Vanessa Brown is having nightmares: about babies. Ever since her husband, Pete, mentioned he wanted to start a family, Ness has been trying to convince herself she’s stoked to spawn despite her inability to keep a cactus alive—and a decade-old secret she doesn’t like to remember. So when she catches her slacker-cool coworker, Altan Young, stealing sleeping medication from the pharmaceutical … company they both work for, she decides to try the pilfered pills to finally find some rest.
But side effects of Morpheum include headaches, nausea, and possible mind melding—a fact Ness and Altan stumble upon when they share the same freaky sex dream. (Awkward.) Now these two colleagues are joined at the brain by night, experiencing dozens of fantastic sleep-staged adventures courtesy of a little imagination and a whole lot of drugs.
With the stress of being caught between the men of her literal and figurative dreams (not to mention her nightmare of a boss), Ness starts to enjoy snoozing more than being conscious—and the company of her work husband more than her real one. If she doesn’t wake up and smell the coffee soon, her dreamy escape could become a dirt nap in this feisty debut novel about the dark side of dreams’ coming true.
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This book! It’s been a long time since I read something so laugh-out-loud funny and heartbreaking at the same time. It’s the rare high-concept novel that grabs you by the heart. An experimental sleeping pill has Vanessa Brown sharing her nights with the man of her–literal–dreams; complications ensue, and as the encounters go on, the stakes get higher till Vanessa can no longer hide from the college sexual assault she’s spent years pretending never happened. Think The Time Traveler’s Wife, only hilarious, and also poignant and pissed-off in a very of-the-moment way. I thought about this novel when I wasn’t reading it, couldn’t wait to get back to it, and missed it when I reached the end. I can’t wait to read the next book(s) in the series. What a straight-up treat.
I don’t read romance for the simple fact that it all seems quite shallow and formulaic. So if I was going to read romance, I wanted to read something different and challenging, and this was both. I actually sort of disliked the main character, Ness. I threw up my hands in frustration every time she gave in to her addiction, but by the end, once she’d made her choices, I admired her for it. I didn’t entirely hate her as a character because despite her flaws, she was a sympathetic person. Two men were head over heels in love with her and I liked them both as characters, and who I am to question their judgment? She was broken by past trauma and I understood that because of that awful experience, she was an incomplete person unable to cope with life. And I had something in common with her–not wanting children. Her husband’s response, in being told that she wasn’t sure about having kids, really ticked me off and put me firmly on Team Ness. I cannot stand a man who doesn’t think a woman knows her own mind.
The themes explored through Morpheum were engrossing as well. As any married person knows, you can be so close to your partner, but still a complete stranger to them. Knowing someone’s mind is so much more intimate and it’s something that will elude us in the real world, until someone makes this awesome drug. I really enjoyed the exploration of this idea and how the plot revolved around women’s personal choice–or lack thereof. Despite her obvious addiction, Ness came out understanding more about herself and what she wanted, and I was glad with her choice in the end. Good for her!
Malcolm was an awesome villain and the promises of far more sinister intrigue involving Morpheum were tantalyzing.
I absolutely love this book. The premise is excellent, the execution next to perfect. It was an incredible read and I loved the characters. All in all, it was a great read with an insane, yet plausible scenario. Sleeping Together is one amazing roller-coaster ride where dream and reality meld together and it becomes hard to tell them apart. I love Kitty Cook’s style. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it, including the masterful parallels to one of America’s classics, but with an extravagant twist. I highly recommend this book!
**spoiler alert** I think Kitty Cook has real skill as a writer. A LOT of minor details tie in to other later or earlier parts of the story. I really liked that Vanessa, the main character, had a lot of depth and was a complex, imperfect character because it made her feel more real. I think a lot of romance MCs are just moralistic, perfect Mary Sues and I appreciated that Vanessa effed up. A lot.
I also thought Altan and Pete were good characters. Both flawed; Altan with his selfishness in his past marriage, and Pete with his casual sexism. I also appreciated that Cook explores real and relatable emotions in a marriage and how people and their needs can change over time and the complicated feelings that accompany those changes.
Like other reviewers, I agree that this book needs one hell of a trigger warning for rape/sexual assault. It isn’t just casually mentioned as part of Vanessa’s backstory; she has a full-on flashback while having sex with her husband and, while well-written and very effective, it is very triggering. In a way, it was MORE impactful from that standpoint.
I didn’t care much for the plotline where Malcolm finds out what the Morpheum does and uses it to spy on them and attack Vanessa in her dreams. I feel like if that were going to be part of the story, it needed to be fleshed out more. It was kind of a throwaway thing.
And, like other reviewers have mentioned, the end of this book falls just a *little* short. I don’t think Vanessa actually solved any of her problems. She dumps Altan to be with her husband; Pete finds out about her infidelity and dumps her; so she literally says “that’s okay, I have another man who loves me!” and tries to go back to Altan. When Altan won’t take her back, she decides to travel. It just felt like her issues with indecisiveness and lack of control in her own life STILL weren’t improved by the story’s resolution, which should have been her entire character arc.
Not to mention, if EITHER of these men really loved her, they would not be letting her run off to Paris knowing the severity of her drug problem. They would have forced her to get help.
All in all, I really do recommend the book and I’m just nitpicking a little.