Insomnia is my first Pinborough novel and I just finished and I don’t know how to feel about it. I can’t tell if the ending is genius or if I’m mad about it. I won’t say more about the ending because I don’t want to spoil it, but let me tell ya, I didn’t see it coming. Emma’s insomnia and prior trauma makes her an unreliable narrator, and I found myself annoyed with her but needing to read to find out what happens next. While it was slow and at times a bit repetitive, I was still intrigued enough to continue. I found myself really not liking any of the characters, though that helped the story along (despite wanting to shake the mc’s husband for being such an arsehole).
Overall three stars.
Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest opinion.

I loved Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough, but found myself bored and skipping through a lot of this book.
She mentions Dr. David , but unless you read Behind Her Eyes you will find yourself confused as to who he is .
And also where he fits into this story.

Emma Averell is about to turn 40. That’s the age at which her mother went mad and was committed to a mental institution. Emma is suffering from insomnia and paranoia as she fears the same fate for herself. She has kept the trauma of her childhood and memories of her mother as a monster hidden from her husband and others around her. The novel is somewhat repetitive and slow-moving, but three are some surprising twists.

Insomnia is the first book that I've read by Sarah Pinborough.
Emma is about to turn 40 and she is sure that she's going to go crazy. Her mother was 40 when she went insane and Emma and her sister were put into foster care. Emma is having trouble sleeping, but she knows something is not right.
This was fun and twisty. I didn't see any of the twists coming.

This book was a little slow for awhile and felt a bit repetitive. I enjoyed it when the pace picked up and the action started. It was a little predictable in parts but I loved how the story progressed and was explained. If it wasn't such a slow build with the constant mystery, I would have enjoyed it a bit more. I'm not sure books about women who are framed as "going mad" are really for me because the whole premise was more irritating than enjoyable. It definitely brought that creepy atmosphere though!

Days before her fortieth birthday, Emma starts suffering from insomnia - leading her to question her sanity. Her own mother quit sleeping before her fortieth birthday and did the unthinkable. Will history repeat itself?

While I enjoyed this book, parts of it seemed a little predictable to me. However, it kept me wanting to know what happens.

This was one of those books I couldn’t put down. I had to know if the main character was truly going mad, just like her mother.

Similar in style to Lisa Jewel, I think the reader will enjoy the plot twists and the unexpected developments.

I could not put this book down. I needed to know---was she going mad or was someone setting her up. A fun thriller with a touch of the supernatural, my favorite kind.

I've tried reading this book twice now and it just hasn't captured my attention. I am definitely a mood reader so it could just be that I wasn't in the right mood at those times, so I will definitely try again at some point in the future.

Bestselling author Sarah Pinborough says her inspiration for Insomnia was a desire to explore sleepless nights that often prove frightening and the resultant paranoia. The story opens twelve days before Emma Averell's fortieth birthday. Emma, a divorce attorney, awakens at 1:13 a.m., convinced that someone is in the home she shares with her stay-at-home husband, Robert, and their children, five-year-old Will and Chloe, who is seventeen. After she checks on the children and satisfies herself that nothing is amiss, she returns to bed and tries to go back to sleep. By 3:00 a.m., she is checking her emails and contemplating her schedule for the day. She is on track to become a partner at her firm and knows that without sleep she is facing a long, grueling day. Yoga breathing brings no relief and she drags herself through the workday, in the midst of which she receives a telephone call from her older sister, Phoebe, summoning her to the hospital. When she arrives, she finds that Phoebe, three years her elder, has tricked her, knowing that she would not have come if she'd realized it was in response to their seventy-five-year-old mother's injury. It seems she smashed her head against a mirror during the night and sustained a cerebral hematoma which is life-threatening. And she did it at 1:13 a.m. Emma made clear long ago that she never wanted to see their mother, who has spent years in a secure unit housing mental patients who are too ill to be imprisoned, again. But Phoebe reveals that she has been visiting their catatonic mother over the prior few months, maintaining that the visits were recommended as a way of healing.

