THE EDGE OF SLEEP by Jake Emanuel and Willie Block

I received a complimentary copy of THE EDGE OF SLEEP by Jake Emanuel and Willie Block and some wakeful goodies from St. Martin’s Press. I also received the advance listener copy thanks to Macmillan Audio!

Publication Date: 6/20/2023

THE EDGE OF SLEEP begins with a strange occurrence. Those awake throughout the night for work or sleep disturbance or other reasons begin to notice that the world seems deadly quiet. Everyone who has gone to sleep the night after Independence Day has died shortly thereafter and the phenomenon is ongoing. Those who want to stay alive must stay awake.

Dave is a night watchman and one of the first to notice the empty world around him. He’s had lifelong sleep issues with night terrors and nightmares which impact his waking world. Now it seems this issue has saved his life and it may give clues as to what is going on.

This book was weird. And I’m still not entirely sure what I think about it. There were a lot of really interesting concepts here and the tension of not being able to go to sleep and not let the people you love sleep was well done. It overall kept me wanting answers.

The problem I had with the book is that it didn’t deliver on the answers I wanted. We get a lot of fever dream type sequences and that tends to raise a lot more questions. The end of the book brings about a little resolution, and then it takes a really unexpected twist in the final pages that left me wondering what I just read. If it was setting up for a sequel, then maybe that would have worked for me but this isn’t listed as the first in a series.

This did have some interesting elements, but if you don’t like intentionally ambiguous endings, this isn’t a book I can recommend. THE EDGE OF SLEEP is out on Tuesday!