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Sleep
From a dazzling new talent, an utterly gripping debut novel following a newly divorced young mother forced to reckon with the secrets of her own childhood as she returns to the family home one summer.
Every parent exists within two families simultaneously – the one she was born into, and the one she has made.
Ten-year-old Margaret hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family’s lush backyard while her brother hunts for her in a game of flashlight tag. Hers is a childhood of sunlit swimming pools, Saturday morning pancakes and a devoted best friend, but her family life requires careful prudence. Her mother can be as brittle as she can be loving, and her father and brother assume familiar, if uncomfortable, models of masculinity. Then late one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and in the wake of that betrayal the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.
Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents’ bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her in a game of hide and seek. She’s newly divorced and navigating her life as a co-parent, while discovering the pleasures of a new lover. But some part of her is still under the blackberry bush from all those summers ago, punched out of time. She must now reckon with the echoes between the past and the present, what it means to keep a child truly safe, and just how much of our lives are ours alone.
Beautifully written, unflinchingly human, and life-affirming, Sleep is about the cycles of motherhood and childhood, the burden of love and what lies on the other side of the world, rich in possibility.
Every parent exists within two families simultaneously – the one she was born into, and the one she has made.
Ten-year-old Margaret hides beneath a blackberry bush in her family’s lush backyard while her brother hunts for her in a game of flashlight tag. Hers is a childhood of sunlit swimming pools, Saturday morning pancakes and a devoted best friend, but her family life requires careful prudence. Her mother can be as brittle as she can be loving, and her father and brother assume familiar, if uncomfortable, models of masculinity. Then late one fateful summer, everything changes. A line is crossed and in the wake of that betrayal the simple pleasures of girlhood slip away.
Twenty-five years later, Margaret hides under her parents’ bed, waiting for her young daughters to find her in a game of hide and seek. She’s newly divorced and navigating her life as a co-parent, while discovering the pleasures of a new lover. But some part of her is still under the blackberry bush from all those summers ago, punched out of time. She must now reckon with the echoes between the past and the present, what it means to keep a child truly safe, and just how much of our lives are ours alone.
Beautifully written, unflinchingly human, and life-affirming, Sleep is about the cycles of motherhood and childhood, the burden of love and what lies on the other side of the world, rich in possibility.
253 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 13, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 691 reviews
February 16, 2025
This book slowly wormed its way into me. The early scenes are loose, pearls on a string, but after that the book becomes much more focused. But those early scenes are important to start us out with childhood memory, something that almost feels like another world. That is when Margaret was hurt, and that hurt still defines her as we follow her decades later.
The descriptions of these books like to use words like "secrets" and "transgressions" but this bothers me. Let us be frank. This is a book about how Margaret was molested as a child, and how her mother chose to ignore it. It is not a book that is graphic or exploitative, and while these are heavy topics the book didn't make me feel weighed down. In some ways, Margaret's problems with her family will be relatable to many people. Even though hers are quite specific, like many families hers has decided to act like nothing has happened and Margaret has mostly gone along with it.
Now, as an adult, newly divorced and with a daughter coming close to the age she was at the time of her abuse, Margaret is seeing things a little differently. This is also a book about reexamination, the experience of midlife, seeing it all through a new lens.
It is not a book I feel like I should have to sell someone on because it is hard to sell. That is why the marketing department chooses words like "secrets" and "transgressions." But I found this book immensely readable, very poignant, and it's not trying to tell you that you should forgive the parents who treated you badly. It lets all these characters exist in their complexity, as recognizable people in recognizable situations. It lets old wounds echo and reopen.
The descriptions of these books like to use words like "secrets" and "transgressions" but this bothers me. Let us be frank. This is a book about how Margaret was molested as a child, and how her mother chose to ignore it. It is not a book that is graphic or exploitative, and while these are heavy topics the book didn't make me feel weighed down. In some ways, Margaret's problems with her family will be relatable to many people. Even though hers are quite specific, like many families hers has decided to act like nothing has happened and Margaret has mostly gone along with it.
Now, as an adult, newly divorced and with a daughter coming close to the age she was at the time of her abuse, Margaret is seeing things a little differently. This is also a book about reexamination, the experience of midlife, seeing it all through a new lens.
