Sleepless by Louise Mumford #BookReview

Thea is an insomniac; she hasn’t slept more than three hours a night for years.

So when an ad for a sleep trial that promises to change her life pops up on her phone, Thea knows this is her last chance at finding any kind of normal life.

Soon Thea’s sleeping for longer than she has in a decade, and awakes feeling transformed. So much so that at first she’s willing to overlook the oddities of the trial – the lack of any phone signal; the way she can’t leave her bedroom without permission; the fact that all her personal possessions are locked away, even her shoes.

But it soon becomes clear that the trial doesn’t just want to help Thea sleep. It wants to control her sleep.

Title: Sleepless | Author: Louise Mumford | Publisher: HQ Digital | Pub. Date: 11th December 2020 | Pages: 384 | ASIN: B08JB2XVVM | Genre: Science Fiction | Language: English | Starred Review: No | Source: Publisher

Sleepless Review

I should start to judge books by their covers, because the cover of ‘Sleepless’ is the cover of a book I wouldn’t like. I did, indeed, not like it, but I had to find that out by reading it which I now regret. Lesson: be more judgey, Olly. Everything about this book speaks to things that annoy me about modern publishing. It has an intriguing concept that’s poorly used, it lazily compares itself to other things, it has lots of short chapters that end with cliffhangers or revelations but no real plot. In other words, it’s another mediocre thriller that the publishers are hyping way beyond what it deserves. Indeed, the full title of the book on Amazon is ‘Sleepless: An unputdownable psychological thriller for fans of The One and Black Mirror‘. It is not unputdownable and it is nothing like ‘Black Mirror’. It is not a psychological thriller, more like a half-baked medical thriller that wants to be sci fi. I haven’t read ‘The One’, so I can’t comment on similarities to ‘The One’. Although, I did read another book by the same author which I found to be a mediocre, over-hyped thriller, so maybe it is a valid comparison.

I think the story goes something like this, but it was hard to take in or retain. There’s a woman called Thea who has trouble sleeping. She gets involved with an obviously shady organisation (they’re called Morpheus, FFS) who are doing sleep studies on some remote island. It all gets scary and there’s some weird science I didn’t really understand. Her mum is in it too and provides “comic relief” by being overbearing and having a scarf with pictures of vaginas on it.

So in summary: I found the plot boring and confusing. The characters all blended into one. Cliches are liberally used (storms, faces at windows, etc). The concepts are poorly developed. I was glad to finish it.

On the plus side, it might be the perfect antidote for insomnia.

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You can find this book at many retailers via clicking on the appropriate link on Goodreads (Buying direct from retailers is a good way to support indie authors); however, in the spirit of supporting literacy programs, we would like to point out that you may be able to purchase this book through BetterWorldBooks.