Title: Insomnia (Night Watchers #1)
Author: J.R. Johansson
Genre/s: Young Adult, Mystery, Paranormal, Thriller, Suspense
Released Date: June 8, 2013
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Synopsis:
Her eyes saved his life.Her dreams released his darkness.After four years of sleeplessness, high school junior Parker Chipp can't take much more. Every night, instead of sleeping, he enters the dreams of the last person he's made eye contact with. If he doesn't sleep soon, Parker will die.Then he meets Mia. Her dreams, calm and beautifully uncomplicated, allow him blissful rest that is utterly addictive. But what starts out as a chance meeting turns into an obsession; Parker's furious desire for what he needs pushes him to extremes he never thought he'd go. And when someone begins to terrorizing Mia with twisted death threats, Parker's memory blackouts leave him doubting his own innocence.
My Thoughts:
Dark and disturbing, Insomnia by J.R. Johansson is a paranormal psycho-thriller like no other. It's unique and frightening. The only problem I had was that, the plot twist was predictable and the story was a bit lackluster at some part.
Parker haven't slept for almost 4 years since he became a Watcher, he watches the dreams of the last person he made eye contact with, and he knew it won't be long until his body collapses from the lack of it. He tried every kind of solution he could think of but it still doesn't give him a full rest. Until he met Mia.
He doesn't know why but he can sleep inside Mia's dreams. And just like that he felt a new sliver of hope that he can live longer but he needed Mia's dreams in order to do that. Soon, after a lot of stolen desperate glances and a lot of happenings, Mia's once peaceful and one-layered dreams were now plague with creepy and disturbing thoughts about a stalker that's lurking behind the shadows. And Parker was affected by this changes, not only because he can't sleep in Mia's dreams anymore but also because he was the one being blamed for all of it.
This book has a lot of potential to be amazing. First of all, the concept of this book was unique and original. I mean, aside from this book, where else can you find someone who could watch dreams. Watchers are not like Nightmares or Dreamscapers, they're just spectators and not participants in someone's dreams or at least that's what I gathered from this book. Their existence was a mystery and I was definitely eager to know more about them in book 2 since there's nothing much about them in here because Parker have a limited knowledge about it.
Second, the story was mysterious and eerily creepy. But there were also some parts that were so dull, it almost bored me to sleep (it's ironic). The revelation at the end about the identity of the stalker didn't surprised me at all because I already guessed it halfway through the story. It was actually not that hard to guess since he was so weirdly overprotective and possessive over Mia and he has a lot of motive to frame up Parker.
And speaking of Parker, my connection with him was on and off throughout the story. There were times I symphatize to his situation and there were times I wanted to yell at him and say, "WTF were you thinking? No wonder she thinks you're a stalker." Also, I don't get why he's treating his mother that way. I get that she's a workaholic and worries about him too much. But why can't he understand that she's doing it all for him. And for heaven's sake, he should give her some slack, it's hard being a single mother (not that I know anything about it, personally). Anyway, the characters that stood out for me in here was Finn and Addie. If only they were real, I would really like to hang out with them.
Overall, Insomnia was a likable read but it could have been better. Will I still read book two? Of course, I'm interested in what's going to happen next. I think, there's still a lot more in store for us in this series. I will recommend this to all insomniacs, sleep-deprived zombies and paranormal mystery lovers out there.
My Rating
