ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

**3/3.5**

I would first like to point out that this book is nothing like Ruth Ware’s In A Dark, Dark Wood, nor is the Serial podcast anywhere near as annoying as Poppy Parnell's Reconsidered.

All of that aside, I really did enjoy this book, but Poppy's entire character and Josie's dramatic emotional episodes kind of annoyed me throughout the book. If the author would have skipped the whole podcast thing, I think this could have been a 5 star book for me.

I really liked Lanie's character because she's unpredictable. I was always curious about what she would uncover or do next. I also liked Ellen, she's upfront and honest and no where near as dramatic as the rest of her weird family.

Again, I liked this book. I wasn't blown away by it, but I'll admit that although I guessed who did it a little under halfway through, it was still 'shocking' enough for me to not find it too dull.

Thanks again to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy!

I received an ARC of <b>Are You Sleeping?</b> from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Imagine a reality built on a lie, then take said reality and smash it wide open with a hammer. Once you've done that, be ready to pick up all its broken, jagged, ready-to-cut-you-open pieces ....<i>by hand</i>.

That's what reading <b>Are You Sleeping?</b> was like for me.

Josie has spent the better part of her life trying to hide her past. She did what she felt was necessary to protect herself from whatever version of the truth existed. However, a tragedy pulls her back into the fray of chaos she willingly abandoned.

This book was a page-turner. Even once I felt comfortable that I knew where it was headed, I was so consumed with the characters in the story I simply couldn't stop turning pages.

Kathleen Barber did a wonderful job writing each character and making you intimately aware of their place in the story. Even characters with a peripheral role were given enough space to breathe and move within the action.

While I won't pretend the ending wasn't a bit anti-climactic, the journey to get there was nothing short of a thrill to read.

I LOVE LOVE LOVED the first season of Serial so I thought the premise of this thriller sounded so good. And the similarities to Serial were pretty well done - the book vacillates between the first person narrative of Josie and each episode of the podcast reconsidering her father's murder a decade before, with a few reddit posts and tweets concerning the podcast in real time thrown in. Use of faux social media in books is becoming more prevalent every day and I generally like it. This book wasn't necessarily bad but it also wasn't very thrilling. It started out pretty good and I could sympathize with Josie who has tried to create a new life for herself after her father's murder, her mother's disappearance into a cult and her twin sister's betrayal. Obviously, the popularity of the podcast reconsidering whether the man in prison after being convicted of her murdering her father actually did murder him is upsetting, to say the least. All of this had the set up and making of a great book but it just fizzled out. There were too many threads and the author went out of her way to make the journalist authoring the podcast absolutely atrocious. I didn't get a better sense of Josie or any of the characters in the book any better than I did in the first chapter. I think this was an interesting read but it could have been so much more. Hopefully you have better luck!

Are You Sleeping comes out next week on August 1, 2017, and you can purchase HERE.

Nothing good happens after midnight. At least that's what Aunt A used to tell us whenever we begged for later curfews. We would scoff and roll our eyes and dramatically pronounce she was ruining our social lives, but over time I cam to see the wisdom in her words. Trouble is the only thing that occurs between midnight and morning.

Thanks to NetGalley, Gallery Books, and Kathleen Barber for the opportunity to read and review this great book!

Josie is living in New York with her boyfriend, Caleb. She has totally distanced herself from her family - and with good reason. Her father was murdered, her twin sister betrayed her, and their mother abandoned them to live in a cult across the country. Josie changed her name and was happy in her anonymity. Until she learns of a podcast that is looking into her father's murder. Suddenly, her family's tragedies are being played out all over social media. Josie never told Caleb about her family or her real name and is terrified that she'll lose him. When she gets a call that her mother died, she must go back to Illinois and face the family.

This was quite the addictive book - I couldn't wait to see how it all played out. There are lots of secrets and twists - plenty to keep you guessing until the very end!

Described as "Serial meets Ruth Ware’s In A Dark, Dark Wood," when I read this novel's summary, I was intrigued. Plus, two of the main characters are twins (does everyone know my fascinations with twins, yet?) But what really caught my eye is that the author grew up in Galesburg, IL! (Galesburg is very close to the even tinier town where I grew up, I lived in Galesburg shortly as an adult, and my father still lives in Galesburg.)

