Are You Sleeping

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book or my review itself.

When she was a child, Josie's father was murdered, and her twin sister, Lanie, witnessed it. Their lives were completely torn apart, causing Josie to pull away and even change her name. But now a new podcast is revisiting the case, and suggesting that Lanie lied, putting the wrong person in jail.

I could not put this book down! It was so gripping and so suspenseful. Barber did a fantastic job of planting these little clues so the reader felt like Josie and the listeners of the podcasts, trying to put the true story together.

The use of a podcast-theme throughout was also genius. I loved Serial, show more and that immediately drew me to this book. I loved the use of social media throughout the book's pages, from podcast transcripts to reddit threads to twitter. I also really liked that through Josie and her family, Barber also explored the other side of these podcasts-how they affect the victims and their families, knowing everyone is talking and speculating about the crime that tore them apart.

There really wasn't anything not to like about this book. It completely drew me in, and kept surprising me.

Definitely read this book! You won't be able to put it down. show less

I'm going to use the publisher's description to introduce you to Kathleen Barber's wonderful debut novel novel - Are You Sleeping.

"Serial meets Ruth Ware’s In A Dark, Dark Wood in this inventive and twisty psychological thriller about a mega-hit podcast that reopens a murder case - and threatens to unravel the carefully constructed life of the victim’s daughter."

Uh huh - it definitely caught my eye - 'twisty' and 'psychological' always do! Would Are You Sleeping live up to this blurb? Yes it did - Barber delivers as promised - this was a wonderfully addicting read!

Father murdered, next door neighbour convicted on her sister's testimony, mother running off and joining a cult. It's no wonder Josie left home as soon as she was able. show more But with the death of her mother, she reluctantly returns home for the funeral. She has created a life for herself with the man she loves. But she's lied to him about everything. The podcast opens not just the case, but the wounds and secrets in this family.

Past and present are explored through Josie's narrative. Those memories, the tumultuous present and that podcast raise nothing but questions for Josie. I really liked Josie as a main character. And I disliked her sister Lainie just as much. The dynamic between the two is quite complicated and underlines how much our younger years affect the present. There's something 'off' about a number of supporting characters and I had suspicions about many of them.

I thought Barber's format was an inventive premise. I loved the inclusion of tweets, news articles, transcripts, blog comments and more. The podcast as a driving part of the plot is so very current - as is the public's fascination with such cases. The 'right of the public to know' and invasion of people's lives in the name of news also speaks to today's society. The investigative reporter - Poppy - is a perfect caricature of this style of reporting.

Are You Sleeping is a commentary on society, an exploration of familial relationships and a really good whodunnit. (Yes, it's a twisty ending!) I really enjoyed it and will be looking for Barber's next book. show less

Are You Sleeping? was inspired by Serial, a podcast I have never listened to. Talk radio, documentaries, and audio books – all of that stuff puts me to sleep almost instantly. I have read books by lawyers who have helped free innocent men who were wrongly convicted and the topic interests me. I am interested in those cold case volunteers who work to identify the John and Jane Does, but I am repulsed by openly encouraging internet mobocracy speculating about the lives of real people. I think of the armchair detectives who falsely accused some people of being the Boston Marathon bombers. So, I felt antagonistic to Polly Parnell, just as the Josie, the narrator of Are You Sleeping? does, though for far less personal reasons.

The story show more begins when Jose learns that her father’s murder has been taken up by a Serial like podcast called Reconsidered. The mother of the man convicted of murdering her father insists he is innocent. Josie is estranged from her family. She’s changed her last name and told the man she lives with and loves both her parents are dead and denies she has any siblings. However, she has a twin sister and her mother, perhaps set off by the podcast, hangs herself, drawing her home for the funeral and back, face-to-face with her sister whose existence she has denied for ten years.

Can she forgive her sister for betraying her? Why did her mother kill herself? Could the man serving time for her father’s murder be innocent? These are the questions that Josie must address to ever free herself from her past.

I enjoyed and was emotionally invested in Josie’s progress. I seldom find myself crying over a suspense novel, but the shattered memories and the fracture between Josie and her twin Lacey broke my heart. This is one of those stories with all sorts of good people who twist in the wind because they don’t talk to each other and because mental illness has such stigma, it is left undiagnosed and untreated.

Barber is excellent at telling just enough and letting readers figure things out. She never assumes we are just passively reading, counting on us to put things together. This makes for a satisfying and wholly engrossing mystery, one that is fair, that lets us figure it out, bit by bit.

Mixed with the narrative, there are transcripts from the podcast, adding to Josie’s pain and challenging her recollection. There are also comments from internet posters that were reckless and irresponsible as you might expect, though far less horrible and malicious as you would find in real life. Thankfully, they were only a small part of the book.

So, it’s a fair mystery with some surprises and emotionally involving without being manipulative. That’s a win in my book.

Are You Sleeping? will be released on August 1st. I received an e-galley from the publisher through NetGalley.

