INSOMNIA by Sarah Pinborough
William Morrow; 4/12/22
CBTB Rating: 5/5
The Verdict: must-read, spine-tingling suspense
I’ve finally read my first Sarah Pinborough thriller, and it absolutely won’t be my last. INSOMNIA—available today in the US—is one of the most genuinely unsettling and utterly gripping psychological thrillers I’ve read in ages, and it’s sure to be one of my favorite books of 2022. In this twisty, paranoia-inducing tale, a woman anxiously awaits her 40th birthday—but not for the reason you might think. When Emma’s mother turned 40, she lost her mind…and now, as Emma’s own 40th birthday approaches, she begins to fear the very same thing might be happening to her. INSOMNIA is an “unreliable narrator” thriller done right—Pinborough expertly draws readers into Emma’s increasingly terrifying world, where no one and nothing can be trusted, not even Emma’s own mind. This book will keep you on your toes, never quite sure who to trust, and who might be hiding dark secrets. INSOMNIA is a story about what we inherit from our family, and the pieces of those inheritances that we wish we could escape. It’s also one of the most downright entertaining thrillers I’ve read in ages. Clear your schedule and—cheesy as it may be to say, it’s true—prepare to lose sleep over INSOMNIA.
Plot Details:
IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, MADNESS LIES . . .
Emma can’t sleep.
CHECK THE WINDOWS.
It’s been like this since her big 4-0 started getting closer.
LOCK THE DOORS.
Her mother stopped sleeping just before her own fortieth birthday.
She went mad and did the unthinkable because of it.
LOOK IN ON THE CHILDREN.
Is that what’s happening to Emma?
WHY CAN’T SHE SLEEP?
Emma Avarell has everything she’s ever wanted. A high-powered divorce attorney with a loving, devoted husband and two beautiful children, Emma has built the life she always dreamed of when she and her sister were growing up in foster care. There’s just one problem: Emma’s 40th birthday is approaching, and it’s a day she has been dreading for as long as she can remember. Emma’s mother’s 40th birthday was the day that her mother lost her mind, suffering a mental breakdown and violently attacking Emma’s older sister in the process. Emma’s mother always told Emma that they shared the same “bad blood,” and ever since then, Emma has been terrified that her own 40th birthday might become the day she loses her mind, too. Now Emma’s worst nightmare seems to be coming true. As Emma’s 40th birthday approaches, her world begins to unravel. Emma can’t sleep at night, and as her sleepless nights turn into lost time during the day, she begins to fear that she truly has inherited her mother’s madness. Can Emma trust herself? Will she try to harm her family the way her own mother did? Or could someone be setting Emma up, gaslighting her into believing that her worst nightmare is coming true? INSOMNIA takes readers down the rabbit hole as Emma tries to make sense of a world she once knew so well—a world which, at least to Emma’s sleep-deprived mind, now seems fraught with danger at every turn.
Is there anything better than a psychological thriller that genuinely immerses the reader in its protagonist’s mindset—particularly when that protagonist is coming unglued? My favorite psychological thrillers deliver exactly that kind of paranoia-inducing, keep-you-on-your-toes reading experience; it’s no surprise, then, that I loved Sarah Pinborough’s INSOMNIA, which must be the most effectively-unsettling suspense novel I’ve read in ages. One of the greatest pleasures of this book (if I can call it that!) is the way this story keeps its readers off-kilter and on edge; as protagonist Emma begins to fear her own mind, readers will find themselves experiencing Emma’s fear right alongside her. INSOMNIA is a thriller you experience as much as you read it, and Pinborough brings Emma’s roiling emotions and increasing suspicion of everyone around her vividly to life. It’s a heady, hypnotic, seriously sinister reading experience, and a testament to the author’s writing that she is able to so effectively immerse readers in the unraveling of Emma’s sanity. In case you need further proof of just what a visceral reading experience this is: I read an early review of INSOMNIA that called it too unsettling. There’s no such thing as “too” unsettling in my book, and I consider it one of this book’s greatest selling points and strengths—and a testament to Pinborough’s immersive and effective writing—that anyone might describe it that way. Readers looking for a tense, edge-of-your-seat, seriously dark psychological thriller will find INSOMNIA to be just the book they needed.
Speaking of Emma: here we have the perfect guide to take readers through this twisty story. Emma, like so many psychological thriller protagonists before her, is a woman who seems to have it all—and, in turn, has everything to lose. Think you’ve read this story before? Think again. For Emma, it’s not a cheating spouse or a betrayal by a best friend that sets her world’s destruction in motion—it’s an inheritance from her own mother. When Emma was a child, she witnessed the disintegration of her own mother’s mental state as her mother stopped sleeping in the weeks leading up to her 40th birthday, and ultimately suffered a psychotic break and violently attacked Emma’s sister as a result. Emma has tried her hardest to distance herself from her mother and her mother’s legacy, but there’s no escaping the passage of time. As Emma’s 40th birthday approaches, she begins to fear that the same fate awaits her as did her mother. And when Emma finds herself suffering from insomnia in the lead-up to her birthday just as her mother did, her fears are intensified. Can we outrun our genes? Are we fated to repeat the past, no matter how hard we try to forge a new path? As Emma’s fortieth birthday approaches, she is forced to confront the horrible possibility that she might meet the same fate as did her mother, and might become a danger to the people she loves most of all in the process. INSOMNIA uses a “ticking clock” structure—the countdown to Emma’s birthday—combined with Emma’s increasingly fraught mental state to ratchet up the tension page by page. As Emma’s 40th birthday approaches, her behavior becomes increasingly unhinged, and the story’s suspense and tension only builds as it approaches its cinematic finale. The result is a truly gripping, deeply unsettling psychological thriller that will keep readers on their toes, questioning everyone and everything.
Now, I did not read Pinborough’s breakout bestseller BEHIND HER EYES (I know, I know!) but I did watch its recent TV adaptation, and wanted to briefly address the question of the supernatural in INSOMNIA. No spoilers here, of course, and if you don’t want to know anything about this component of the book in advance, stop reading here! Readers who disliked the otherworldly component of BEHIND HER EYES will appreciate that in INSOMNIA, the ultimate explanation for the story’s seemingly inexplicable events is realistic and down-to-earth. There is a mind-bending aspect to the story that does come into play at the book’s end, but it’s woven into the book in such a way that it’s not the ultimate explanation for anything, but rather an added layer of intrigue, one which the author masterfully incorporates with a wink and nod from her characters to the reader. Long story short: INSOMNIA was a knockout of a psychological thriller for me, and if you love your thrillers dark, twisty, and viscerally suspenseful, add this one to your to-read list immediately.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. All opinions my own.
Book details:
Publisher : William Morrow (April 12, 2022)
Language : English
Hardcover : 336 pages
ISBN-10 : 0062856847
ISBN-13 : 978-0062856845
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