You know Nikki will always leave you with a book that makes you think outside the box. This one did not disappoint.

Absolutely loved the audio, multiple narrators. Beautiful!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Grief and loss are inevitable but would you chose a way to bypass the misery? What if there was a 25 percent chance you would become apathetic toward that person that you lost? This book travels through many different perspectives and situations where your mind is constantly changing on the matter. Not very action packed, it’s def slow moving and thought provoking. As someone who has experienced the pain that the poppy fields claim to dissolve, I could relate but am removed enough from that time that I see the light at the end of that tunnel. I was firmly against it until about 75 percent in when they introduced a new “client” and her reason hit too close to home. I still don’t think I’d do it. This would be a very good book club choice because there are loads to unpack and discuss! Anyone who has experienced loss on such a deep cellular level can relate to the themes in this book and I will highly recommend it to them. Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the audiobook ARC.

When a flight to California is canceled due to a tornado, a small group of strangers finds themselves sharing a rental car on a road trip to the Poppy Fields, a retreat that allows you to sleep your grief away. Over the thousand plus mile trip, the strangers learn a little more about what they're each trying to escape.

Alternating between the strangers on the road trip and Ellis, the founder and director of the Poppy Fields, the story explores the wide range of situations that can cause extreme grief as well as the ways people attempt to cope. I really enjoyed the idea of this book. Grief is so personal and can be so excruciating that I thought the idea of sleeping until you're over the initial stages of it was a really interesting concept. The author did a good job of creating unique characters and unique stories for their grief. I loved the way the concept was fleshed out on the business side and addressed some pretty obvious potential issues. I also loved the way interviews with potential clients (sleepers) were interspersed throughout so you get an idea of how the Poppy Field screening process was like, their dos and donts, etc. Overall, I thought the concept was well grounded and realistic considering the lofty concept.

The only thing I didn't love was that the end was a little underwhelming. I won't include spoilers but it felt a bit like the whole trip was leading somewhere profound and stopped just a little bit short. Still a really, really interesting concept that I would love to see come alive in a movie.

The Poppy Fields
Nikki Erlick

4.25 / 5

If possible, would you hibernate through intense grief after a loss?
Would you want to be "put to sleep" for a month in the hopes that, when you wake up, your broken heart is mended.
Would this be a betrayal to the memory of your lost loved one, and everything you shared?
(Oh, speaking of sharing and memories .... a small caveat ...)
What if doing so could make you lose all of the emotions you ever felt for the person you're grieving?

This was such an INTERESTING concept. And Nikki Erlick wasted no words fleshing everything out and telling a beautiful and unique story.
The ideas here are big.
The conversations it will spark are bound to get deep.
And it raises myriad questions.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end, and I highly recommend checking it out.

This is a beautifully written book about connections, found family, love, loss, and mainly about grief. The author writes that the cost of love is grief, and shows us how grief is managed - or not managed. The cast of characters is well developed and their actions feel realistic. I liked the interactions and the unfolding of each of their stories. I loved the little connections between them that we learn about as the story unfolds. I liked the resolutions for them all and felt the ending was satisfying.

Parallel to the character journeys are news reports , chat groups, and stories of those who used the service or were connected to someone who did. This is where we learn about the Fields and the controversy surrounding the program without distracting from the main characters.

Would you sleep for a month or two to get past the worst of your grief? Is there a right way to grieve a tragic event? I can see this book being a great book group selection as there are a lot of discussion points that could stimulate conversation - similar to Erlick's book 'The Measure'.

The book is well narrated by Marin Ireland and joined by a cast of several others. The narration is interesting and by adding the other voices to interviews and reports it made the book very entertaining. Ireland has narrated some of my favourite audio books and I love hearing her voice when a new book starts.

'But I've learned that the heart is a vey big place, with room for many loves inside. And when one of those loves is lost, sometimes it's too much to ask all the other loves to make up for the love that is missing.'

'If we are no longer shaped by the people we love - who are we?'

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Audio Adult for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Measure was such a though-provoking book that stuck with me. I had high hopes for anything else by Erlick. Although I didn't enjoy this one as much as I did The Measure, it is nevertheless a wonderful, though-provoking story about navigating grief. All of the characters are multilayered (aren't all people?!) and the timeline was easy to follow. As the drama unfolds, a little more explanation comes for each character, and the reader understands very little is as black and white as we might hope.

Add this to your TBR this year!

Thanks for the ARC, NetGalley!

Engaging and immersive. A recommended purchase for most collections, particularly where The Measure was popular.

4.5 ⭐️

Another thought provoking book from Erlick. I would definitely recommend the audio-- the listening experience was excellent.

