No fancy image for this post yet. I’m trying something new.
First published: September 13, 2025 by Paul W. Romero
Preface: These three Dark Matter blogs were originally written from February 8, 2023 through March 22, 2023 in a series of discussion posts for my MFA Creative Writing program. I compiled them into what I hope is a coherent review.
From my middle school days and well into my late twenties, YA was my preferred genre of fiction. I loved everything from The Hunger Games to Divergent and other stories such as The Virgin Suicides, The Fault in Our Stars, and of course Harry Potter (one can argue that they are middle grade novels but after The Goblet of Fire I think they could pass for YA). As I entered my thirties, I became obsessed with horror novels, and now pushing into my mid-thirties, I’ve become fascinated with thriller suspense novels. I’m not sure if this is just part of life where we go through phases and our genres reflect our life moods.
This is the reason I chose to read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. I’ve read works by Michael Crichton and Dan Brown, but I have never heard of Blake Crouch. The opening of Dark Matter felt slow because I’m not entirely sure what the novel is about, but since the first few pages, the story has been taking off and now I can’t stop reading it.
Pacing will keep the story going like a rollercoaster ride; not too fast but not too slow either giving the reader adequate breaks between scenes of high intensity. Along with pacing, character building is another crucial element. Character driven stories are my preference because if we don’t care about the characters, I don’t think we will really care much about the story.
If we don’t care about the characters, I don’t think we will really care much about the story.
It also helps to have a strong hook to keep the reader engaged. If I can’t make it past the first page, I can tell the story isn’t going to be for me. Freeman lists a few reasons why opening lines fail such as, “excessive description, irrelevant information, and introducing too many characters” (Freeman, “6 Ways to Hook Your Readers from the Very First Line”). There are television shows that I couldn’t get past the first episode due to too many things being crammed at once which led me to feel overwhelmed and confused. In some stories I have attempted to read, too much description and information all at once has led me to turn away as well. One famous example was The Tommyknockers by Stephen King, which is overdone with exposition and exhausting to read. I believe even King himself admitted in an interview that he could cut out a good portion of the novel and it would still make sense.
Freeman lists a few reasons why opening lines fail such as, “excessive description, irrelevant information, and introducing too many characters” (Freeman, “6 Ways to Hook Your Readers from the Very First Line”).
Of course, there are rare exceptions such as with Dark Matter which I am shocked to believe got infinitely better after the first few pages. Heightened emotions and relatable characters are crucial elements from young adult fiction that can and must also be used in other genres as well. As a word of caution, I will tread carefully when incorporating different genre elements together. McArdle states, “The other thing the author needs in order to have a blend truly work is a real love of the genres being used. If the genre is being used ironically or is thrown in for variety, it is not going to work well as a blend. Readers will know” (McArdle xvii).
The beginning chapter opens with a description of the last normal day of the main protagonist, Jason Dessen’s life. The material was a bit dry starting off, but after a few sentences into the first chapter, Crouch writes, “Standing happy and slightly drunk in my kitchen, I’m unaware that tonight is the end of all of this. The end of everything I know, everything I love” (Crouch 1). It wasn’t until a few pages later in the novel that things began to get interesting for me when the main character is stalked and abducted by an unknown assailant. Since then, I haven’t been able to stop reading the novel.
I think the author did a great job of starting off the story, despite my short attention span in the beginning. He shows us the last good day of the main character’s life to be used later on to compare how different his world has become. The author hooks us with the line previously cited in which the main character says this will be the last normal day of his life which leaves us the readers curious as to why he would say this and what is going to happen. The author also uses a variety of tropes used in other thriller novels including suspense, pacing, action, and characters who have battles that are not only physical but psychological as well. TV Tropes states, “A thriller is a genre in visual media and literature which focuses on action, fast pacing, tension, and suspense…Thrillers can overlap with almost any other genre” (“Thriller”).
