Review: No sleeping with this book
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 17, 2013
I downloaded the free sample for Dead Sleep a few days ago. This is a great system Amazon put out, allowing you to try any book you like, giving you free access to the first 10% of all of them.I never reached the tenth percent of Dead Sleep's free sample, however.I had already bought the whole book after one or two percent.Sometimes you just know you're going to like a book. It was the case with Will Swardstrom's first novel. He is a gifted storyteller, and you feel right at home with his loveable characters, like when you read a Nick Hornby book.Add in multiple POVs, a rapid succession of relatively short chapters, all ending in a clever cliffhanger leaving you no option but to continue - a little like what Dan Brown does, and you have an idea of what Dead Sleep proposes its readers.Action, fun, humour, feelings... The works.But not only. I wouldn't want this review to give the impression that Dead Sleep is only a good book to take to the beach.It is. You can read it anywhere you like, actually. But you should also try reading between the lines - just like the characters of the book do at some point, when they discover a hidden meaning lying in plain sight in a century-old letter.Without spoiling the story for you, just consider this. In the final "Note of the Author", Swardstrom explains he put a lot of himself in the main character, Jackson. Except for his ability to "see" the future, that is. Along with the hidden message in the letter, that is a clue for us to dig a little deeper.This ability to see the future is cool. It provides the author with many fantastic possibilities to add to his story. But it is also a mirror of himself. An author's job is to know in advance what is going to happen. And if Jackson, the hero, can do that himself, he becomes the author of his own story.That's what draws me to any work of art: when the artist gives you enough to chew on like that.But it doesn't stop there. No Sir. Because Jackson's ability is only half of it. Wait until I tell you about his sidekick's, Kristina... You'll see that it totally works with this metafictional element of a writer writing about writing while making you believe it's only a thrilling page-turner to take to the beach.See, Kristina can....Oh, wait... Should I really spoil so much of this great book for you?Go and find out for yourself what Kristina can do.(Does this count as a cliffhanger?)