I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. I really wanted to love this book, but it just wasn’t for me. But if you like podcast and mysteries I think you will enjoy this.

This was a fascinating take on the "potential end of the world" genre. I really do appreciate the constant creativity to come up with new takes on this phenomenon, even if some of them hit a little close to home. This one, however, did not, so I read it with enjoyment instead of panic that perhaps this particular terror was in our future.

Dave Torres (which is the name of one of my ex-boyfriends, so that threw me for a loop for a second) emerges from his job as a night watchman to find that anyone who went to sleep the night before is now dead. Luckily for him, he has a few allies to team up with to navigate this absolutely insane crisis and mystery, Together, they search for answers and fight falling asleep, which creates a delicious ticking time bomb of panic and delirium.

This was a really fun one!

[arc review]
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
The Edge of Sleep releases June 20, 2023

“Most of them don’t know why the world has fallen silent; many sleep, gathering their strength for the unknown, and never wake again. Those who can, band together. Those who can, survive.”

The idea behind this story was intriguing — the hours following the fourth of July, everyone worldwide (even in space stations) find themselves dead if they fall asleep. The only ones left wandering the streets are those who worked night shifts or have severe insomnia, narcolepsy, parasomnia, or some other sleep ailment.

The issue here for me was on general execution. This would have been better had there been more structure as it often felt like there were many short stories accompanying one main character group.
Narratives and pov’s often switched with no indication, and I wasn’t too fond of all the slang dialogue.

The grotesque elephant nightmares and underlying trauma built up from early childhood could have been explained better.
Flying to Greece from the US running on 60+ hours of no sleep based on information from a dream just seems so contrived.
I would have hoped for something significant to arise from the mention of the Cynagen pharma drug company to link together Linda and Millie’s narratives.

CW: self harm, self medicating, substance recovery, trauma, gore

For some reason I did not get "horror" vibes from this book. Immediately after starting this one, I realized that it was NOT for me. I don't enjoy horror, scary or extremely tense books. I blame myself, and am going to rate this 3/5 because this was my fault for requesting a book too outside of my comfort zone.

I knew this was going to be an amazing read. And I was super excited to open this book up.
The Edge of Sleep by Jake Emanuel and Willie Block was a fantastic book which had me racing to the very end.
I devoured every word and couldn’t stop until I read it all!
The characters are well written and it's hard not to become invested in their journey,
The story and writing flowed nicely. These authors here really did a fantastic job.
I was engaged, excited and left wanting more of it.
I enjoyed the entertaining and mysterious storyline.
I will now have to check out this Podcast and see what it’s all about.

What if the whole world fell asleep...and didn’t wake up again?
Because if any of them falls asleep now, it will be the last thing they ever do.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

Thank You NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Based on an awesome podcast from Qcode (check it out, check them out, fantastic production) this novel poses the question - What if everyone who went to sleep never woke up?

Dave is a night watchman with a terrible sleep disease. It's fairly easy for him to not fall asleep as sleep has evaded him his whole life and he is resigned to live a lonely life. But when he realizes that everyone that does fall asleep one night dies, he is thrown into action as he tries to find and connect with others who might also suffer from sleep deprivation. The question is, can anyone stay awake?
#THeEdgeofSleep #JakeEmanuel #WillieBlock #StMartins

I really wanted to like this book, and I kept with it right until the end but unfortunately somewhere along the way in the plot ( I don't want to spoil anything for anyone), I lost my suspension of disbelief and stopped enjoying the narrativeThat being said, I really enjoyed the first half of the book. It was captivating, well-paced and overall enjoyable read with interesting and relatable characters.

I got this book for free as an advanced reader copy from Netgalley. This was a book I'd been very excited to read and highly anticipated it's release so I was overjoyed to be given the opportunity to read it in advance. Unfortunately, I personally wouldn't read it again and didn't enjoy the remainder of the text so I cannot give it a higher rating than a two. I felt like it dealt with themes of recovery from addiction and helping others very sympathetically and really enjoyed that aspect of the text. I just couldn't lose myself in the second half of the narrative in the same way as I could the first half.