The Poppy Fields poses questions surrounding how people deal with grief. If you could enter a deep sleep-like state to escape the grief, would you? What if there was a known risk of having all feelings toward that person erased upon waking up? Is it better to feel all sides of grief-- the devastating loss and the joy of having had them in the first place? Or is it better to be numb?


I love how Erlick's books require self-reflection and speak to larger patterns of human nature. Her debut, The Measure, is still one of my favorite books. I cannot wait to see what she comes up with next!

If you have ever lost someone close to you, you'll know that the first year is the most difficult. Adjusting to a new reality without your loved one is really painful, and it takes time. These days of healing drag on when your heart is broken.
This book explores what could happen if we were able to sleep through that and wake up on the other side of grief.

The Poppy Fields is a scientific study of sleeping to heal grief. Applicants experiencing loss can be accepted into this program, be put into a medically induced coma and sleep for a month or so. When the patients wake up they are able to find acceptance. The only negative side effect found so far is that 1 in 4 patients awaken apathetic to the person they lost. So is it worth it? Would you heal your grief if there was a risk of losing the love?
This story is presented in different angles. We get perspective from the scientists who invented this program, hopeful applicants and prior patients of the Poppy Fields.

This was a really cool sci fi book that touches on heavy themes. This story hits a lot of the deep and innermost feelings of a grieving person. The small things that only someone who has lost will truly understand. It's about forgiving yourself and letting go of blame and guilt after loss. A super healing book to those who have had to face this part of life.
Thank you NetGalley for this arc, this was an amazing read.

I absolutely loved this author’s first book, The Measure, so I was so excited to dive into her newest one. I think the premise of this book is five stars - a new scientific development allows people suffering from grief to go into a medically induced sleep for a month or more and wake up on the other side of the worst of the pain. “The only way out of hardship is through, but nobody told them they had to stay awake.” The treatment has helped many people but 25% of people have undergone a dramatic side effect - the treatment cures the grief but it also creates a numbness toward the loss and erases the love and good feelings the person had for the lost loved one. That right there - this is a very discussible book based on all that alone. Unfortunately I think the overall plot of the book fails in execution and doesn't match the premise. The story follows three people (and a dog) on a road trip to the Poppy Fields (the site where the sleep takes place.) The three have very different reasons for going there, which are (too) slowly revealed. Then we added a fourth road tripper partway through that felt unnecessary. We also get narration from the doctor in charge of the fields, articles, interviews and patient case files, and more. It’s an ambitious scope and I don’t think it quite pulls it off. The pace is too slow and the stakes for the three road trippers felt too low for me - I didn’t feel enough emotional depth from their stories. But overall I’ll still give the book 3 stars because the premise is so good and it made me think and want to discuss it with people.

As a big fan of Nikki Erlick's book, The Measure, I was very excited to receive an ARC of the narration... and wow! I could not stop listening! The Poppy Fields is addictive and so creative. The story takes place in a world where a place called The Poppy Fields exists in California, and it provides an opportunity for people to seek treatment for emotional devastations they face in their lives. We spent most of the novel following a few people who are all making their way to the Poppy Fields for different reasons. Such a clever concept, this book immediately pulls you in.

Similar to The Measure, Nikki Erlick paints such a realistic environment that you find yourself fully invested in the characters and their stories. I am such a fan of Nikki’s writing style, and the narration of this book made it even better! Performed by a full cast, the narration compliments the book wonderfully!

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Audio for this ARC of the audiobook!

Erlick is so good at writing stories with interesting premises. Her stories themselves are interesting but what I love the most is the thought-provoking concept the story is built around. This one is about grief and our relationship with it.

If we're grieving someone, so much so that we can hardly breathe, is it better to not remember them? Is it better to dull the edge of that grief? What if it disappears forever? What if the positive memories go with it? Where's the limit? Where do we draw the line on what's worth erasing and what's worth keeping? How far are we willing to go?

All such interesting food for thought without clear and correct answers. That's the kind of stuff great books are made of.

with gratitude to netgalley and HarperAudio for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Poppy Fields by Nikki Erlick is a speculative novel about grief and heartache.

This book is similar to Erlick’s previous novel The Measure that deals with death, which I throughly enjoyed, so I had very high hopes for The Poppy Fields. Unfortunately, even though the books were somewhat similar, their content matter was different. I think because everyone deals with grief differently, it makes it hard to objectively evaluate how we would deal with a massive event in our life to cause tremendous grief and how we would react to it.

This book gives us the concept of people dealing with massive grief having the ability to go to The Poppy Fields where they can enter a state of deep sleep for a month or two and wake up refreshed and move on from the grief and trauma they were experiencing. The problem I have connecting with this idea is that grief doesn’t magically go away after a certain period of time, especially if you go to sleep and wake up like it as moments later. It seems to me your brain would no more have processed the grief one bit than before, only time would have transpired. I just can’t get on board with the concept.