Pros: I liked the modern epistolary inclusions like Reddit threads and Twitter posts.
Cons: I had the *twist* figured out pretty early on, but the reveal and ending were a little messy.

This book was very easy for me to dive into and become invested in. Each time Josie chickened out telling Caleb the truth about her family, I wanted to yell at her. And every time Poppy Parnell showed up at the family’s doorstep (while they were grieving the loss of Josie and Lanies’ mom), just to get a quote for her podcast, I wanted to shut the door in her face! I felt bad for Lanie, she was fighting some of the same symptoms her mom was having, and knew it, but just didn’t know what to do.

I did think the book was predictable. I prefer this genre of novels to have twists and turns I don’t see coming, but this book just didn’t have that for me.

*Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for an advance reader copy of Are You Sleeping.

It appears from a brief Internet search that Are You Sleeping is a debut novel, and as such it suffers debut novel problems, primarily “character soup.” In the first twenty percent of the book there are: a set of twins, Aunt A, a dead father, a suicidal mother, Poppy Parnell the podcaster and supporting characters including one of the twin’s (I can barely keep them straight at this point) love interest, so-and-so, whose returned from a trip abroad. Apparently he travels.

The chapters, as such, are subdivided into several hundred word bites that make me time sick. We’re in the “now” and back to “then,” making it even harder to connect with already hard-to-connect-to characters. I can’t keep them straight other than Poppy is a podcaster with ties to Werner Entertainment and Lanie is “the bad one.” Also, Mom has joined a cult, and I guess was sleeping with the neighbor when her husband was killed by his son?

Lanie, of course, was the only (unreliable) eye-witness. I might also point out that Lanie is a Doc Martens-clad trope of troubled youth during one of the flashbacks. This is the sort of characterization I’ve come to expect from a book that spends far too much time on setting than is warranted. Three pages of the last chapter were spent detailing an old house only for the character to muse that old houses look nice but are trouble to maintain. I don’t know why that matters. Can we get to the murder-podcast storyline that is the only thing interesting me at this point? Between the backstory dumps, the time shifts, and an overlarge cast, I regretfully have to DNF Are You Sleeping. The writing is fine, but the blurb and premise are far more intriguing than the execution.

While I enjoyed this book, nothing in the plot surprised me. I was expecting It to be a bit darker, a bit twistier and it never became that. I did enjoy the social media and podcast aspect of it though, which made it just a little more up to date and relevant.

Are You Sleeping by Kathleen Barber utilizes a popular plot device in which the main character tries to run away from her past and hide her identity, even from those closest to her. In Are You Sleeping, due for release on August 1, 2017, Josie Buhrman has changed her name and concealed her family's past from her live-in boyfriend, Caleb. She has not told him that thirteen years ago, her father was infamously murdered and his killer sent to prison for life based on the eye witness testimony of her twin sister, Lanie. Now recent events are conspiring to force Josie to come clean. First, a new and hugely successful podcast is published purporting to reexamine the evidence supporting the conviction of her father's murderer. Next her mother, who disappeared ten years ago into a secretive cult, commits suicide, making it necessary for Josie to go home for her mother's funeral, where she must face the past and reconnect with Lanie after years of estrangement. As Josie compulsively reads each newly released podcast episode, she starts to question everything she has accepted as true. Is it possible that the young man convicted for her father's murder could actually be innocent?

While the premise of this book had a lot of potential, in my opinion, it failed to deliver. It started off slow and for about the first 60% it felt like not much was happening. While it is categorized as mystery/thriller, it lacked a sense of mounting tension to make me want to keep reading. In addition, while I don't have to like the main character to enjoy a book, I found Josie to be annoying, particularly her tortured reflective inner monologues and long-winded back story digressions that interfered with the plot's momentum. Perhaps editing or recasting some of these passages as dialogue would have improved the pacing. The last 40% of the book did pick up a bit and there was a relatively satisfying, if not somewhat predictable resolution to the plot. On the positive side, I thought the author's use of social media in the podcast chapters was clever and unique. This is Ms. Barber's first novel and I look forward to reading her next one.