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2017/07/03/9781501157660_hr/ show less

A snoopy investigative reporter begins a series of podcasts on the thirteen year old murder of a respected professor, father of twin girls. She raises the question of whether one of the twins who witnessed the murder might have lied about who killed her father.
His murder and the subsequent desertion of the girls by their troubled mother leaves both girls with a lot of pain and confusion. Each deals with it in their own way. One chooses to escape through drugs and alcohol, and the other literally disappears after she finds out her boyfriend has slept with her sister.
The podcasts bring the past intruding back into their lives, and they are forced to deal with it and each other after their long missing mother commits suicide in a show more California cult. Their reunion dregs up past family issues and opens doors long closed that could lead to more pain, but maybe along with that, the chance to mend old wounds.
While this is a thrilling mystery, it is just as much a relational story about a family that has to face the truth in order to move on and have any chance at a future together.
I found this a hard book to put down. It was a story that moved along quickly and held my interest. The plot piqued my curiosity and touched my heart. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good mystery and likes books about family dynamics and healing.
My thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review this title. show less

Like a lot of people, I was damn well obsessed with the podcast “Serial” when it aired it’s first season a few years ago. I had held off on listening to it for awhile, but then I gave in and was able to binge almost all of it over the course of a few days. As someone who has always been interested in true crime, the thought that someone may have gone to prison for a murder he didn’t commit, and that perhaps those around him may have known his innocence the whole time, I found the premise compelling. I know that some people found it ghoulish, as the podcast used the murder of Hae Min Lee as a framework for it’s investigation. Such grievances are raised in the novel “Are You Sleeping”, a debut from Kathleen Barber, and makes show more the reader look at it through the eyes of a murder victims family as old wounds are opened up for sensationalism and ‘entertainment’. I’ll admit I felt a little yucky with myself as I read this book. But I wasn’t just chastened; I was also sucked into the story of Josie, her twin sister Lanie, and the family that is still suffering from the fallout of the murder of the family patriarch.

The plot starts out common enough; Josie is living a happy life in New York with a genuinely good man named Caleb. But what Caleb doesn’t know is that Josie hasn’t told him about her past. Her father, Charles Berman, was shot in the head when she was a teenager, and her twin sister Lanie said that their Goth and rebellious neighbor Warren pulled the trigger. Shortly thereafter, their mother Erin ran off and joined a cult, and Josie split town as soon as she could and swore she’d never talk to her sister again, and never return. But then a popular podcast hosted by the duplicitous and fame hunger Poppy Parnell has started raising questions as to Warren’s guilt, and tragedy sweeps Josie back to her hometown, the secrets and lies she’s told her whole life starting to plague her. Pretty common fare for this kind of book. But what sets is aside from others I’ve read is that it makes use of the podcast format, as well as the social media frenzy that can come with it, to help frame the plot and the characters that we meet. It was great seeing twitter feeds, reddit posts, and transcripts from the episodes to get various pieces of the puzzle that we may not have otherwise seen, and it was kind of fun sifting through them like the reader, too, was an armchair detective. The pacing and tone was fast and tense from the starting gate, and I was basically hooked the moment that I sat down and committed to it, reading most of it in one day. The mystery itself wasn’t that hard to figure out, but it was definitely a fun ride to take even if I predicted the destination pretty early on.

That said, it wasn’t really doing much different or unique from this genre. While I definitely enjoyed it more than, say, “Every Last Lie” or “Into The Water”, it didn’t blow me away as some other thrillers this year have (“Everything You Want Me To Be”, anyone?). Josie wasn’t as large a mess as these kins of protagonists can be, which was incredibly refreshing, but Lanie was REALLY hard to take at times just because she very much WAS a huge, honking trainwreck. I’m relieved that the book wasn’t from her POV, because I’m pretty sure I couldn’t take that. None of the characters, however, really stood out as more than pretty standard players in this kind of book (the dutiful boyfriend, the ex who caused you pain, the uptight female relative). I had been hoping that there would be a little bit of experimentation with these tropes, but alas, it wasn’t to be.

But run of the mill characters and kind of easy to see ending aside, I really did have a fun time reading “Are You Sleeping”. Given that the holiday season is basically upon us and travel may be in some of your futures, I would definitely recommend this book for a long plane ride, a road trip, or just reading in the coziness of your home as the weather turns colder. But don’t let it shame you from listening to your favorite true crime podcast, okay? show less

"I have to be honest, Brother Earnest's words disturbed me. But after many hours of reflection, I have come to the conclusion that I don't think this podcast is to blame. At all."

I have to admit - I love missing people podcasts. I listen to quite a few and I listen often. But the family are always involved, always pushing - always trying to find their loved ones.

Serial. I listened to one....maybe two. Then I searched the original case, read the briefs and closing statements by the Prosecution and I felt sick. Sick that the family of the daughter had to go through this all over again while a nation listened to them dig through the sordid details and held their breath and passed judgement.

So I'm glad this book paints this podcast and show more Penny as ruthless and ugly - and awful. I love that the guilt and the blame is tangled and it feels dirty - because it's should.

The other story - about the more current stuff and the sisters and the mother and their dramas - I found it interesting but I didn't love it. The ultimate outcome was interesting and I liked how all the pieces fit together. This is really a 2 star read for me but I gave another star just for making the podcast feel gross - because it was. show less

The basics: When Reconsidered, a podcast examining the murder of Charles Buhrman, becomes a huge hit, it sends many lives into chaos, including his daughter, Josie, who has done all she can to distance herself from the family after his murder.

My thoughts: Although I didn't love it as much as some people, I was caught up in the podcast Serial several years ago. That podcast inspired the fictional podcast in this novel. Josie narrates this novel, but her narration is intermixed with podcast transcripts, Reddit forums, and Tweets. As a narrator, Josie is frustrating at times. She's not necessarily unreliable, but she doesn't share all she knows (and to do so would ruin much of the suspense.) As a reader, I know I see situations differently show more when I'm reading a book and looking for clues than I would if it were my life, but it can still be a frustrating experience.

I knew very little about this novel going into it, and I think that's best. As we learn more about Josie and her past, it puts a very human face on pop cultural true crime obsession. In that sense, this novel is partially social commentary and partially an engaging mystery.

Favorite passage: "The truth is never complicated. It’s just the truth. Circumstances may be complicated, but the truth is always black and white."

The verdict: I enjoyed the mixed media elements of this novel the most. The mystery itself was underwhelming at times, but the premise as clever enough to elevate this novel. It's a fun, fast-paced reading experience, but the payoff wasn't as big as I hoped. show less