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margaretdalles's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.5
sloatsj's review against another edition
2.0
Never took off for me. Read it on a plane in one sitting, though, so there's that.
cece_xo's review against another edition
3.0
Meh honestly don’t remember much of the book. Very much about grief and loss which hit different. But it was a struggle for me at points. Maybe I need to read this in a diff headspace
anaodaniel's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
tjenner514's review against another edition
3.0
The writing quality was really good, but the subject matter was pretty boring for me.
emilyacres's review against another edition
5.0
It's another of those nights. A night to live through without sleep.
A widow can't sleep through the night. It's been fourteen years since the death of her young husband and yet she finds herself awake in the dead of night, baking pastries and pacing the well-worn floor of her farmhouse. Sleepless Night is one of these very nights. As a new lover sleeps in her bed upstairs, she prepares a Russian bundt cake and revisits her old thoughts and memories—and some new ones about her recent lover.
Before this night, the widow spent years attempting to unravel the circumstances of her husband's death by suicide. He left no note. They had been married hardly over a year. Only in his absence does she sense the space that lived between them, a feeling that only grows as she continues to investigate. Moving seamlessly from present to past and weaving masterfully through multiple timelines we get a portrait of a woman grappling with her past. Contrary to what you might think from the plot summary I found there to be warmth to this story.
There was a levity to this book that was unexpected and very welcome. I guess I had anticipated by its summary something a bit more bleak. I think it comes from the authenticity of the characters that the author manages to achieve in a very short number of pages and the tenderness with which they are written. Between the wintry, rural setting, the meditative quality of the story and the prose itself, it adds up to something beautifully sensory and, dare I say, charming. When I try to describe the quality of the writing, I keep picturing the tinkling of winter bells, soft and hypnotic.
Thank you to New Vessel Press for providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.
rmaff's review against another edition
I really enjoyed the concept of this book: a woman recounts her relationship with her dead husband over the course of a sleepless night. I'm not sure if it was the translation that made it hard for me to follow, or the author's jumpy timelines, but there were parts I had to reread to understand what was going on and when. Overall, it was a quiet, tender reflection on love and loss.
bryndis_books's review against another edition
3.0
De tekst op de achterflap is interessanter dan de rest van het boekje. Alleen een beschrijving van die nacht had ik leuker gevonden, nu werd er van alles bijgehaald. Maar nog steeds een enjoyable read