Author: Aprilynne Pike
Publication Date: April 29th 2014
~A copy was provided by HarperTeen and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review~
~A copy was provided by HarperTeen and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review~
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The blockbuster film Inception meets Lisa McMann's Wake trilogy in this dark paranormal thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Aprilynne Pike. This novel is also perfect for fans of Kelley Armstrong, Alyson Noel, and Kimberly Derting.Charlotte Westing has a gift. She is an Oracle and has the ability to tell the future. But it doesn't do her much good. Instead of using their miraculous power, modern-day Oracles are told to fight their visions—to refrain from interfering. And Charlotte knows the price of breaking the rules. She sees it every day in her wheelchair-bound mother and the absence of her father. But when a premonition of a classmate's death is too strong for her to ignore, Charlotte is forced to make an impossible decision: continue following the rules or risk everything—even her sanity—to stop the serial killer who is stalking her town.
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No. It's not.
On the mystery side of things...not that good. I didn't guess right, that's a good thing but it was just really...I don't know. I was waiting for this Oh when you realise who it is, but it didn't have the shock factor, adding in all the other lack factors, it didn't really make all that sense with who it was.
My head did not sign up for this. I probably won't even rate
it until I finish this review, whereas I normally know around the 3/4 what
rating it's going to be.
I'm not sure where to start, hell, I'm not sure if this is a
positive or negative review right now, but I'll start with something simple.
Sleep No More. Quite accurate. I'd never want to sleep again either. Now, this
lovely comes from Goodreads, " Lisa McMann's Wake trilogy meets the
blockbuster Inception" In a way, okay. But in five
words? Hell to the fucking no. It's so misleading, because this is powerful and
more personal than anything and that
makes it sound like it's this epic rollercoaster ride.No. It's not.
It's a rollercoaster mindfuck alright, but it's neither, it's epic and
emotionally disarming. And it needs a warning label.
I'm saying it's brilliant, in essence it is, and it's daring and dark and
real. This shit- the subject,
bluntly, is ugly. It is. It's horror. It's insane. It's nightmares. And the
scariest part of all is that it's real. At
the heart of Sleep No More, it is real. I'll
get to the other stuff in a minute, which is also why I'm so undecided with it
because while it is all that, and while it could've just been all of that, it made it into something
that's detached from reality, something that is such an important topic and
made into something that feeling of it's
not real.
And that's my main problem with it.
While this could've been one of those important
books. A one you don't forget. One you could learn from. It had it, right
there. It was an example.
Then it destroyed it by adding that paranormal aspect. Don't get me
wrong, having that aspect cloaked it, but the thing was it didn't have to be cloaked. It's a raw book. I've repeatedly said
it's real,
and it's relevant and having that paranormal aspect gave you an detachment from
the story, from the reality of it. It
made it into something that's not real. Yes, the events that happened, the
things that happened have happened
and some point in some life at some time at some place and it's awful. It is awful. So don't cloak it into
something that can be twisted into not.
That's where I'm conflicted, on one hand it had an excellent showing of
what it is, but on the other, it didn't follow through with it. Then it's the fact that most of it doesn't even make sense. What Charlotte is, what her Aunt is, the way that part of the story is explained and played out was shadowed over actual information. We don't know much because Charlotte herself doesn't know much. Oracles are not initiated into a sisterhood until they come of age- which, while it has an effective and sufficient way of working seems like a clever and flimsy way of Ieaving all of that out and keep us blinded because it doesn't work into the story well. And that part doesn't. Like I said, it kind of puts that spin of paranormal onto it so it detaches you from the realness of the actual story. We knew nothing, and you just feel like the authors saying I don't know how to weave that in, so lets add the age thing so I don't have to. Sorry, but it did. And that annoyed me.On the mystery side of things...not that good. I didn't guess right, that's a good thing but it was just really...I don't know. I was waiting for this Oh when you realise who it is, but it didn't have the shock factor, adding in all the other lack factors, it didn't really make all that sense with who it was.
That said, this is the perfect case of showing that just
because you didn't like one book from the author, doesn't mean you won't like any
others. I hated Earthbound and it's whiny ass characters and I hated the voice.
This time around, completely different. Though of course it's not perfect, and
neither is Charlotte, she annoyed me a few times and sometimes I wanted to
freaking shake her for her actions but she wanted to help.
She wasn't wallowing in pity, she accepted it, she knew her fate and all
she wanted was to help and she took
her chance and did something. Of
course that leads to spoilers, so I'll just say she wanted to make the best
choices, and you can sincerely admire her for that, even if she makes the wrong ones, even if she was misguided by them.
Sleep No More, while had a chance to be something amazing, didn't quite
reach it but is still a story you won't forget.
Rating: 3.5/5