TV Tropes also states, “A Psychological Thriller is centered around the characters, their thoughts, their motivations, and their behavior. It’s not what the characters are doing that’s so disturbing, it’s their reasons for doing so. Most commonly, one of the main characters is mentally unstable. Either a character’s instability is causing trouble for others, or the other characters are targeting an unstable person” (“Psychological Thriller”). Lastly, TV Tropes states, “Philosophical and ethical issues are often explored in Psychological Thrillers. Common narrative devices used to facilitate the exploration of the characters’ psyches are Back Story, Character Narrator, and Battle of Wits” (“Psychological Thriller”).
When Jason is kidnapped, the pacing increases. The author accomplishes this by shifting from longer paragraphs to shorter sentences. He also includes more dialogue during tense moments and longer passages between settings to give the reader a bit of breathing room to digest all the information being given. I can’t fully do the writing justice without using up an entire page to show the shorter lines of suspense and tension, but an example from the text is when Jason is reflecting on his situation as the kidnapper leads him to an abandoned area of town. Crouch writes, “Easy. Because I’m afraid. So afraid I can barely walk upright. And my thoughts are fractured and teeming. I understand now why victims don’t fight back. I cannot imagine trying to overcome this man. Trying to run…. No. I have to do something” (Crouch 24).
The ending line to the first chapter has Jason asking his kidnapper what happens next after Jason has been injected with an unknown serum. As Jason blacks out, the kidnapper simply responds, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you” (Crouch 30). This is a great cliffhanger and wonderful way to begin the novel as it immediately drew me deeper into the story wanting to know what happens next. A slow start but Crouch raised the stakes almost immediately in the first chapter and turned the main character’s world upside down in thirty pages.
The author did a good job on building the main character and supporting characters for the novel. When the novel begins, we Jason Desson is a family man who will witness the last normal day of his life. He is kidnapped by an unknown attacker and injected with a mysterious serum. As we dive deeper into the story, we discover that Jason is in an alternate reality from his own, a multiverse in which he has switched places with the alternate-Jason, who has gone back home and taken his place and who was also his attacker. We discover that Jason has multiple issues but that he very much loves his family and wants more than anything to be with them. He wanted to be a world-renowned scientist and didn’t really appreciate the simple life that he had until it was taken away from him. By then it was too late.
Jason struggles to find a way back home but is realizing that the road back home isn’t so simple or linear as there are an infinite number of possible universes, and his own universe is a grain of sand in a vast endless desert of universes. Through Jason’s various actions, we see more and more what type of person he is. The author does a great job of showing rather than telling which keeps the reader turning the pages in anticipation of what will happen next, as each action that Jason takes has a butterfly effect that will have consequences for better or worse.
Through Jason’s various actions, we see more and more what type of person he is.
I can clearly say that the character development certainly keeps my interest as a reader as each scene has Jason making a decision that makes me understand more and more what kind of person he is and spoiler alert, his decisions aren’t great; his decisions are flawed which leads to his circumstances getting infinitely worse. The author also sprinkles little details into the story about Jason’s personality which are not forced but great to see like clues to a bigger mystery such as the Emergency Room doctor, Dr. Springer reading Jason’s alter-ego’s biography, and meeting the alternate egos of the people he knew from his own universe which give him glimpses of what his reality could have been had he made different choices than the ones he made.
Works Cited
Crouch, Blake. Dark Matter. New York, Broadway Books, 2016.
Freeman, Suzannah Windsor. “6 Ways to Hook Your Readers from the Very First Line.” Write It Sideways, https://writeitsideways.com/6-ways-to-hook-your-readers-from-the-very-first-line. Accessed 07 Feb. 2023.
Megan M. McArdle. The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Genre Blends. ALA Editions, 2015. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=847011&site=eds-live&scope=site.
“Psychological Thriller.” TV Tropes, tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PsychologicalThriller. Accessed 8 Feb. 2023.
“Thriller.” TV Tropes, tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Thriller. Accessed 8 Feb. 2023.
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Paul W Romero 