For October, our Virtual Book Club (which occurs on Facebook and if you’d like to join in just let me know and I’ll get you added) voted to read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch and it’s going to be completely impossible to talk about this book without spoilers. I promise to only give you the mildest spoilers possible. Nothing that gives away a big reveal or the ending. Scout’s honor. Though I am not a scout of any kind so do with that what you will. And one more thing before we get into it, all the links in this post are affiliate links through Amazon. Here we go!

So, Dark Matter tells the story of Jason Dessen. Jason is a scientist who once had really big dreams and aspirations but because life happens the way it does and we make choices all day every day, now he’s a soft family man in Chicago teaching at a local college. He’s happy and grateful and in love with his family but can’t help occasionally wondering what life would have been like if he’d developed those big ideas.

One night, he’s out celebrating with a friend who just received a prestigious award that he’d always dreamed of getting, himself. On his way home, Jason is abducted by a masked man -yaddayaddayadda- the guy injects him with a drug and he’s is knocked out. Next thing he knows, he’s waking up in a world that’s familiar but completely different from what he’d always known. The rest of the book is spent trying desperately to get back to the life that he’d left behind.

Okay, so that wasn’t too many spoilers. In fact, I’m pretty proud of myself! Implementing the Seinfeld yaddayaddayadda device is key in avoiding spoilers. I’ll keep that in mind for future book reviews.

I really loved this book. It’s action packed from start to finish and it’s not too heady–which is good for me. I tend to go towards very deep, long character studies and sometimes your girl just needs to bust out of her go-to genre.
I got this as an audiobook because I had a 6 hour car ride ahead of me and because I don’t really follow action/ adventure books that well when I’m reading them. I do much better with a storyteller in this case.

The book brings so many different ideas up. I loved talking about this in our book club discussion because everyone seemed to read it just a little bit differently than the others.

For me, this really kicked up thoughts about the way there are so many different identities that live inside of us. None of us are strictly good or bad. We’re complex and often contradictory people and in various contexts, we’re truly capable of anything. Even things that are “so unlike” us. Wasn’t it Walt Whitman who said, “Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes.”

Do you know how many times in the past few months that I’ve been told that my behavior is so unlike me? Well, that is my response. I contain multitudes. And so do you! Isn’t it great?!

My favorite review of this book on Goodreads was very succinct: This book f**ked me up.

Next month we’re getting into A Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry. This is another book that’s very different from what I usually go after. Here’s a blurb to give you the vaguest idea of what we’re about to get into: “Samantha Mabry’s magical debut is both a chilling mystery and a heartbreaking meditation on love, longing, and sacrifice . . . A Fierce and Subtle Poison will get into your blood.” —Laura Ruby,  author of Bone Gap.

Don’t forget to check out Staci’s review of Dark Matter!

Do you ever find surprises when you move outside of your go-to genre for reading? I love it when that happens.
XOXO, Lib

[Featured photo from Unsplash.com]