inspired me to pick up more of Crouch’s novels (I learned he wrote the book that inspired Wayward Pines!). Once I learned that there were multiple Jason’s, I was immediately reminded of the Netflix comedy I watched earlier this year, Living With Yourself. While not really that identical, there were still two Paul Rudd’s fighting for the same life. I enjoyed that show, so it’s no surprise I enjoyed this book, too.