It is not a book I feel like I should have to sell someone on because it is hard to sell. That is why the marketing department chooses words like "secrets" and "transgressions." But I found this book immensely readable, very poignant, and it's not trying to tell you that you should forgive the parents who treated you badly. It lets all these characters exist in their complexity, as recognizable people in recognizable situations. It lets old wounds echo and reopen.
July 11, 2025
It's never a great sign when I'm reading a slew of other people's reviews to see if they better capture my own thoughts. I feel like I should have loved this book: character driven and family drama and a NY setting. All of those would be in my wheelhouse. And yet, it just fell a little flat on every front.
The protagonist, Margaret, is viewed as both a child and as a mother with children of her own. During her childhood, she suffers from a cold mother and a brother who has not learned boundaries (trying not to spoil here). Her experiences as a child reverberate into her adulthood and her own parenting.
However, the storyline is almost too subtle. I never really feel Margaret's pain, and her mother seems like a caricature. The brother also seems scantily drawn. Margaret and her children are the characters that come to life, but it felt so close to real life that it wasn't all that interesting. The ending was anti-climactic, and if there was a lesson for the reader, I really didn't grasp it. I love realistic fiction in general, but this book lacked something. It was hard to put my finger on exactly what, so I feel badly being critical. I just think in the scheme of books I've read about family dysfunction, there are a lot of very good ones, and this book didn't rise to that level.
The protagonist, Margaret, is viewed as both a child and as a mother with children of her own. During her childhood, she suffers from a cold mother and a brother who has not learned boundaries (trying not to spoil here). Her experiences as a child reverberate into her adulthood and her own parenting.
However, the storyline is almost too subtle. I never really feel Margaret's pain, and her mother seems like a caricature. The brother also seems scantily drawn. Margaret and her children are the characters that come to life, but it felt so close to real life that it wasn't all that interesting. The ending was anti-climactic, and if there was a lesson for the reader, I really didn't grasp it. I love realistic fiction in general, but this book lacked something. It was hard to put my finger on exactly what, so I feel badly being critical. I just think in the scheme of books I've read about family dysfunction, there are a lot of very good ones, and this book didn't rise to that level.
May 24, 2025
One of the most scarring novels I’ve ever read is Miriam Toews’s “Women Talking” (2019). Based on real events less than 20 years ago in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia, the story involves a group of women deliberating how they should respond to the men in their community who secretly sedated them and their daughters, then raped them while they slept.
In amplitude and tone, that communal horror feels far from Honor Jones’s new novel, “Sleep,” but so many testimonies of sexual abuse have the same monstrous baseline of bewilderment and dislocation. In Jones’s story, a 10-year-old girl named Margaret is repeatedly molested by her older brother as she sleeps. That’s probably enough to make many of you skip along to something — anything — more pleasant. But Jones, an editor at the Atlantic magazine, is a deft writer, and her exploration of the confusing experience of childhood violation is somehow both subtle and unsparing.
The opening section of “Sleep” is a masterpiece of carefully crafted perspective and tone. Jones’s third-person narrator floats just above Margaret’s consciousness as she plays in the yard during the summer before fifth grade. Curious and precocious, Margaret is quickly developing a firm sense of how the world works. “You could pretend things into existence but not out of it,” she explains. Her evolving maxims are a perfect blend of innocence and insight, captured in language forged from a child’s naivete but already alloyed with an adult’s wisdom. “You always feel sadder when you look into a mirror,” she thinks. “It’s because to the sadness in yourself is added the more generous sadness you feel for another person.”
Margaret’s household provides plenty of repressed drama for her to study with her unconsciously satiric eye. She has caught wind of The Affair that inspired her mother to swallow a potentially deadly fistful of pills. The lurid details may be....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
In amplitude and tone, that communal horror feels far from Honor Jones’s new novel, “Sleep,” but so many testimonies of sexual abuse have the same monstrous baseline of bewilderment and dislocation. In Jones’s story, a 10-year-old girl named Margaret is repeatedly molested by her older brother as she sleeps. That’s probably enough to make many of you skip along to something — anything — more pleasant. But Jones, an editor at the Atlantic magazine, is a deft writer, and her exploration of the confusing experience of childhood violation is somehow both subtle and unsparing.
