Miku the Literary Cat Review: Karen Thompson Walker's The Dreamers
To Sleep, perchance to dream of Apocalypse
Miku’s take:
“I liked the shiny cover of this one. The light bounced off the shiny bits and I could chase them. It was about sleeping so long that people didn’t know if you were dead or alive. Sounds like heaven if you ask me, not the end of the world by any means.
I heard my Mum tell my Dad that she thought the ending left something to be desired. If they all woke up then that is a tragedy and I agree with her. Now, I’m off for a nap and I intend to dream of that stupid sparrow I’ve been chasing that keeps flying off.”
four out of four paws, more books about sleep please.
Miku’s Mum’s take:
A college town, a mysterious sleeping sickness that is contagious and dreamers whose minds are even more active than when they are awake. The town is quarantined and cut off and our apocalypse scenario ensues from there.
No one knows what dreams mean or why we have them. Psychologists say they are almost exclusively made up from our memories, but then why do they feel so profound and unexpected to us? Walker attempts to unpack this while taking us on a journey that feels at once dreamlike but also full of suspense and narrative drive.
