Customer Reviews

Sleep with Me: A Novel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What a strange and vivid imagination Joanna Briscoe has. The quality of this book is like the dreams you have when you're feverish. The plot centers around an odd vampiric woman called Sylvie, who sets out to wreck the lives of a glossy London couple, Richard and Lelia. She subtley gets under both their skins, controlling their emotions, their lusts, their lives. In the process she exposes what awful self-obsessed people Richard and Lelia are, but that doesn't make us dislike Sylvie any the less. Briscoe's skill is in then turning the tale on its head. Just when you wish Sylvie would just go away and stop trying to wreck these people's lives, you find out more about her, about her motivations, and how by destoying this couple, she hopes to save herself.

Some critic called this book, 'like Ian McEwan but with better sex scenes' which is true. It is like early McEwan, before he went up his own backside and started writing longwinded and dull novels about the lives of surgeons. The sex scenes are very unusual. They are vivid and visceral and believable, yet curiously unerotic, you always feel the sex is purely there as a means of mind control or maybe a way of blotting out disturbing memories of the past. Still, all in all, a very compelling yet nightmarish read.

Joanna Briscoe's 'SLEEP WITH ME' had me hooked from the first page. This enchantingly dark novel had all the stuff to make it a fantastic and unforgettable read, however, it seemed to fall just short of fantastic but still managed to be very memorable. The story about a very odd love triangle between Lelia and Richard, a couple who is very much in love and expecting their first child and the mysterious Sylvie Lavigne had me mesmerized throughout almost the entire novel trying to figure out who this Sylvie Lavigne was, and why she was trying to insinuate herself in Lelia and Richard's lives.

Clues to Sylvie's true identity are revealed, in my opinion, a bit too early leaving few surprises for the ending. Also how Sylvie manages to cast her spell on everyone from Richard and Lelia to some of their best friends and even co-workers leaves the reader to wonder how such a plain and reticent woman managed to have so many people pining after her. I did not feel as though those questions were sufficiently answered, where as in doing so Ms. Briscoe could have really taken this novel to another level. Despite these flaws 'SLEEP WITH ME' is a haunting tale that will stick with the reader for a long time, 3 1/2 stars.

The novel opens with a playful meeting between Richard and his girlfriend Lelia just before they attend a friend's Christmas party. Both of them meet a "mousey" young woman named Sylvie at the party, who begins to reappear in their lives with mysterious frequency. At the same time, Lelia is pregnant with a baby conceived on the night of the party, and Richard begins receiving disturbing e-mails that appear to come from a novel that he thinks he can recognize...

Briscoe is great in examining complex themes from multiple angles and viewpoints throughout the book: the politics of sex, the unreliability of memory, loyalty and lies, etc. She keeps the pace steady throughout so that you want to read on and find out who Sylvie really is, how Richard and Lelia cope with things that go wrong in their relationship, and the horrifying background that ties them all together. Briscoe inserts just enough lyrically-written backstory to explain key points without dragging the story away from its intriguing present. In this regard, I'm going to echo several reviewers and say she is reminiscent of Ian McEwan, especially in her approach to modern sex politics.

However, where McEwan can tie together sprawling personalities between characters and finish the story, Briscoe leads us through complex psychological issues with her characters and then ends it abruptly. When your main characters are not supposed to be liked, you need to give the reader a greater reason for finishing the story. There needs to be a more satisfying arc to their development that the reader can still empathize with, and this book just doesn't have it.

Briscoe starts off with a great, haunting atmosphere in a doomed relationship, but leaves her readers in the mist.

The story is exactly as described in the reviews ... dark, haunting, twisted, well written but I somehow it manages to fall short of a really great read.
If you enjoyed this, do read `Damage' by Josephine Hart as well, but if you're between the two, I'd agree with a previous reviewer, and suggest you go for "Damage" instead

Although the reviews below are full of praise, none of them suggest what a truly gripping, enjoyable read this is...I tried Sleep With Me just because it's had a rave review from Jonathan Coe, another great British author, and how right he was. It's one of the most addictively absorbing, thrilling, sexy, witty novels I've read for years, with an amazing sense of place, great characters...I was up until 3 a.m. reading it, and am recommending it to EVERYONE. A must-read.