Just before Phoebe's own fortieth birthday, the sisters lost contact when Phoebe essentially vanished. Now her reappearance is dredging up memories for Emma, who has told her colleagues, friends, and family that their mother is dead. When Emma met Robert, she lied to him about her family history -- and Phoebe backed up the story. "I don't want my mother's story to be any part of my life," Emma explains in the first-person narrative Pinborough employs to tell her compelling story. As she returns to her office, Emma is confronted by the crazed spouse of one of her clients, and at the end of the day finds her car has been keyed and a vile note left on the windshield. It's only the first of a series of very bad days for Emma as her fortieth birthday looms. Suddenly, anything that can go wrong, does. And Emma's life begins quickly unraveling.

With each passing day, Emma's inability to sleep becomes more pronounced, and she desperately tries to maintain her sanity as her career and family begin slipping away from her. But the line between reality and fantasy grows increasingly blurred as she becomes more and more sleep-deprived, her behavior increasingly erratic and irrational. Indeed, many of her actions are outside the realm of plausibility for an educated, professional woman, especially when she fails to heed the precise advice she would render to her clients. She begins experiencing blackouts and finds herself the prime suspect in a murder investigation. She knows that she could not have committed the crime . . . doesn't she?

As a girl, her mother called Emma the "mad child," warning her that she inherited "bad blood" that ran in their family. So Emma has always feared that she would turn out to be like her mother. "How long before that night, her fortieth birthday, did my mother stop sleeping?" she wonders. Unlike Phoebe, Emma cannot remember a time when their mother wasn't mad. Her mother locked her in a cupboard and left her there for hours at a time. Emma was the one who found their mother in the act of harming Phoebe, as a result of which the sisters were placed in foster care and their mother was permanently institutionalized. She consults a doctor who explains that rather than trying to forget her mother, relief might be found by trying to understand her. Emma accepts the wisdom in that approach, but in her panicked state, finds herself engaging in compulsive behaviors akin to her mother's and suspects that Phoebe has come back into her life with a malicious motive. Are Phoebe and Robert plotting against her? Are they gaslighting her? And is someone else involved in a sinister plot against her? She is devoted to her children and knows that she could never harm them. Doesn't she? Sleep-deprivation leads her to fear that she might actually hurt them. She questions her own judgment and her hard-earned career implodes. And in the midst of her ongoing crisis, she befriends a nurse, Caroline, who kindly returns her wallet after it is stolen by a gang of boys. Caroline's viewpoint is provided via interspersed chapters related in her voice. But is the whole encounter a set-up related to secrets Emma has yet to discover? On top of everything else, Emma's seventeen-year-old daughter is rebelling and acting out in a deeply concerning, self-destructive fashion. Can she save her?

For Emma, the life she dreamed about and carefully constructed unexpectedly falls apart, and she finds herself literally fighting to hang on. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Emma is careening closer and closer toward a catastrophe from which she will never be able to recover. Her young son, Will, who has taken to drawing the same picture over and over, unwittingly provides some of the most damning evidence that she is indeed losing her grip on reality and may be a danger to her family, as well as herself.

Pinborough expertly ramps up the dramatic tension with each unsettling event in Emma's life while her birthday draws nearer, accelerating the story's pace as Emma's descent into complete madness seems all but assured. In fact, the story itself appears to be careening out of control, as well, but it becomes apparent that is by design. At that juncture, Pinborough begins revealing what has actually been happening to Emma and why. "I have been so worried about repeating the past, but what if I've been looking at it all the wrong way around?" Emma ponders. Having found a key piece of evidence, she is able to piece together what she has been experiencing. But has she figured it out in time?

Pinborough deftly keeps readers guessing until the very end. In fact, exactly as Emma's whole life feels off-kilter, readers will experience the same sensation while trying to solve the mystery, to no avail. It is a thoroughly puzzling, indeed unsettling, but engaging and inventive thriller. Once all is revealed, the cleverness of Pinborough's plot and use of an other-worldly aspect is displayed. The story's conclusion is surprisingly satisfying and thought-provoking. To what extent does the past inform the future? Is it ever possible to fully overcome childhood trauma? What about the importance and impact of the picture that Will drew incessantly?

Perhaps Emma is right, after all, when she says, "There are some things you can't try to understand. You'd go mad trying."