The opening section of “Sleep” is a masterpiece of carefully crafted perspective and tone. Jones’s third-person narrator floats just above Margaret’s consciousness as she plays in the yard during the summer before fifth grade. Curious and precocious, Margaret is quickly developing a firm sense of how the world works. “You could pretend things into existence but not out of it,” she explains. Her evolving maxims are a perfect blend of innocence and insight, captured in language forged from a child’s naivete but already alloyed with an adult’s wisdom. “You always feel sadder when you look into a mirror,” she thinks. “It’s because to the sadness in yourself is added the more generous sadness you feel for another person.”
Margaret’s household provides plenty of repressed drama for her to study with her unconsciously satiric eye. She has caught wind of The Affair that inspired her mother to swallow a potentially deadly fistful of pills. The lurid details may be....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 30, 2025
This was a book group choice and not something I would have picked up otherwise. For better or worse, I'm just not a fan of Tales of Neurotic Motherhood, and this is one theme that Jones puts before the reader from Chapter 2 to the end. Another major theme is the complicated, messy relationships we negotiate within families of origin and then graft onto all our other social interactions after leaving the nest.
I like most that Jones manages to show that Life is both terror and thrill, joy and pain, and that there are seldom any tidy resolutions. We spend years and years angling for them but almost never achieve them. Equally pleasing is that she writes well.
I like most that Jones manages to show that Life is both terror and thrill, joy and pain, and that there are seldom any tidy resolutions. We spend years and years angling for them but almost never achieve them. Equally pleasing is that she writes well.
May 24, 2025
Zzzzzzzzzz
April 7, 2025
Margaret is a mother, but she was once just a girl. Sleep is a book divided into two timelines: childhood, and motherhood.
Peering from behind the curtain of a seemingly quiet childhood, everything is far from perfect. Margaret’s mother, Elizabeth, is emotionally volatile and always poised for a breakdown. It becomes easy, both for Elizabeth to blame Margaret for everything, and for Margaret to internalize that she is the problem.
Many years later, newly divorced and raising her children in a tiny apartment, Margaret is barely keeping her head above water. Her mother is now a grandmother, and her own identity as a mother offers a new perspective on the way she was raised—as well as everything she wants to do differently.
This was such an introspective novel, with truly stunning lines threaded throughout. Though heavy in nature, there are some beautiful moments which shine through. It’s a book for anyone who has ever considered their own life through the lens of what came before.
I will say, trigger warnings need to be checked for this, as there were some very hard to sit with events which took place in the narrator’s childhood.
Thank you, @riverheadbooks for the #giftedbook ! Out next month!
Peering from behind the curtain of a seemingly quiet childhood, everything is far from perfect. Margaret’s mother, Elizabeth, is emotionally volatile and always poised for a breakdown. It becomes easy, both for Elizabeth to blame Margaret for everything, and for Margaret to internalize that she is the problem.
Many years later, newly divorced and raising her children in a tiny apartment, Margaret is barely keeping her head above water. Her mother is now a grandmother, and her own identity as a mother offers a new perspective on the way she was raised—as well as everything she wants to do differently.
This was such an introspective novel, with truly stunning lines threaded throughout. Though heavy in nature, there are some beautiful moments which shine through. It’s a book for anyone who has ever considered their own life through the lens of what came before.
I will say, trigger warnings need to be checked for this, as there were some very hard to sit with events which took place in the narrator’s childhood.
Thank you, @riverheadbooks for the #giftedbook ! Out next month!
June 6, 2025
I was 66% of the way through this book, and enjoying it in spite of its rather unlikeable protagonist, Margaret. Then I read this: He’d always been a big people watcher, especially interested in the minor grotesqueries—the obese or the boob-jobbed, the over- or underdressed, the improbably coupled, the conspicuously lonely.
I'm fat. I use that word as a descriptor, but it's always lovely to see how some people view me. Like, for example, I now know how Ms. Jones views fat people... as "grotesqueries."
It felt like being asleep and having someone dump cold water on your head.
I almost didn't finish reading. I had waited two months for it to become available from the library, after seeing a positive early review somewhere. Ms. Jones is an excellent writer, and the book, by an large, is not quite like anything I've read. I'm not sure if I would've given it 4 stars or 3 stars, had it not been for that line. I suspect it was closer to 3, but I might've rounded up.
I had been excited to read it, and it was good (despite me finding Margaret really irritating much of the time - though I did wonder if that isn't the point?). Then, suddenly, I got to feel crappy while reading a book I waited weeks to read (by the way, this is why I almost never buy from unknown authors. This kind of thing happens far too often). I finished it because at 66% I was too invested not to.
