No fancy image for this post yet. I’m trying something new.
First published: September 16, 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.
The “love story” element from the romance genre is the most apparent trope present in the novel as Jason is struggling to return home to his wife in his original universe. Will he succeed is yet to be discovered, but if it’s a happy ending then it will fit that trop of two people in love who are torn apart but reunite to live happily ever after. Michaels states, “A romance novel is the story of a man and a woman [or any two individuals] who, while they’re solving a problem that threatens to keep them apart, discover that the love they feel for each other is the sorts that comes along only once in a lifetime; this discovery leads to a permanent commitment and a happy ending” (Michaels, “Studying the Romance Novel”).
There are a few romance fiction tropes also present in Dark Matter which according to MasterClass include the “stuck together” trope, “the love triangle” trope as described earlier, the “friends to lovers” trope, and the “second chance” trope (MasterClass, “7 Popular Romance Fiction Tropes to Keep Your Readers Hooked”). Towards the end of the novel, Jason reunites with his wife, Daniela, and his son, Charlie, who all run away from their home. On the run from the alternate Jason and all the other alternate Jasons of the multiverse, it becomes clear to Jason and Daniela that they are stuck together for better or worse whether it mean living on the run for the rest of their lives or until one of them is dead. I have already alluded to the “love triangle” trope previously so I will move on to the “friends to lovers” trope.
Along the way and across the different parallel universes, Jason meets alternate versions of his wife, and through one of these interactions he relives a new way of falling in love from becoming friends with the alternate version of his wife to becoming lovers. There is one part I like in particular in which Crouch writes, “She isn’t the mother of my son, she isn’t my wife, we haven’t made a life together, but I love her all the same, and not just the version of Daniela that exists in my head, in my history” (Crouch 104). This reminds me of the song “Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads and the possibility of endless possibilities. Lastly, the “second chance” trope comes from Jason’s ability to reunite once more with his wife whom hey thought he’d never see again, and in her choice to either stick with him or reject him for the alternate Jason, she chooses him instead.
The main young adult fiction trope that is present in Dark Matter is Jason’s struggle with self-identity and trying to figure out who he really is to return home, to discover what he has lost and how to get it back and appreciate it. There is also the trope of “hope” that the main character is determined and hopeful that he can fix his circumstances without help from anyone else. We can even go so far as to add the dystopian setting trope of young adult fiction to Crouch’s novel as Desson travels across universes that are unnatural to his own. Kruse states, “Dystopian societies set challenges for the protagonist that young adults would not typically face, and can better enhance the tension and stakes, leading to a more fast-paced narrative with a climactic ending” (Kruse, “Popular YA Tropes for Your Novel and How to Write Them”).
Other elements of young adult fiction, based off The YA Shelf, that are present in Dark Matter include “the love triangle,” “love conquers all,” “the amnesia trope,” “the mistaken identity trope,” and “dystopian cliches and tropes” (The YA Shelf, “50 YA Fiction Tropes and Cliches We Can’t Get Enough Of”). Jason is kidnapped and transported to an alternate universe by his alternate identity. Since this becomes a fight between the two Jasons for their wife, Daniela, this can be seen as “the love triangle” for there can only be two and one of the Jasons will stop at nothing from tearing the other two apart. This ties into “love conquers all” because the original Jason will do whatever it takes to get back the woman he loves and save her from the alternate Jason.
“The amnesia trope” ties in since the original Jason wakes up in an alternate universe and can’t remember all the details of how he got there and must go off clues to retrieve his memory of what happened the night he was kidnapped. The last YA element, “dystopian cliches and tropes” is accomplished by all the alternate universes that Jason travels to while attempting to return to his own; along this journey he encounters a post-apocalyptic world infected by a deadly virus and a world that appears to be desolate in the aftermath of nuclear war among a few other worlds. One of my favorite lines from the novel is the moment Amanda tells Jason in regard to the infinite possibilities and odds of him finding his home universe, “We’re not getting closer, Jason. The world you’re looking for is a grain of sand on an infinite beach” (Crouch 233).
Finally, the speculative fiction tropes present in Dark Matter span over various topics including the “alternate universe,” trope, the “multiverse,” trope, the “scale of scientific sins,” and the “which me” trope among others (TV Tropes, “Speculative Fiction Tropes”). The entire novel’s premise of Jason having an alternate version of himself along with infinite other versions of himself spread across a multiverse of infinite universes is riddled with elements of speculative fiction. All these possibilities are created by one serum that his alternate version created in the name of science and fame which lead to a climax where all of the alternate Jasons of the multiverse converge on the original Jason in search of winning over his wife. All of this is what makes Dark Matter a speculative fiction novel.
The entire story is one big allusion to Schrödinger’s Cat which is even mentioned in the novel. Crouch writes, “Staring at the box is like seeing a failed dream raised from the dead. My work in my late twenties involved a box much like this one. Only it was a one-inch cube designed to put a macroscopic object into superposition” (Crouch 122). Jason is describing the large cube that one goes into before taking the serum that creates the superposition state that allows the person to travel to alternate realties.
Works Cited
“7 Popular Romance Fiction Tropes to Keep Your Readers Hooked.” MasterClass, https://www.masterclass.com/articles/popular-romance-fiction-tropes-to-keep-your-readers-hooked. Accessed 22 Mar. 2023.
“50 YA Fiction Tropes and Cliches We Can’t Get Enough Of!” The YA Shelf, https://www.theyashelf.com/50-ya-fiction-tropes-and-cliches.htm. Accessed 22 Mar. 2023.
Crouch, Blake. Dark Matter. New York, Broadway Books, 2016.
Kruse, Amanda. “Popular YA Tropes for Your Novel and How to Write Them.” Hot Ghost Writer, https://hotghostwriter.com/blogs/blog/popular-ya-tropes-for-your-novel-and-how-to-write-them. Accessed 22 Feb. 2023.
Michaels, Leigh. “Studying the Romance Novel.” Writer’s Digest, https://www.writersdigest.com/wd-books/on-writing-romance-excerpt. Accessed 22 Feb. 2023.
“Speculative Fiction Tropes.” TV Tropes, https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpeculativeFictionTropes. Accessed 22 Mar. 2023.
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