My second issue with this audiobook was the narration. I enjoyed the primary narrator, Marin Ireland, but I did not understand why so many other narrators were listed and they were only given such very small parts. It seems to me these other narrators should have been used more for the characters parts instead of using Ireland for so much of the entire story. I personally think she could have done all the story completely herself and not used any other narrators but it’s misleading when all the narrators are listed but barely used.

Overall, I just had a hard time relating to this plot line and connecting to any of these characters. I had very high hopes for this book but I was very let down. I think it is just a hard subject matter to delve into and get readers to agree with and get onboard with.


Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced copy.

This book was about 4different people and grief. There is a new place The Poppy Fields, that has a sleep treatment. Three individuals are put together due to a tornado and most of the book when they are driving to The Poppy Fields. A fourth person joins the group ,who is young and they take her to her destinations also. The personalities are alll different but grief is the common denominator in this book. I enjoyed it as I got to know the characters better and the storry developed around them.

The Poppy Fields by Nikki Erlick is a powerful and thought-provoking novel that explores the complexities of grief and healing. Set around a controversial treatment that allows people to sleep through their grief and awaken "healed," the story follows four strangers on a road trip to reach this mysterious facility. As their secrets unfold, the book delves into the emotional weight of their decisions and the lengths they’re willing to go to in order to heal. Erlick weaves a beautifully human story that’s equal parts heart-wrenching and hopeful, making it an unforgettable read.

4.5 rounded up. By the author of The Measure, another sci-fi book for everyone (not just regular sci-fi readers). As with her previous novel, this raises an idea great for book club discussions. Specifically, how we deal with grief.
What if you could choose to sleep for a month (or two), and wake up without paralyzing grief, able to resume a normal life? Would you do it? In the novel, this “service” is offered to the most desperate at no cost.
We follow three strangers who are each making a pilgrimage to the Poppy Fields for their own very personal reasons.
After a fairly slow start, the author and talented narrators bring them to life and we become invested in their journey.
My thanks to the author, publisher, @HarperAudio, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook of #ThePoppyFields for review purposes. Publication date: 17 June 2025. This is going to be big!

The story in this one was such an interesting concept. While I really enjoyed the story, I just wish this book gave me a little MORE and it would be at 4 stars. It kept my attention through the book, but when it was over, I kind of reflected on it and wish more had happened. It was interesting hearing the different stories about Patient and finding out a little “twist” I guess you could call it. I wonder if there will be a sequel or not. The author leaves it open ended enough that it definitely could.

The narrator did a good job with this and enhanced the read.

Another winner from Nikki Erlick! Her debut novel, The Measure, is the first book I recommend to others. I’m so happy that she delivered another well written, thought-provoking book with The Poppy Fields. That said, this book is completely different than her first. The focus is more on the characters and their journey, with the controversy of the Poppy Fields being a supporting plot line. Be ready for great twists and fun nods to Wizard of Oz throughout.

The cast of narrators did an amazing job with this audiobook. Thanks William Morrow and Harper Audio and NetGalley for the advanced read!

Book clubs, be ready to get this hot topic piece on your schedules as soon as it drops on June 17, 2025.

4.5 stars

I enjoyed every second if this book. Clearly a character study that dives deep into grief, depression, and PTSD. Coping mechanisms are put aside for the opportunity to sleep away the grief of loss in a coma to wake up in a more stable mental state to cope with life after the death of a loved one. Except it takes 4 to 8 weeks, and there is a rare side effect that's bothersome. And some people are desperate to try the sleep technique, while others range from skeptical to vehemently opposed.

While pondering the efficacy of such a technique, the reader gets to know multiple characters connected to The Poppy Fields and witness the healing journey of time, connection, camaraderie, and love. This is a feel-good book that deals with feeling bad throughout, and Marin Ireland is quickly becoming my favorite narrator for stories that require a lot of heart.

Good discussion points, very likable characters, and a subject we can all relate to, even if we don't have the option to sleep away the grief.

Nikki Erlick is a master at weaving together characters, lives, and backstories, and The Poopy Fields is no exception. Once again, she creates a cast of fascinating characters whose journeys intertwine as they embark on a cross country road trip, all drawn to the same mysterious destination. What truly sets this book apart is the light sci-fi element Erlick seamlessly integrates into the story, which adds just the right touch of intrigue and excitement. Engaging, imaginative, and beautifully crafted, this novel is a compelling exploration of grief, fate, connection, and the unknown. If you’ve ever experienced grief (and who hasn’t), this book offers a deeply introspective look at loss and healing.

Many thanks to NetGalley, HarperAudio, and Nikki Erlick for the audio ARC in exchange for my honest opinions.