Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Hi hi hi! It's been so long! How are you? Did you do anything fun this summer? Oh, really? How awesome! {I could continue this conversation for hours.}

Really, all I've been doing is my best to stay out of the heat, and that hasn't gone too well. We had a couple of days where it looked like it would be a miserable summer, and then it cleared up, and then it was like, just kidding, here's a few more hundred degree days, have a good time!

Mother Nature, right?

Anyway, one way I've been staying semi-cool is by reading, and I'm so sorry that I left this book until the very last minutes {it comes out tomorrow}.

“Are you happy with your life?” Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man Jason’s never met smiles down at him and says, “Welcome back, my friend.”

In this world he’s woken up to, Jason’s life is not the one he knows. His wife is not his wife. His son was never born. And Jason is not an ordinary college physics professor but a celebrated genius who has achieved something remarkable--something impossible.

Is it this world or the other that’s the dream? And even if the home he remembers is real, how can Jason possibly make it back to the family he loves? The answers lie in a journey more wondrous and horrifying than anything he could’ve imagined—one that will force him to confront the darkest parts of himself even as he battles a terrifying, seemingly unbeatable foe. 

To say that this book was a trip would be entirely accurate. It was confusing {in the best way!} and had me guessing until the very end. There were some moments where I had to read the last few pages again because I couldn't remember who I was with and where we were. 

Oh man, this is going to be so difficult to avoid spoilers.

Jason Dessen is happy enough with his lot in life: a beautiful, loving wife that gave up her art career to raise their child; a son that hasn't yet reached those terrible teenage years of disowning his parents; and he's teaching what he loves at a good college. Then he's kidnapped, thrown inside a box, and wakes up in a world that knows him, but he certainly doesn't know it.

Thus begins the crazy tornado of confusion that is Jason Dessen's life. The people around him in this new world love him, revere him, because he has invented something that could change the entire world. The only problem is, this Jason doesn't know what the hell that Jason has done, and when this Jason tries to find his way back to his own life, the people that once respected him begin to hunt him down.

I can't even pinpoint one single thing that I love in this book. The mystery is intriguing, because you wonder {spoiler-y}, if my spouse had been replaced with someone that looked, acted, sounded, and essentially was exactly like him, would I be able to tell the difference? Then the book takes a turn for the worse and suddenly, Jason finds his life far too crowded. He thinks that he might have to do the unfathomable, and some others already beat him to it. It's insane to sit there and think what you would do if put in Jason's situation, and then wonder if something like this might already be happening. Basically, this book makes your brain hurt in ways that it didn't know it could hurt, and that's the mark of a great book.

I especially enjoyed reading about Jason trying to get back to HIS Chicago. You never really think about the things in your town that make it yours. I figured that if I had to make it home, I'd lay down placemarkers and street names, and bada bing, there's my home. But that's not the case in this book. One wrong turn, one negative emotion, could ruin "home" forever. 

Argh! I'm trying so hard not to give anything away, but it's so difficult. Lucky for you, like I said earlier, this book comes out tomorrow, so I would definitely recommend it go on your TBR list. 

The Memory Book by Lara Avery

You know those weeks where you think you did something and then you just go on about your life like that thing is done? Yeah, that's what this post is. I convinced myself that I had written this review last week, and then, poof! I didn't. But I really wanted to, because this book is amazing and I want to cry just thinking about it, and the best part is you don't have to wait because it comes out today!

They tell me that my memory will never be the same, that I'll start forgetting things. At first just a little, and then a lot. So I'm writing to remember.

Sammie was always a girl with a plan: graduate at the top of her class and get out of her small town as soon as humanly possible. Nothing will stand in her way--not even a rare genetic disorder the doctors say will slowly start to steal her memories and then her health. What she needs is a new plan.

So the Memory Book is born: Sammie's notes to her future self, a document of moments great and small. It's where she'll record every perfect detail of her first date with longtime crush, Stuart--a brilliant young writer who is home for the summer. And where she'll admit how much she's missed her childhood best friend, Cooper, and even take some of the blame for the fight that ended their friendship.

Through a mix of heartfelt journal entries, mementos, and guest posts from friends and family, readers will fall in love with Sammie, a brave and remarkable girl who learns to live and love life fully, even though it's not the life she planned. 

NetGalley sent me an email about this book because I had read Lara Avery's other amazing book, A Million Miles Away. That one had been a tearjerker, and I don't know why I was expecting any different with this one.

Sammie tells us straight off what's wrong with her: she has a rare disease that affects her brain and that will kill her sooner rather than later. Due to this, she has decided to live her life the best way that she can. That means going to parties with her debate partner that she has kept at a distance, telling her crush how much she likes him, and doing stupid childish things with her childhood best friend Cooper. Sammie write this book to help her remember what she has done, because she thinks that this will help her beat the disease that is determined to take her life.

There were too many fun and laughable moments in this book for it to be really sad. I mean, she starts off the book with a quiz for future Sammie, and tells her that the person writing this journal "fell asleep briefly while you were writing and dreamed you were making out with James Monroe, the fifth president and arbiter of the Monroe Doctrine." 

How can you not love her? 

Sammie really put her all into living life and watching her do so made me smile. She knew she had this disease that would ravage her health and her brain, but she didn't dwell on it. She went on with her life and tried new things, connecting with people that she hadn't talked to in years. I think the best part of the book, for me, was seeing something that super smart Sammie didn't see until the end. It's painfully obvious to the reader, and watching Sammie miss it makes her that much more real. You want to hug her and tell her it's going to be okay, but that would be near impossible because Sammie is tough. She doesn't need anyone to tell her it's going to be okay, because she knows it isn't.

Cooper was fabulous. A little stoner boy that had been struggling through school, he latches back onto Sammie when he finds out about her disease. But he never treats her like she's some invalid. He treats her like Sammie, which is different than everyone else when they find out. He only wants to hang out with her and make her happy, because he doesn't know how much time she has left. He seems to telepathically understand what Sammie wants and he does it for her, no questions asked. My favorite bits were when he took over Sammie's journal and wrote the memories that she missed. He was also the reason I started hysterically bawling like a baby. 

The other cast of characters - Mrs. T {the guidance counselor}, Stuart Shah {the crush}, Maddie {the debate partner} - turn this from a book into real life. They keep Sammie moving forward and learning more about herself than she would have if she had been intent on curing her disease. They cheer her on and sometimes hold her back. They teach her as much as she teaches them. 

It's gorgeous, okay? This whole book is so much wonderful wrapped between the cover. Lara Avery is a goddess and everything she writes is beautiful and tearful and I want to read everything she will ever write. 

Now I'm going to go calm myself down with a little Game of Thrones.