This was the first book I have read by this author and it will not be my last! Although, I found some of it quite predictable, this book held my interest from page 1 until the very end. The characters were very well developed and I found the plot very intriguing and unique from other psychological thrillers I have read. 4.5 stars

What would you do if you think that you will inherit your mother's insanity? What if you know exactly when the insanity will manifest? What if your behavior begins to match your mother's behavior prior to her insanity becoming full blown.

This roller coaster of a read had me distrusting ALL the characters. No one was beyond suspicion. Everyone was doing strange things or doing strange things to frame the main character, Emma Averall.

I highly recommend this book. It is fast paced and keeps you guessing.

I’m thankful to the publishers for allowing me to read and review this book. I loved it! It’s been a while since I’ve read a book that kept me on the edge of my seat. Each time I thought I had figured out what was happening, something else happened that steered me in a different direction. I had hoped the ending would be a little different than it was but overall I really enjoyed the book!

Pinborough has a singular way of drawing the reader in, scrambling their brain around, and then spitting them out at the end wondering “what did I just read?”.That being said, I did find this story to be a little repetitive, which pulled me out of the claustrophobic atmosphere that was trying to build. I also found the husband to be incredibly annoying and just a bad character in general. But that last chapter saved everything for me! What a twist!

Insomnia is the 2nd book I’ve read by this author and I enjoyed this one just as much!! I will always pick up anything this author writes because their storytelling is next level and so unique!

A scary story of how childhood trauma can continue to haunt us an adult & very much distort our sense of reality! Suffering with insomnia myself, some of this was so relatable even the am I turning into my mother , iykyk. Extremely unpredictable and such a wild thrilling ride!! I love an unreliable main character. One of my favorite tropes ever.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for my honest opinions. I HIGHLY recommend not only this one, but ANY book this author writes! Go in blind and enjoy the ride!

Emma worries that her insomnia will lead to the same insanity that her mother had and told her as a child that she would also experience. She begins to exhibit many of the symptoms her mother had and her paranoia sends her spiraling and and just short of crazy. Some of her actions are questionable but overall it's a wild ride to the end.

A creepy slow burn story with plot twists and intriguing character development, this book delivers! I had trouble putting it down as I didn’t want to wait to see where the author was going to take us next. Another great read by one of my favorite authors!

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. This is the first time I read this author. I read the book in two days and it had me turning the pages. The twist at the end was very well done. I would definitely read her again.

I thought I was going to love this book and I did pretty much.. I suffer from insomnia and that made this title very intriguing for me.

Emma, the main character, had such a fear of insanity it was almost crippling. She had a good reason too. Her mother had this same problem and when she turned forty she had a complete mental breakdown. Emma is fixing to turn forty. This story starts out twelve days before Emma's fortieth birthday and she suffers from insomnia like her mother did.

Emma and her sister, Phoebe, were put into foster care when they were young because of their mother. It seems each girl has a different recollection of their mother. Emma remembers her as a monster. Phoebe does not. Emma is a high profile lawyer and does not want people to know about her past. She's married with two children. Her husband is a stay at home dad who takes care of things.

I felt bad for Emma quite a bit. I also got a bit aggravated at her. I just couldn't help it. The characters in this book are likable for the most part. The days leading up to Emma's 40th birthday are intense as she tries to navigate her life and job. You get to know her and her sister. You get to know their mother and what happened. You won't leave this story with questions. At least I didn't.

I enjoyed this book but didn't love it. I won't say it's not good because it definitely is. It was just lacking something that I can't quite put my finger on. But I still enjoyed it for the most part. I felt so bad for Emma's life growing up. I liked how the author wrapped things up fairly nicely. Insomnia is a horrible thing to have. Even part time as seemed to be the case with Emma. Starting 12 days before her 40th birthday for her. Lack of sleep sure can mess with your brain.

Thank you #NetGalley, #SarahPinborough #WilliamMorrow&CustomHousePublishing for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

3.5/5 stars for me. I recommend it. You will enjoy it.

Thank you to the publisher & Netgalley for an advance copy of this title! This book really made me lose some sleep because I couldn't wait to finish it!