Prior to picking this up, I had 0 knowledge about the podcast & TV show tied to this. Now I know what I'll be doing tomorrow - ha!

This was a fast paced read that held my interest in a vice like grip and because of that, I smashed through this in less than a day. I'll forgive the few very convenient coincidences and canned chapter ending cliff hangers for that.

I need more.

The storyline really intrigued me and was a really good take on an end of the world book. However, it was extremely discombobulated throughout and everytime I latched onto the story and characters, it jumped to another perspective, sometimes unnecessarily. I wasn't satisfied with the ending which also seemed a little disjointed to me. I will give this two and a half stars rounded up because the writers are good, the story itself just wasn't it for me.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC.

Well, the cover was striking enough to attract attention, but then the plot summary wasn’t too shabby either.
The end of the world that comes and steals people away in their sleep. Apocalypse ZZZZZ.
Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep.
In this new world order, the sleepless reign. The insomniacs, anyone with a sleeping disorder. Not so much reign as desperately struggle to survive, but hey at least they get a chance.
This book features a vast cast of characters in a at-times-dizzying switch up of narratives, but the main one follows two friends and people around them as they try to make their way to safety.
It seems this was an audiobook first or maybe some sort of podcast and maybe that’s what caused the overwhelmingly multi-player manic approach to this apocalypse, but it works, it all ties in.
There is a certain trippiness to the plot, too. The elephant/whale thing…very trippy. And that ending. It’s out there. But the book is fun, exciting, original, and well worth a read. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.

“The Edge of Sleep” had me on the edge of my seat (lol) the whole way through. I had no experience with the story prior to reading, so I was really intrigued by the description of the plot. The story started off so strong when focusing on Dave’s past and present experiences with sleep. The supporting characters in the main storyline were great, but it was some of the secondary storylines that lost me a bit.

I found myself rushing through the last third of the book, and the pay off was not as rewarding as I was hoping it would be. I still had a great time reading it though. The writing is great and the concept is a refreshing take on the apocalypse genre.

I really enjoyed this concept from Jake Emanuel & Willie Block with Jason Gurley. It was what I was hoping for from the description and worked well in the genre. I was invested in the characters and going through this story with them. I can't wait to read more from the authors as I enjoyed this a lot.

“I didn’t design fucking bombs. I was strictly genetics, okay? And only until I started hearing about shit like the bombs.” Linda turns away and paces. “Yes, they were fucking unethical. Yes, they were manufacturing bad shit. You know what I did?”

When I first picked up The Edge Of Sleep I didn’t know what exactly to expect since I didn’t know much about it. This book has an interesting and unique plot that kept me intrigued the entire time. I loved the authors’ descriptive writing style and found myself constantly curious as to what would happen next. I feel like I can’t say much about this book without spoiling it, but if you like science fiction/horror books you may want to give this one a try.

What if the only way to stay alive was by not falling asleep? How long could you last? Days, hours? Would it be enough time to figure out not only what caused this deadly condition but how to fix/stop it? I’m thinking not since the closest someone who might be able to help is a nurse who is quickly falling asleep on her feet.
The characters we spend the most time with are Dave, Matteo, Linda, and Katie( I really liked all 4).A secondary plot belongs to Eli and Millie, but I didn’t feel as if I got to know these two nearly as well. It’s a pretty shall we say normal story( if you can consider dying from sleeping normal 🤔)with an unknown illness/ disease or something killing people if they fall asleep. Until it isn’t and it veers into uncharted, unexplainable territory, at least for me.
I still haven’t figured out the last few chapters, so I’m eagerly awaiting publication day when there will be people I can talk to about this book. For now all I can say is that I loved the story until about the 90% mark, then I was totally lost. I hate it when that happens!