Sleep Alone

by

Paperback, 131 pages

English language

Published by Off Limits Press.

ISBN:
978-1-7374633-9-9
Copied ISBN!
3 stars (1 review)

For the past six years, Ronnie has worked selling merch for a perpetually touring band. Late nights, sweaty clubs, dingy motel rooms, endless roads—as rough as it’s been, there is no other way of life for this band of hungry succubi leaving bodies in their wake.

Until she meets the enigmatic Helene.

Helene is just as restless, just as lonely, and just as full of secrets. With Helene in tow, Ronnie and the band make their way across the Pacific Northwest, trying to outrun not only their mistakes, but the mysterious disease stalking the band, a disease that devours succubi from the inside out. The hunger is as endless as the road, but maybe Ronnie doesn’t always want to sleep alone.

1 edition

reviewed Sleep Alone by J.A.W. McCarthy

Excellent premise, good prose, lackluster execution

3 stars

I really enjoyed the premise of this book, and the author clearly had a well-articulated vision behind the story. The prose was good, if somewhat inconsistent. The pacing of the story was confusing and difficult to follow--this story doesn't belong in such a short format. I wanted to get more invested in the characters, but there was really no character arc for anyone except for the main character, Ronnie. Reading this book felt sort of like walking into a theater during the last two acts, with an expectation that we could take the lack of context and run with it. I really wanted to love this story, but it ended up being solidly mediocre from me even though the ideas and themes behind it are intriguing. I'm not usually picky about what I read, but this book was disappointing.