This book was a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, I could hardly put it down and the lyricism was mesmerizing. On the other hand, it kind of went nowhere with the plot and left me wanting more and not in a good way. I kept waiting and waiting for something new to happen and it never really did. And yet, parts of it were super compelling. I guess I’d recommend this to readers who love prose and setting and are ok with things light on plot and character development.
The premise of the story is that one day, a college freshman in southern California falls asleep and never wakes up. She’s alive, but permanently asleep. Everyone is perplexed until the next person falls asleep and doesn’t wake up. Then everyone is straight up freaked out, realizing this could be catching. Slowly the town devolves into chaos as many people fall ill and quarantines are put into place.
The narrative follows many characters so the reader gets to see the slow moving car crash from many points of view. There’s Mei, who lives in the same dorm as the first few victims. She’s an outsider, isolated from the other people in the dorm. There’s another college girl who falls ill and turns out to be pregnant. There’s a prepper father who works at the college and goes into lock down mode with his two girls after he realizes he’s been exposed to the illness during the course of his work. There’s a psychiatrist from out of town studying the victims. There’s the young visiting professors with their newborn baby and marriage problems.
I’m not sorry I read this because it was an interesting look at what might happen with a spreading illness like this. I’m just not sure it was good enough to recommend it to other people.