It was, overall, good. But I'll never read another book by this author again after that.
I'm fat. I use that word as a descriptor, but it's always lovely to see how some people view me. Like, for example, I now know how Ms. Jones views fat people... as "grotesqueries."
It felt like being asleep and having someone dump cold water on your head.
I almost didn't finish reading. I had waited two months for it to become available from the library, after seeing a positive early review somewhere. Ms. Jones is an excellent writer, and the book, by an large, is not quite like anything I've read. I'm not sure if I would've given it 4 stars or 3 stars, had it not been for that line. I suspect it was closer to 3, but I might've rounded up.
I had been excited to read it, and it was good (despite me finding Margaret really irritating much of the time - though I did wonder if that isn't the point?). Then, suddenly, I got to feel crappy while reading a book I waited weeks to read (by the way, this is why I almost never buy from unknown authors. This kind of thing happens far too often). I finished it because at 66% I was too invested not to.
It was, overall, good. But I'll never read another book by this author again after that.
June 15, 2025
I don’t know if I’ll ever have words to explain how much this is one of the most beautiful and moving books I’ve ever read in my entire life. I’m sitting here just speechless and weeping. The writing was absolutely stunning. GOSH. if you read this and don’t like it, I swear, do not ever tell me and I’m so extremely serious oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh I’m undone
June 26, 2025
. 🎧 Was this book incredibly pompous or am I just an imbecile who doesn’t get it? At the end of the book, Margaret says to an author she edits “You’re trying to do too much. It can’t be about everything at once.” This seems to be the real theme of the book. It has no discernible point, resolution, or lessons. Is it supposed to be about sexual assault and the way it changes all your relationships and destroys your sense of self-worth, or is it supposed to be about being a mother and how difficult it is when you feel like you’re failing the job, or is it about divorce and love and how hard it is to understand your own feelings and needs, or is it about the fraught relationships between a mother and a daughter, or is it about dealing with loved ones with mental health issues, or is it about chronicling the tiny boring minutia of simple tasks done every single day and the mundane thoughts that go through your head minute by minute? Margaret spends so much time being traumatized by her sexual violation and worrying that something might happen to her daughters but instead of just talking to them, she just helicoptered over them. “Talk to me she thought, but did not say.” How ineffective to actually protect your children and maybe that’s the point but not clearly stated. Also maybe I disliked this because the audio narrator made everything sound so lofty and pretentious- as if every tiny observation of parking and swimming and blowjobs is a monumental pontifical enlightenment for life.
September 18, 2024
Liked this a lot, and I'm extremely picky about tales of Brooklyn motherhood. It's beautifully written and not at all overwrought, and the elder mother-daughter relationship was so finely depicted - a difficult and fraught relationship that doesn't preclude a kind of love. Often I dislike characters who are too similar to me, but I'd really like to hang out with Margaret and envy her best friendship with Biddy.
December 21, 2025
Sleep by Honor Jones completely floored me. I genuinely don’t even know where to begin. It broke me in the best possible way. I finished it the other week and still find myself thinking about it constantly. It’s one of those rare novels that stays with you.
Margaret is navigating the painful currents of her past. She’s dealing with the trauma of childhood sexual abuse, a volatile and perfectionist mother, the complexities of motherhood, divorce, and the uncertainty of new love. It’s heavy, yes, but Jones handles it all with such honesty and grace that it never feels overwhelming.
The narrative moves between past and present, capturing how trauma reverberates through life, shaping how we love, parent and survive. There’s a quiet power in how Jones explores the emotional inheritance passed down through generations and the courage it takes to face it.
I also need to point out that the writing is exquisite. Jones has this remarkable ability to get truly under the skin of a character. Their fears, contradictions and tenderness, all without ever tipping into melodrama.
What struck me most was the emotional authenticity. Jones doesn’t offer neat resolutions or dramatic redemption. Just a deeply human portrait of someone trying to make sense of her life, her family, and her choices. It’s heartbreaking, yes, but also quietly defiant and unexpectedly hopeful.
Sleep tackles big, difficult themes: abuse, consent, silence,motherhood, love; each theme approached with care and insight. There are glimmers of humour and light, of resilience and connection, threaded throughout.
This is one of the most powerful novels I’ve read in a long time. It’s beautiful, heartbreaking and utterly unforgettable. And yes, Honor Jones has just become one of my new favourite authors.
