I received an ARC of this book from Simon & Schuster via NetGalley in exchange for my honest feedback. Yay for a unique 5-star read that I couldn't put down.

This is a very interesting format that the entire thing is notes and letters. When I first started reading, I was thinking the prologue was a letter, but then it kept going and going. As another reviewer mentioned, this results in very long chapters so it is tough to find a spot to take a break.

This book is very literary, full of metaphors and gorgeous descriptions. Sometimes this style makes me roll my eyes, but I think Ms. Thomas is skilled at her craft and in this instance, it simply impressed me.

I have experienced some Kindle versions of books, especially ARC's, having issues with formatting. So I am still not 100% sure if some places where the narrative stops in the middle are on purpose or due to Kindle problems. In addition, since you are reading letters that are not totally in chronological order, things that you learn at the beginning don't make sense until later. For both of those reasons, I might actually seek out the physical book once published and read it again. Kind of like a mystery movie that you rewatch looking for clues to the outcome.

Right near the end, the author writes: "This story, is missing something. You gotta make it clearer what actually happened." And this has to be tongue in cheek referring to her own work as the reader (at least this reader) is left feeling just a bit confused. Someone come talk to me to see if I understood everything!

Wow! This book was so good. It grasped me from the very beginning. I love the format of various documents (letters, transcripts, etc). The story had me second guessing everything in the best way. TW: SA but it is actually pertinent to the characters and how they interact with one another.

What an intriguing read. I really like the way Scarlett Thomas set it up—letters, images (not seen but described), a poorly transcribed audiotape. What was most interesting to me is that as it was told from different viewpoints, one was never sure about the truth. Did things just seem dodgy or were they actually dodgy? Certainly not even one of the characters, as in real life, was perfect or good or completely evil. And they were often good and bad. Even the sanity of some of the characters could be called into question; even the settings had personality: the Villa Rosa and the room with the window opening onto the stairs—omg! The curio shop. Even the airport in Athens. In the end, I was left with questions but none that my imagination couldn’t fill in.

Evelyn and Richard on honeymoon in Greece have the less than ideal relationship for newlyweds. Richard seems to be flirting with the hotel manager/owner Isabel who treats Evelyn poorly.

I was a bit impatient that the novel then reverts to the high school/teenage years of Richard and his male friends and their questionable histories, and more eager to get back to Evelyn in Greece.

The atmosphere and stormy setting, the less than stellar tabernas, on a pebbly dirty beach on a Greek island or on hills seemed realistic, so much so that I have second thoughts about what I might find as a tourist on a visit to the real Greece!

Realistic about the small towns, even the crimes that might take place on the islands, by non Greeks or otherwise, the novel was interesting and presented another view beside a purely touristic one.

Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas
Rating: ⭐️⭐️1/2 rounded up to ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Let me start with the fact that this is very well written and unique. Wonderful description and imagery. Some parts made me chuckle out loud.

The story was told through a couple’s notes written to each other. I struggled with this because the handwritten “notes” were sometimes 100s of pages. The thought of the wife leaving 100 pages on her husband’s pillow just didn’t seem realistic. (The time alone of how long it would have taken her to write that all down seemed unrealistic.) The letters/book felt as if I were stepping into someone’s stream of consciousness. The letters included specific details and quoted conversations. Obviously as the reader I need that information, but again, trying to picture a couple spelling out things that are obvious among themselves was strange to me.

Although titled, Sleepwalkers, very little is actually about the sleepwalking couple who had vacationed a year earlier than our main characters. They were barely even mentioned in the first 80+ pages.

Finally, I prefer short chapters, especially since I have young kids and can sometimes only read in short bursts. The first “chapter”/letter was over 100 pages long. It was hard to stop and pick back up for me personally.

I do think this will be well received by many other people. It is artistic in its uniqueness and maybe I would have rated differently if I were reading during a different phase of life.

Thank you to NetGalley, Scarlett Thomas, and Simon & Schuster for providing this ARC. This review is being shared on NetGalley and Goodreads.

Pub Date 09 Apr 2024

Man I just could not vibe with this story. It's told in that found documents style that can be done so well (hello, Janice Hallett), but is tricky to pull off as it needs to be actually believable that all of this stuff was written down or recorded and it just wasn't here. A great deal of the narrative hinges on two people writing long, detailed narrative-style letters to each other in the modern day while they're on vacation (???) for like...some reason, I'm still not sure why either of them did this or when they would have had the time to do so. The selection of documents are also incomplete, leading to moments where a letter or whatever cuts off mid-word, which was certainly a choice.

All of this was anchored by unfailingly tedious characters with opaque personal motivations who constantly made the weirdest possible choices. By the end I could honestly say I wasn't entirely sure what had even happened. The bones of a good story were certainly here, and those little twinkles of intrigue kept me reading, but overall the execution did not work for me.

My thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for the ARC.

What the heck did I just read!
This was a bit of an out there concept, and the manner the story was delivered (using letters) was a bit unusual. I found the storyline to be confusing with some characters I couldn’t really follow.

Pros:
- interesting perspectives
- unusual storyline

Cons
- confusing storyline
- I didn’t understand the “sleepwalker” part of the story, which was the basis for the whole book - there was confusion on my end of what really happened
- the ending felt undone
- I’m not sure if the errors I saw were story related or because this was an arc

I really, really liked this book for the first third-- the author's voice is mysterious and thoughtful, the other characters are intriguing, and the setting is evocative. When the narration shifts to letters and memos (which is normally a style I really enjoy) I found it difficult to put together all the threads. There's a LOT to love about this book, and I'll try another Thomas novel, but the pieces didn't come together ultimately for me.

