Are You Sleeping

Are You Sleeping? is based on an interesting premise - does our society's obsession with true crime help keep our justice system accountable or unnecessarily upset and intrude upon a family's private grief? Unfortunately the inclusion of a true crime podcast and social media responses (via tweets, Reddit feeds, and transcripts of the podcast itself) were the most interesting part of this novel for me. The characters, while not entirely unbelievable, fell flat for me. I was massively annoyed with the one-sided relationship the protagonist, Josie, had with her significant other, Caleb. It quickly became tiresome listening to her complain that “he's too good” and “she never understood what he saw in her.” It all got a bit schmaltzy for me and after a while I started to hope they'd split up just so I wouldn't have to listen to her talk about how little she deserved him. This book wasn't particularly dark and was more mystery than suspense with no graphic violence. Overall it's a decent debut with an interesting story line that had some unique aspects.

(Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.)