Please read the trigger warnings before picking this up.
(AD/PR) Thank you so much to @4thestatebooks for this absolute gem. Out 22nd May!
Margaret is navigating the painful currents of her past. She’s dealing with the trauma of childhood sexual abuse, a volatile and perfectionist mother, the complexities of motherhood, divorce, and the uncertainty of new love. It’s heavy, yes, but Jones handles it all with such honesty and grace that it never feels overwhelming.
The narrative moves between past and present, capturing how trauma reverberates through life, shaping how we love, parent and survive. There’s a quiet power in how Jones explores the emotional inheritance passed down through generations and the courage it takes to face it.
I also need to point out that the writing is exquisite. Jones has this remarkable ability to get truly under the skin of a character. Their fears, contradictions and tenderness, all without ever tipping into melodrama.
What struck me most was the emotional authenticity. Jones doesn’t offer neat resolutions or dramatic redemption. Just a deeply human portrait of someone trying to make sense of her life, her family, and her choices. It’s heartbreaking, yes, but also quietly defiant and unexpectedly hopeful.
Sleep tackles big, difficult themes: abuse, consent, silence,motherhood, love; each theme approached with care and insight. There are glimmers of humour and light, of resilience and connection, threaded throughout.
This is one of the most powerful novels I’ve read in a long time. It’s beautiful, heartbreaking and utterly unforgettable. And yes, Honor Jones has just become one of my new favourite authors.
Please read the trigger warnings before picking this up.
(AD/PR) Thank you so much to @4thestatebooks for this absolute gem. Out 22nd May!
June 4, 2025
This was a good family drama debut book. Honor Jones is definitely a talented writer. I enjoy emotional books about motherhood and dysfunctional families and the way she put this story together was really impressive. I split my time between the physical and audiobook. The audiobook was narrated by Rebecca Lowman and I truly enjoyed her performance. Really well done.
At the beginning, Margaret is a child. We get glimpses of her with her friends and her family. Then something happens to Margaret (SA warning) and it causes her childhood trauma that changes who she is and follows her throughout her life.
Then we are 20 years into the future, Margaret is a newly divorced mom and we see how her relationship with her daughter and kids has been affected by her past. How her suppressed trauma now causes her to feel overprotective of her kids.
Some people may have issues with the topics of SA in this book, so that's something to take note of. If you like messy family dynamics and thought provoking, and heartbreaking books, then give this one a try.
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
At the beginning, Margaret is a child. We get glimpses of her with her friends and her family. Then something happens to Margaret (SA warning) and it causes her childhood trauma that changes who she is and follows her throughout her life.
Then we are 20 years into the future, Margaret is a newly divorced mom and we see how her relationship with her daughter and kids has been affected by her past. How her suppressed trauma now causes her to feel overprotective of her kids.
Some people may have issues with the topics of SA in this book, so that's something to take note of. If you like messy family dynamics and thought provoking, and heartbreaking books, then give this one a try.
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own.
June 27, 2025
Ugh, one of these days I am going to DNF a book like this. Despite finding it boring and even somewhat repulsive, I had to trust the reviewer who claimed it starts out slow but gets better. It did not. Margaret, the protagonist, is a miserable character who desperately needs therapy.
August 6, 2025
At ten years old, Margaret's world was one of summer games, close friendships, and seemingly idyllic family rituals. Yet beneath that surface lay an undercurrent of emotional volatility and gendered expectations, culminating in a summer that fractured her sense of innocence. Now, decades later, as a newly divorced mother of two young daughters, she finds herself caught in the same yard, in the same house, reckoning with the long shadow of her upbringing while trying to create a different kind of life for her children - and herself.
Author Honor Jones writes with a sharp, lyrical precision that feels both emotionally intimate and structurally elegant. Her background in journalism - notably as an editor at The Atlantic and The New York Times - informs her prose: it's clean, restrained, and quietly devastating; within her restraint is deep psychological richness, and she excels at the unsaid.
This was a difficult read for me because some of the book's themes hit very close to home. While the novel isn't graphic, it delicately but clearly alludes to some things, which was enough to create a sense of emotional claustrophobia that stayed with me throughout.
