It’s purely coincidental that I read this book right after reading The Sleepwalker by Chris Bohjalian. I had had both books on my TBR list for a while and it just so happened that I was able to get my hands on them both at the same time. I’m glad I did because it’s allowed me to see two different approaches to the same concept of sleepwalking.
Leon Nader used to have a problem with sleepwalking so severe that he would even turn to violence. After a great deal of psychiatric treatment for his condition, he was convinced that he was cured. However, one day, years later, Leon’s wife disappears mysteriously. Could it be that his illness is back? In order to find out how he acts in his sleep, Leon puts on a movement activated camera. When he wakes up the next morning and looks at the video, he is shocked by what he sees: his nocturnal self goes through a hidden door and descends into the darkness ….
This novel was definitely more consistent with the idea of a thriller. This whole novel is told from Leon’s perspective and it opens up with him waking up and seeing his wife, Natalie, whimpering and packing her bags. When he wakes up next, she is gone and he is convinced that he has done something to her. Right away, the author caught my attention. This novel can be quite confusing at times because it shifts between different points in time and you get a whole host of information and both the reader and Leon are trying to piece together what is real and what is a dream. This was definitely a very ingenious way of portraying this story; however, it sometimes made the story feel muddled and confusing. I still enjoyed the experience and the mystery behind it all, and the thrill factor was always present! One thing that I really liked that the author did was that he gave an explanation for everything in the end. Without spoiling anything, I will say that the last few chapters before the end explain quite a few misnomers that were present in the story to throw you off. This doesn’t mean that I liked the explanation per se but I appreciated the author’s effort to make the story make sense to the readers. Overall, I found this to be an interesting novel that kept the thrills high and the mystery engaging. I would give this a 3.5/5 stars because while I liked the ambitiousness of this novel, I didn’t really enjoy the conclusion or the confusing aspects as much as I would have liked.
Happy reading ~