4.5 stars: Thank you Simon & Schuster for providing me with an advance reader’s copy of The Sleepwalkers.

Touted as a gothic White Lotus, I was hooked from the beginning. Evelyn and Richard visit the island of Kathos for their honeymoon and discover that their tawdry pasts have yet to be reconciled. It’s written in epistolary letters which really helped give insight into the character’s motivations. Part funny, gripping, and all together tragic, The Sleepwalkers is a grime look into the underbelly of the beautiful island life.

WHITE LOTUS is exactly the kind of story about fucked up white people I love to watch over a long weekend, so the comparison in this novel's summary had me hooked. The mixed-media storytelling completely engaged me, like each letter or note was a puzzle piece I needed to place. The characters were reprehensible almost across the board, but damn did I need to know what they did and what happened to them. If you're OK with the CWs and in need of a summer thriller, add this to your TBR!

DNF @ 50%. It is very hard to imagine I could hate any characters as much as I hate these. The stream of consciousness style did not work for me - I loathed hearing every little thought that went through their silly heads.

DNF at 30%… may give it another go, but didn’t find the characters or plot gripping enough to continue.

This is an intriguing novel that will keep you wondering up until the last page. A couple on their honeymoon and a sneaky hotel keeper make for a wild ride, A delightful addition to your TBR.

This book is an interesting read for sure.
The first half is basically a letter from the wife’s pov and the second half a letter from the husband’s pov.
The ending is a little tough because the author basically leaves you to put the puzzle pieces together on your own. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it. I’m very undecided about how I feel about this book now that I’ve finished it. I do know that I’ve never read a book like it, so for that it’s a 3.5 ⭐️

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

This is good, but I think the unusual format sort of gets in the way of the story. It's told as sort of a mixed epistolary novel. But it's out of order and there are pages missing. It may have been a better read if I had read it all in one sitting or hadn't been reading other books at the same time also.

That being said, the story itself is very good. And there's a lot of intrigue. The different perspectives are definitely interesting. The big reveal toward the end totally caught me by surprise. It is very difficult to put this down once the action accelerates toward the end (or it seems to accelerate).

This was an interesting and fun read. I didn’t especially like any of the characters but the story held my interest. It was part mystery, part family drama, and I suppose a little romance as well, although not in a warm and fuzzy way. There is a big reveal toward the end that sort of wraps up the entire story and while it stretches the imagination it also provides a satisfying ending.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book to read and review.

How much you like Scarlett Thomas’ well-reviewed “The Sleepwalkers” depends on your appetite or tolerance for very literary novels whose secrets are parceled out slowly and, in the case of “Sleepwalkers,” obliquely via written communications between the novel’s two principals, Evelyn and Richard, who after a tempestuous past have come to be “honeymooning” at a hotel resort on a Greek island. There, they’re hosted by a mysterious woman named Isabella who clearly prefers Richard to Evelyn, though there was some question for me whether Evelyn might be an unreliable narrator and merely imagining Isabella’s antipathy – something Richard clearly thinks. In that way, the novel is like perhaps the most famous instance of unreliable narration, “The Good Soldier,” where, like here, secrets are slowly parceled out, secrets which in “Sleepwalkers” are pretty dark indeed and which I’m still not sure I’m completely clear on. All told, “The Sleepwalkers” put me in mind of something a newspaper colleague of mine once said about a Saul Bellow novel, “Humboldt’s Gift,” I think it was. It was like something you read for an English class, she said, which to me is true in spades about “Sleepwalkers.” Which isn't meant as a criticism, just a word to the wise to prospective readers.

The writing style and formatting was not working for me in this one. I couldn't get a good idea on whether or not I cared about the narrator or their story. This is definitely on me and not the author, but it was not hooking me into the story. I think the title and cover are cool, and I'm sure others will like this one.

This…was…interesting? The writing style is very unique and the story itself had a lot of intrigue. I felt very disconnected due to the way we were told the story in letters and voice memo transcripts. It didn’t really work for me personally, but it wasn’t bad. Cast of unlikable characters for sure, but an interesting story.

Thanks to the publisher for the gifted ARC

Thank you NetGalley for a free e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

To quote directly from the last page of the book because it captures the overall book well:

"This story, is missing something. You gotta make it clearer what actually happened. And I have to admit, I don't like trafficking. Tragic love- that I do like. But trafficking? Does anyone really care? And even if they do- which I doubt- is it even your story to tell?"

I enjoyed the protagonist, the unreliable nature of her and her paranoia about the hotel owner's, Isabella, intentions on her husband. The strength of the book was really in its character development.

A suspenseful, gothic novel set against the backdrop of a storm-threatened Greek island.

For the middle part I felt swept up, like the sleepwalkers in the novel, I felt like I'd been drugged and swept out to sea- what a clever mirroring of plot with reader experience as the story then comes back together with a satisfying level of clarity by the end so I'm so glad I stuck with this novel, as the payoff is so worth it, but no doubt lose some readers along the way.

Altogether, an enjoyable, intelligently written read.

The fact that I finished this book speaks volumes to its quality as I don't finish books that aren't working for me.