A haunting and elegantly rendered debut novel, "Sleep" chronicles the emotional terrain between past and present, motherhood and daughterhood, freedom and familial obligation. The novel’s structure - moving fluidly between Margaret's childhood and her adult present - mirrors the cyclical nature of memory and trauma. Jones captures the way past and present collapse into one another, especially in the context of motherhood. Her portrayal of the “two families” every mother inhabits - the one she was born into and the one she creates - gives the book both thematic clarity and emotional weight, examining what it means to parent while still reckoning with the parent you had, and how echoes of trauma shape - and sometimes distort - love, memory, and responsibility. This interplay may well be the novel’s strongest theme: the cyclical nature of care, expectation, love, and failure across generations.
"Sleep" is heartbreakingly intimate, but ultimately not about what breaks us - it’s about how we carry those breaks and turn them into something stronger, something survivable. It’s a novel about the things we inherit and the things we choose - and how, between the two, a life is made.
Author Honor Jones writes with a sharp, lyrical precision that feels both emotionally intimate and structurally elegant. Her background in journalism - notably as an editor at The Atlantic and The New York Times - informs her prose: it's clean, restrained, and quietly devastating; within her restraint is deep psychological richness, and she excels at the unsaid.
This was a difficult read for me because some of the book's themes hit very close to home. While the novel isn't graphic, it delicately but clearly alludes to some things, which was enough to create a sense of emotional claustrophobia that stayed with me throughout.
A haunting and elegantly rendered debut novel, "Sleep" chronicles the emotional terrain between past and present, motherhood and daughterhood, freedom and familial obligation. The novel’s structure - moving fluidly between Margaret's childhood and her adult present - mirrors the cyclical nature of memory and trauma. Jones captures the way past and present collapse into one another, especially in the context of motherhood. Her portrayal of the “two families” every mother inhabits - the one she was born into and the one she creates - gives the book both thematic clarity and emotional weight, examining what it means to parent while still reckoning with the parent you had, and how echoes of trauma shape - and sometimes distort - love, memory, and responsibility. This interplay may well be the novel’s strongest theme: the cyclical nature of care, expectation, love, and failure across generations.
"Sleep" is heartbreakingly intimate, but ultimately not about what breaks us - it’s about how we carry those breaks and turn them into something stronger, something survivable. It’s a novel about the things we inherit and the things we choose - and how, between the two, a life is made.
June 16, 2025
3.75 stars. @prhaudio | #partner 𝗦𝗟𝗘𝗘𝗣 by debut author Honor Jones is a well told story, revolving around very difficult topics. In many ways Margaret seemed to have an idyllic childhood. Her family had money, lived in a good neighborhood, her parents’ marriage was intact, and her best friend was alway nearby. Yet, other things were amiss. The summer Margaret was 10, she experienced trauma that she was too young to fully understand. The one person she confided in, the one who might have protected her, instead failed her. Years later, divorced and with children of her own, Margaret’s still very much affected by that long ago summer.
I expected a lot from this book and it definitely delivered, but for me, not quite enough. I felt so much for Margaret and what she went through that I was both angry for her and a little impatient with her. The events of her 10-year old summer reverberated throughout Margaret’s life. As a child, she had few real options and virtually no power of her own. That made sense, but as an adult, I wanted her to do more. I wanted Margaret to stand up for herself, to take more agency over her own life.
I know this sounds like victim blaming and I really don’t want to do that. I think what it comes down to is that I just didn’t want to be in Margaret’s sort of fugue state for the majority of this book. It began to feel oppressive and Margaret was the only one who could end it. The way it unfolded was probably very realistic, and maybe that’s exactly why it made me so uncomfortable. ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫✨
*️⃣ Though the narration by Rebecca Lowman was excellent, I also think 𝘚𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 is a book that for me would have worked better for me in print.
I expected a lot from this book and it definitely delivered, but for me, not quite enough. I felt so much for Margaret and what she went through that I was both angry for her and a little impatient with her. The events of her 10-year old summer reverberated throughout Margaret’s life. As a child, she had few real options and virtually no power of her own. That made sense, but as an adult, I wanted her to do more. I wanted Margaret to stand up for herself, to take more agency over her own life.
I know this sounds like victim blaming and I really don’t want to do that. I think what it comes down to is that I just didn’t want to be in Margaret’s sort of fugue state for the majority of this book. It began to feel oppressive and Margaret was the only one who could end it. The way it unfolded was probably very realistic, and maybe that’s exactly why it made me so uncomfortable. ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫✨
*️⃣ Though the narration by Rebecca Lowman was excellent, I also think 𝘚𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 is a book that for me would have worked better for me in print.
