Emma has a fantastic career as the firm's up and coming lawyer and is on track to make partner soon. Her life is filled with a loving husband, Robert, and her two children, a young son, Will, and a teenager, Chloe. Outwardly, things could not look better. But inwardly, Emma has a secret and it's all coming to a head as she approaches her 40th birthday.
The story begins a week prior to Emma's birthday and as each day passes, she gets less and less sleep and fears she is becoming more and more like her monster mom. As the story continues, we hear about a lack of sleep on Emma's part and her increased paranoia that her lack of sleep is resulting in her becoming her mother, who has been institutionalized since her own 40th birthday. Meanwhile, a host of other people enter her life, including her older sister, Phoebe, who suggests, not so subtly, that maybe Emma is, in fact, turning into their mother while questioning her about her inability to sleep. At the same time Will has begun to draw disturbing, haunting pictures which keep Emma up at night. Her insomnia fuels her delusion that she will become her mother and go mad by her 40th birthday.
If it seems I have repeated myself just in different ways, then you have my interpretation of this story. The constant repetition of insomnia and her mother's madness was driving me mad! And while things did happen in the story both at home and at work, nothing felt connected to move the story along. So for me, this story was a miss. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

I made the mistake of opening this book before bed, the tension here builds from page one and doesn't stop even after the climax. I enjoyed the epilogue, I enjoyed the story even when the villain was predictable but what I really enjoyed was our main character's voice. She's a strong woman battling the unknown, time and her own mind. She's struggling, fighting and doing her best for family even when everything is up against her. Any doubt she expresses is reasonable, not just there for the sake of progressing the story. She is reasonable in her actions- no running around avoiding things for her because they make the story more compelling. Every action she follows you can see a real person doing in the span of 11 days and I was very thankful for it. For the sheer momentum this book has - keeping me up hours while I started this knowing nothing about the book- I would give this a 3.8/5 stars.

THIS BOOK! This is one of those stories that after finishing you have to get your hands on anything else by that author. So well done, I was shaking through most of it. I could actually relate to some of her troubles like her jerk of a husband. Give yourself enough time to finish it right away- you can’t put it down.

Sarah Pinborough is a great horror/psychological thriller author and is always a great surprise endings.

This book absolutely terrified me. It’s a book about trauma and the physical manifestations that trauma causes told through a harrowing mother and daughter relationship. I was on the edge of my seat the entire book. I highly recommend it.

If you enjoyed Behind Her Eyes, then you will likely enjoy this novel as well. While I really struggled with Dead to Her, Insomnia feels more like Behind Her Eyes in terms of voice and reveal.
Because it's a Pinborough novel you can't help but spend most of it wondering what the twist will be. And when it arrived it initially made me pull back and just go "Huh," feeling a teeny bit disappointed by the root of it all. But as I had time after finishing the book to reflect on how the reveal unfolded, I realized that I was really unsettled by what everything meant and replaying some of the tensest scenes in my mind- meaning that Pinborough did a great job of crafting a story that gets under your skin. And even after the denouement, as the dust settled she dropped one last bomb in the last couple pages that caused some delightful internal screaming.

Sarah Pinborough has done it again! I’ve been a huge fan of hers since I read Behind Her Eyes, and this book is just as mind blowing. This is a thriller with lots of twists and turns that kept me guessing until the end. Be prepared to literally hold your breath in certain parts, afraid of what might be coming next. Loved it!

Another page-turner from Ms. Pinborough! I have a severe love/hate relationship with Pinborough's "Behind Her Eyes", and so I'm always equal parts thrilled and dreadful when I see a new work from her. I thoroughly enjoyed this one!

From the first few pages, the main character was slowly, but steadily feeling the walls closing in and when paranoia meets her own personal fears, the tension leads to a thrilling read. As Emma approaches her fortieth birthday, she fears that her mother's fate will be her own. Shortly after her mother's fortieth birthday, she had some kind of psychotic break and tried to kill her children. She had always warned Emma that it ran in their family and the second daughter was the one who would go mad. Emma doesn't really believe it, but suddenly she can't seem to sleep. She is a prominent divorce attorney who expects to be made partner soon. She has a seventeen year old daughter and a son who is just starting school. Her husband is a stay-at -home dad, but is expressing unhappiness with the situation this time around. Added to the mix is the return of her estranged sister who informs her that their institutionalized mother is near death.

As the sleepless nights add up, Emma finds herself missing time and obsessively checking that the back door is locked. She worries constantly about her children. Then things take a turn and the people in her life start to accuse her of strange behavior...she is almost unhinged. Emma knows she couldn't possibly do anything to endanger her family, but the missing time and remembering her mother make her secretly doubt herself. Before she knows it, everyone around her is acting suspiciously and accuse her of being paranoid.
When she is at her lowest, an unlikely ally basically tells her that just because she is paranoid doesn't necessarily mean that someone isn't out to get her.

I couldn't put this book down. Like Emma, I suspected everyone at some point. There was one little thing at the end that seemed kind of out there because it seemed to come out of nowhere. I won't elaborate because it would be a bit of a spoiler, but overall I would highly recommend this book.

If this book doesn’t give YOU insomnia, you aren’t doing it right. Wow! This book is the 5 star read I neede in my life right now. It kept me up too late, distracted me at work because it was all I could think about and caused my chores to go undone. It kept me guessing, kept me thinking and kept me on the edge of my seat. Another stellar book by Pinborough! My only complaint is that I’m finished with it and what else can compare to this?

I love Sarah Pinborough and was so excited to have received an advanced copy of this. Her writing is absolutely captivating and I was drawn into the story right from the start. There is overlying tension and an intense mystery with lots of misunderstandings and abundance of drama: an ideal psychological thriller!

Sarah Pinborough has done it again with this twisty, fast-paced thriller. Emma is about to turn 40 and is worried she will end up like her mother, who had a psychotic break on her own 40th birthday. Emma begins to have insomnia, has moments where she spaces out, and becomes paranoid. Is someone out to get her or is she going crazy like her mother?
Emma is definitely an unreliable narrator and the reader is not sure of what is reality and what is imagined.
I liked the short, quick chapters and trying to figure out what was going on - is it Emma or someone else?
A must read - particularly if you liked Behind Her Eyes!