Thank you to Gallery, Threshold, Pocket Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I enjoyed the plot of this book but never developed a connection to any of the characters. I enjoyed how social media was included into the book as it made it like a real, current day mystery. While I never connected with the characters, I did connect to the drama of it all and the "who dun it" mystery. It is not at all scary. It was written from the point of view of the sister but you do get the point of view of the reporter during the podcasts.

This was an enjoyable read and would recommend it to those that like "who dun it?" books.

Can you truly escape your past? This story starts off strong and holds your interest to the end. Lies, deceit, betrayal; Kathleen Barber had me anticipating to the end.

Josie has worked hard to forget her past; that is, until an investigative reporter completely uproots her and her family’s lives; and wow, what a past for them all. As truths are uncovered, old wounds are reopened, and hurt and anguish is endured, this author takes you on a thrilling, emotional journey of uncovering the truth and setting yourself free.

What great characterization of this story, I was captivated by everyone; unsure if some were trustworthy and questioning what could be true. Even thinking I had figured out the truth, I still couldn’t pull away from this story. The plot is fantastic. I truly enjoyed the podcast aspect of this story; it was unique and captivating.

This suspenseful mystery is addicting and will hold you captive to the end.

IMG_0280I was given an advanced e-copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This title comes out August 1, 2017.

I give Are You Sleeping ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 stars, it is a steady paced thriller about a broken family and their secrets. Josie and Lanie, twin sisters, haven't spoken in years. The sisters are reunited for their mothers funeral. But their reunion has even more strain put on it by a recent podcast that is focusing on other possible scenarios of their fathers murder, which happened 13 years prior. As pressure grows, Lanie starts acting stranger and stranger and Josie starts to suspect that Lanie knows more than she is letting on about both of their parents deaths.

I greatly enjoyed this thriller, it held my attention from the first to last page! I thought all of the characters where very dynamic but also very real. This family had so many secrets but there was nothing far fetched, the whole story was believable. I thought the plot being driven from the conspiracy podcast made for a very modern mystery. The ending didn't have an crazy twists, but it was also a very probable outcome, again making this book seem more real. I would recommend Are You Sleeping to any thriller lover.

Chuck Buhrman’s murder was a shocking, senseless crime, but at least justice has been served, right? Right? But what if Warren Cave didn’t do it? What if he’s spending his life in prison for a murder he did not commit? My name is Poppy Parnell, and this is Reconsidered: The Chuck Buhrman Murder. I’m going to spend the next several weeks investigating these questions and others that may arise. My goal? To take a hard, unflinching look at the scant evidence that might have convicted an innocent man, and to perhaps uncover the truth— or put to rest any lingering doubts— about what really happened that fateful night in October 2002. I hope you’ll join me for the ride.

Years after the death of her father, who was shot in his kitchen in the middle of the night, Josie is slowly building a life for herself. Having lost more than just her father that night- her twin sister Lanie turning to drugs and destructive behavior and her mother abandoning her daughters to join a cult, Josie floats through life mostly alone behind the walls she built around herself. The only person who she finds any safety with is her boyfriend, Caleb, and even her doesn’t know the truth of her past.

When I first met Caleb, I had told him my parents had passed away. It was a careless, throwaway line I had been using as I backpacked and hitchhiked my way across Europe, Southeast Asia, Europe again, and then finally Africa. Those relationships had seemed disposable; there was no need to ruin the mood with stories of my murdered father, my insane mother, and my despised sister. But Caleb had turned out to be the furthest thing from disposable, and then the lie fed upon itself and grew, and I had never known how to tell him the truth.

When a podcast re-examines the circumstances that led to her father’s death and the verdict served to the neighbor boy, Warren Cave, those walls come crumbling down. The podcast quickly becomes all that anyone can talk about- throwing Josie directly into the middle of her nightmares.

“Dude, have you heard about this Chuck Buhrman murder thing?” Blood roared in my ears, and my vision went blurry. It had been more than a decade since I had heard my father’s name, and hearing it casually tumble out of the mouth of a skinny teenager with a lip piercing made my stomach turn.

Enraged and terrified at the thought of reliving the horrors of her father’s murder, Josie can’t seem to escape the ever-present conversational snippets, Tweets and Reddit discussions that abound the internet following the release of the first episode. Worn down by fear and determined to find fault in the story spun by the podcast, she cannot help but to listen.

