Sleepless Book

2018 TBR Challenge: Book #5 ★

Trigger warnings for sexual assault, domestic violence, sexism, injury, and death/loss.

I'm a simple girl: promise me a story with Sandman mythology, I'll pick it up. I should know by now setting my expectations too high leads to the biggest disappointments. Sleepless was not what I hoped for. It was a mess of problematic romantic relationships and poor world building.

First of all, let's be clear: the relationship between our protagonist, Julia, and her boyfriend, Griffin, was abusive. Griffin constantly verbally assaulted her. He drove her away from her friends and isolated her. He emotionally manipulated her, making her feel so bad for applying to her dream school's out-of-state summer program that she was not going to attend it. He ridiculed her and her interests. He told her she was weak for crying. Despite all of this, it is only his actions as a Sandman - after his death - that are portrayed as negative; their relationship is not portrayed as being inherently negative, let alone abusive. If this had been part of a larger narrative, I would not have minded so much. Obviously, I do not believe censoring abusive relationships from stories is the answer but I do find the idea of writing an abusive relationship without addressing it as such to be dangerous. It romanticizes the abuser's actions, which has terrifying implications for impressionable readers.

… and, on top of this, Griffin was a poorly written character. He was chauvinistic. He slut-shamed. He was a disgusting, entitled dickhead - to put it nicely - who expected the world handed to him on a silver platter simply for existing. Ugh.

Julia's relationship with Eron was no better. The fact that Eron is more than a hundred years older than Julia is an alarm bell in of itself but the fact that Eron was her Sandman, literally watching her entire life and being in charge of her sleep, is a giant siren of nope. The power balance is so off! It is never addressed in text and just !! nope, nope, nope.

The sexual assault element similarly sickened me. Bret, Griffin's best friend, sexually assaults Julia within the story and Julia completely ignores it. There is no discussion of the issue within the narrative or in Julia's monologue, apart from a throwaway line that he was intoxicated (implying it is justifiable? minimising it? just no). I know that there is a very real problem of sexual assault victims not speaking out about their traumas for an infinitesimal list of reasons. I hate to make assumptions about the mentality of sexual assault victims but the lack of narrative about this specific situation did not seem like any sort of purposeful commentary; rather, none of the characters thought it was a big deal, that it didn't even need to be addressed. *red flag alert*

Other Cons:

• The sloppy world building. It all very vague and some of it contradicted itself. For one, Eron's confusion with the modern world was nonsensical. He observed it for a hundred years - literally watching it unfold before his eyes - but still got tripped up on modern lingo. It didn't make sense.
• I also found his obsession with his first crush disturbing, rather than endearing.
• The female characterisation was appalling. Julia was 'not like other girls'. Vomits.
• There is a lot of slut shaming.
• The side characters - particularly Julia's parents - had no personality.
• Unemotive writing.
• I found the fact that Julia was not traumatised by her kidnapping as a child very unrealistic. It was purely a romantic plot device - to make the LI save her life - and I really did not appreciate that.
• Abrupt and unsatisfying ending.
• The plot was nonexistent. What did this even achieve?

Overall?

Sleeples tried to tackle so many important topics and does none of them justice. It should have focused on the unique Sandman lore, using its potential to build the fascinating world and plotline we were promised. Instead, it wasted time on poor female characterisation and problematic romantic relationships. This made Sleepless a difficult and nauseous reading experience that I would not recommend.

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