J. H. Markert

A Novel

Sleep Tight

Lauren Lipford

The more I sit here with my thoughts, trying to conjure up a review that accurately articulates how I feel about a book, the more frustrated I become. How dare you create a book with so much potential but do it with so much mediocrity that I can’t even tell if I love or hate it anymore. I love every plot element of this book and all of the twists and turns that it takes you to. The one thing I DID struggle with was the writing. Every turn of the page was me telling myself “well… maybe it will get better” and every page turned left me falling further and further into my disappointment. Uneven pacing, multiple points of views that didn’t add anything to the story, poor dialogue, and unresolved plot lines are just some of the list of problems I had with this book. Even the major plot twist left me wondering why I should even care because he doesn’t do anything with the information. If you have this book to any other author, I think this book would have easily been a favorite of mine and one I talk to people about for years to come. Instead I have to settle for wondering what could have been. 

Kaitlyn R

Struggled my way through, hated it the whole time, should have DNF

Katie Berges 

The switching of POVs - I enjoyed this aspect where it switched from the POV of Tess’s dad’s notes to her POV/other POVs as Tess tries to figure out how to get her daughter back and what happened to her the night of Pritchard’s arrest, but I feel like sometimes the notes were in odd places and didn’t really help my knowledge or further my understanding of what was going on in the story.

The plot - Underwhelming/Was hoping for spooky or horror vibes and did not meet expectations; this might be partially my fault since I’ve read, watched, and listened to too many stories and documentaries about serial killers that included a horrific amount of detail 😅

Overall, the book was enjoyable, but I was left with a lot of questions at the end of the book. 

Here are my thoughts: 

The pacing of the book/each chapter - there seems to be an attempt to have a fast pace, but ultimately it leaves out important details when those details are needed and adds more detail where more information is not needed.

The switching of POVs - I enjoyed this aspect where it switched from the POV of Tess’s dad’s notes to her POV/other POVs as Tess tries to figure out how to get her daughter back and what happened to her the night of Pritchard’s arrest, but I feel like sometimes the notes were in odd places and didn’t really help my knowledge or further my understanding of what was going on in the story.

The plot - Underwhelming/Was hoping for spooky or horror vibes and did not meet expectations; this might be partially my fault since I’ve read, watched, and listened to too many stories and documentaries about serial killers that included a horrific amount of detail 😅

Overall, the book was enjoyable, but I was left with a lot of questions at the end of the book. 

Sleep Tight A Novel

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