Even though Ellen emphatically warned me not to listen to the podcast, I remained tempted, the same way one was tempted to pick at a scab or tug at a torn cuticle until it bled. I knew nothing good could come from listening, but I wanted— no, I needed— to know what this Poppy Parnell person was saying. How could she possibly justify “reconsidering” my father’s murder? And how could that be the premise for an entire series? I could effectively summarize the case in one sentence: Warren Cave killed Chuck Buhrman. End of story.

But as she continues to listen, events and evidence are brought to light, due in large part to the amount of time that has passed since the actual murder and the dogged investigational techniques of Reconsidered‘s host, Poppy, which cause her to question the events of her past.

In the end, the physical evidence was shaky and circumstantial, and the foundation of the State’s case against Warren Cave was the testimony of the victim’s fifteen-year-old daughter, who had changed her story twice in the first thirty minutes that she spoke with police. Was she just traumatized, as the State maintained at trial? Or was she telling a calculated lie?

Alienated by her sister’s deception, addiction and betrayal, Josie has not spoken to or seen her twin in numerous years. When another family crisis forces Josie to return to her hometown, she must also face her sister, Lanie. This unexpected reunion, combined with the unrelenting presence of the podcast, force Josie and Lanie to revisit their estrangement and attempt to put it aside to protect the memory of their father. However, Reconsidered continues to dig deeper, unearthing one surprise after another which pulls at the new ad fragile threads of love and family connecting Josie and Lanie. Will there be one thread pulled to undo it all?

I shuddered as a sudden memory flashed through my mind, the two of us pressed together in the pitch-dark of the bedroom closet, squeezing hands so tightly I thought our bones would break, Lanie hotly whispering, It’s my fault.

Are You Sleeping is a thought-provoking and suspenseful look at the power of media, the effect of emotional trauma and the many ways the bonds of family can be tested.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Jo. The truth is never complicated. It’s just the truth. Circumstances may be complicated, but the truth is always black and white.”

Fun book with a trending podcast woven in the novel. I couldn't read this book fast enough. The author pulled me in from the first page. Loving characters also kept me interested the whole story long. Slightly disappointed in the so so ending. I was hoping for a little more of a twist. Still, one of my favorite reads of the summer!

I really wanted to like "Are You Sleeping" as it had a very interesting description. However, it just didn't do it for me. I really couldn't get into the story, and the plot wasn't really all that suspenseful or thrilling.

A murder case where the killer has been jailed for years, but an investigative reporter decides to take another look for a 'true crime'-style podcast. Whose truth is really true?

I liked having an author incorporate social media into a book--made it feel current and realistic. However, I thought the characters and their actions and relationships were over the top. I just couldn't believe Josie would lie to her fiancé about EVERYTHING, whether it made sense or not. And talk about dysfunctional families! The mother and Josie's twin sister were really something. On the other hand, we have Caleb, the way too good to be true fiancé. I think a bit more balance would have helped the book (and made the characters more relatable and likeable), but it was a good premise and made for an entertaining read.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a free e-ARC of this book.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Gallery Books for providing me with an ARC of Are You Sleeping in exchange for my honest review.

Are You Sleeping follows Josie, the daughter of murdered Chuck Buhrman, as a manipulative fictional podcast host reopens Josie’s father’s murder and digs up long buried problems for Josie and her relationships with her eccentric family. Soon after the podcast is released, Josie must leave her comfortable and normal life in New York City and return to her home town in Illinois, where she is forced to confront her recollection of the night her father was murdered.

I found Barber’s book to be phenomenal and thought that Josie was an extremely likable and relatable person. This book is fast paced and well written, I was engaged to the last page. The depth of her characters is impressive, and they delve into many complicated relationships throughout the story. I would recommend this book to anyone that is a fan of true crime podcasts and well written thrillers.

Here is a review by Jennifer: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2056590869

I was a little worried this would rest too much on the concept of "what about the victim's family in Serial" but it was a very compelling story backed up by solid writing and characters. I've never ripped through a Netgalley book by an author I didn't already know so quickly. While not quite as razor sharp as Gillian Flynn's books, her fans wouldn't be disappointed by this.