Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and Flatiron Books in exchange for an honest review.
Genre: Young Adult
Release Date: September 1 2020
Rating: 5/5 stars
Synopsis:
When seventeen-year-old competitive diver Ingrid freezes up and sustains a head injury at a routine meet, her orderly life is turned upside down. Now housebound and sedentary on doctor’s orders, Ingrid can’t sleep and is haunted by the question of what triggered her uncharacteristic stage fright.
The only thing she remembers about the moment before the dive is seeing Van, her neighbor, former best friend, and forever crush, on the sidelines. Then one sleepless night, she sees Van outside her window...looking right back at her. They tentatively begin “not sleeping” together every night but still living separate lives by day.
Ingrid tells herself this is just temporary, but soon, she and Van are up every night together, increasingly intertwined in helping each other put pieces of memory together. As Van works through his own reasons for not being able to sleep, both of them are pulled into a mystery that threatens to turn their quiet neighborhood into a darker place than they realized.
Sarah's Review:
Usually when I have high hopes for a book, they are not all met. That is not the case for The Insomniacs. I knew I wanted to read this after reading the synopsis, and feel so fortunate to have gotten an ARC. This book is a perfect mixture of romance and mystery, and the pages turn themselves. I think the slow burn writing style really complemented both the mystery and the romance, and made the twists at the end so much more thrilling.
Ingrid is our main character, and I admired her a lot. I think it was so nice to see her vulnerability, fears, and stresses, but then also see her strength, perseverance, and resilience. I think she was an amazing lead female. The author obviously did a lot of research on living with a concussion. Her descriptions of symptoms were spot on. The only minor discrepancy is that with Ingrid's mom as a nurse, I doubt she would have been driving, or back to school as quickly as she was.
I really appreciated that Ingrid and her mom had a healthy relationship. I think showing positive relationships between parents and children is really beneficial to younger readers. I also really loved the relationship between Ingrid and Van. I think they complemented each other really well. Van is a really great male lead. He complimented the story by being a bit mysterious and quiet. I liked the side characters for the most part, most of them had something to do with the plot of the story. The only side characters that really didn't have a role were Izzie and her friends. However, their lack of development and purpose didn't affect the quality of the story.
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