*This book was provided as a physical galley as a prize for a giveaway by WBReaderFest and Flatiron Books.
Goodreads Synopsis:
A sharp and romantic novel about two suburban teens who can’t sleep uncovering the secrets of their neighborhood by night. Think The Summer I Turned Pretty with flashes of Rear Window!
When seventeen-year-old competitive diver Ingrid freezes up and sustains a head injury at a routine meet, her orderly life is turned upside down. Now housebound and sedentary on doctor’s orders, Ingrid can’t sleep and is haunted by the question of what triggered her uncharacteristic stage fright.
The only thing she remembers about the moment before the dive is seeing Van, her neighbor, former best friend, and forever crush, on the sidelines. Then one sleepless night, she sees Van outside her window…looking right back at her. They tentatively begin “not sleeping” together every night but still living separate lives by day.
Ingrid tells herself this is just temporary, but soon, she and Van are up every night together, increasingly intertwined in helping each other put pieces of memory together. As Van works through his own reasons for not being able to sleep, both of them are pulled into a mystery that threatens to turn their quiet neighborhood into a darker place than they realized.
My Review:
I don’t love realistic fiction or romance, but I realized I haven’t reviewed any in a while and technically this is all for FICTION, not just fantasy. Anyways, this book.
I didn’t expect to like The Insomniacs, I mainly read it because I’ve had it for so long without reading or reviewing. While it wasn’t my typical read, I did enjoy reading this book and trying to untangle all of the information the characters and the reader knew. I do love mysteries and this one was especially interesting because both characters knew what happened somewhere in their subconscious, but they couldn’t remember and had to follow the clues instead.
If I had to pick on one thing that I didn’t like, it would be Ingrid’s lack of motivation to figure things out. She was introduced as a very persistent, driven character, but even when her insomnia started destroying her life in the daytime, she still seemed to care about Van more. Otherwise, I thought this was pretty well-done and I read it quickly and enjoyed it a lot.
I would recommend this book to people who like romance and mystery, or even just one of them. I didn’t really find anyone to be unlikeable, I just felt like this was an average read. I definitely know people that I could see enjoying this more than I did, but in general it’s a good break from denser fantasy books.
Overall, I would give this book…
⭐️⭐️⭐️/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.
The Fiction Feature 