Title: Dark Matter
Author: Blake Crouch
Pages: 352
Read via: Hardcover/Kindle
Summary: A college physics professor is abducted, injected with a mysterious substance, and then wakes up in an alternate version of his life. The book chronicles his harrowing attempts to return to his original timeline.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Minor spoilers below…

Review: This is a taut thriller that reads very quickly. Short staccato sentences bring an urgency to the narrative and kept me hooked as a reader. It reads like a movie, which is why it’s not surprising that author Blake Crouch has already signed a lucrative movie deal with Sony for the rights to the film version. I can picture Bradley Cooper or Matt Damon occupying the role of Jason Dessen, stopping at nothing to return to his wife and son. Much like a movie, it feels like you owe it to the material to finish it in two hours or at least one sitting.

It is certainly a unique piece of fiction that oftentimes reminded me of other films that possessed shared elements: the quantum physics of Interstellar, the mind bending worlds of Inception, the twisty reveals of The Prestige, the emotional heft and plot beats of About Time, It’s A Wonderful Life, and even Adam Sandler’s Click.

My only reservation in giving this a full blown 5-star review was the ending. It made sense and concluded in a way that it needed to, but it also felt predictable and a bit hollow. I was hoping for one final twist or revelation that never came. Other than that, this was a gripping, edge-of-your-seat, popcorn movie thriller that easily positions itself as one of my favorite books of 2016.

★★★★½ out of 5
✪ SPECULATIVE SHELF STARRED BOOK