Reviews with content warning for Terminal illness - Sleepwalking

Quietly beautiful; emotionally hefty. Wolitzer has a keen sense of real feeling in what feels like a fleeting moment of intense yet subtle intimacy, like that in the delicate, meticulous strokes of a painting or in a glance between two strangers in a crowd. With this novel comes the deeply intense moment of realization that you cannot change or fix grief and trauma and mental illness, whether that be your own or someone else’s. Here is an indelible meditation on art, how we make it, how we use it, and why we (try to) do any of it. Essentially, Sleepwalking manages to craft a delicately brief portrait of life—specifically these particular lives—which is what attracts me most to the art we create, and Meg Wolitzer does this with such a perfected, poetic aura of realist naturalism that leaves you almost bereaved when you reach the final page.

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cassettetaped's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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inceptionistbooks's review against another edition

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Nothing wrong with it, it just didn’t catch my interest to want to keep reading. I might pick it up again at a later date.

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williamgideon's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

4.5

This book wasn't at all what I expected: a book about a trio of girls at a university who love poetry. It was more a about one of those girls and her childhood trauma and relationship with her parents. And I loved it. At first you may think it to be a classic "depressed mysterious not like other girls" book with flat characters and tired tropes, but the author breaks through that surface and seriously dissects the main characters life. This book tackles mother-daughter relationships and how grief affects and shapes a person throughout their life, as well as how to move away from that. It's a coming of age story and so much more and I absolutely loved it!

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theweepingwillow_'s review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Had so much potential to be great

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thisissofiam's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

this is so NOT what i was expecting from this. i was kinda disappointed but i still thought the book was well written and made me think about my life and how i affect those around me <3

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definebookish's review against another edition

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hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I thought Sleepwalking might be my second favourite kind of story, twisted and heavy with darkness. Actually it’s the one I love even more; a story of an unspoken need or longing fulfilled.

This is Meg Wolitzer’s debut, written while she was an undergraduate and published in 1982. Initially it reminded me of that meme that goes around about the eighties being closer to the sixties than they are to now – those early chapters feel noticeably more Bell Jar than, for example, My Year of R&R.

Eighteen-year-old Claire Danziger is a ‘death girl’, one of a trio who haunt the halls of their university campus dressed in black and immersed in the verses of their respective favourite female poet. Laura’s obsession is Anne Sexton, Naomi’s Sylvia Plath, and Claire’s the fictional Lucy Ascher, who – like Sexton and Plath – died by suicide some years earlier. But Claire is carrying another loss, and a relationship with an older student prompts her to take her obsession with Lucy to a new level.

This wasn’t what I expected at all, really. Or perhaps the first fifty pages were – I could sense teen me reading the opening chapters over my shoulder, drenched in patchouli and approving *very* much. But it’s a surprisingly mature book for an undergrad, contemplative and wise and understated.

I had anticipated more ‘death girl’ action, when in fact Naomi and Laura are secondary characters; this is very much Claire’s story. I didn’t anticipate it being so moving, or so hopeful. It is dark at times, but in a dreamy way rather than a morbid one. I felt lulled and a little spellbound by it.

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lucyrosemack's review against another edition

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dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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