November 2, 2024
Sleep is a character driven book which centers on a dysfunctional family through flashbacks. Margaret has past traumas that she hasn’t dealt with or acknowledged to the family. Whenever Margaret got close to revealing the truth, her mother, Elizabeth makes it very clear that she doesn’t want to hear about the trauma much less discuss it. Margaret tries very hard to be the mother to her two girls that Elizabeth wasn’t. The characters are fully developed and consistent. The lack of communication was maddening to me. Watching Margaret consistently make bad relationship decisions, with the exception of her best friend, was frustrating. Clearly the author did a great job describing these characters for me to react so strongly to the protagonist.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Riverhead for this advanced readers copy,
Many thanks to NetGalley and Riverhead for this advanced readers copy,
July 2, 2025
Meh.
2.5 stars
I don’t see what everyone else seems to be seeing.
2.5 stars
I don’t see what everyone else seems to be seeing.
Read
October 6, 2025This novel had some interesting thoughts about #metoo and the life-long consequences of a family member over-stepping boundaries. It's subtle - the story and the writing - and that's what makes you think. Margaret is daughter to an emotionally distant mother who chooses not to act when she discovers that Margaret is being abused and although Margaret confides in other people later in her life it is still not out in the open. She becomes a mother herself and then she, finally has to act. This is about family life and things that families choose to ignore. Despite this subject matter, it's a quiet book, carefully drawn.
June 12, 2025
My Shelf Awareness review: Honor Jones's debut novel is a breathtaking character study of a woman raising young daughters and facing memories of childhood abuse.
Margaret's 1990s New Jersey upbringing seems idyllic, but upper-middle-class suburbia conceals the perils of a dysfunctional family headed by Elizabeth, a narcissistic, controlling mother. Elizabeth overreacts to messes in her immaculate home and to Margaret's perceived infractions. When 10-year-old Margaret is molested by a male relative one summer, she instinctively knows not to confide in Elizabeth, whose history of suicide attempts suggests a failure to cope with life's challenges.
Cut to Margaret in her mid-30s, now a struggling Brooklyn-based editor and divorced mother of two. Every essay submitted for her consideration is #MeToo-themed, and Elizabeth's illness returns her to the family home; it's time to confront her repressed trauma. The sexual assault mostly took place while Margaret was asleep--a passive state during which neither consent nor refusal seemed possible. Sleep should equate to cozy safety ("All in a line were pictures of sleeping children" on her parents' wall), but here it represents vulnerability. "She would be watchful and hopeful at the same time," Margaret vows. "That was basically parenting, right? Joy, and vigilance."
Jones crafts unforgettable, crystalline scenes. There are subtle echoes throughout as the past threatens to repeat. (In particular, pool parties are pivotal.) The author also sensitively tracks Margaret's sexual awakening while she and her ex form new partnerships. Reminiscent of Sarah Moss's and Evie Wyld's work, and astonishing for its psychological acuity, this promises great things from Jones.
(Posted with permission from Shelf Awareness.)
Margaret's 1990s New Jersey upbringing seems idyllic, but upper-middle-class suburbia conceals the perils of a dysfunctional family headed by Elizabeth, a narcissistic, controlling mother. Elizabeth overreacts to messes in her immaculate home and to Margaret's perceived infractions. When 10-year-old Margaret is molested by a male relative one summer, she instinctively knows not to confide in Elizabeth, whose history of suicide attempts suggests a failure to cope with life's challenges.
Cut to Margaret in her mid-30s, now a struggling Brooklyn-based editor and divorced mother of two. Every essay submitted for her consideration is #MeToo-themed, and Elizabeth's illness returns her to the family home; it's time to confront her repressed trauma. The sexual assault mostly took place while Margaret was asleep--a passive state during which neither consent nor refusal seemed possible. Sleep should equate to cozy safety ("All in a line were pictures of sleeping children" on her parents' wall), but here it represents vulnerability. "She would be watchful and hopeful at the same time," Margaret vows. "That was basically parenting, right? Joy, and vigilance."
Jones crafts unforgettable, crystalline scenes. There are subtle echoes throughout as the past threatens to repeat. (In particular, pool parties are pivotal.) The author also sensitively tracks Margaret's sexual awakening while she and her ex form new partnerships. Reminiscent of Sarah Moss's and Evie Wyld's work, and astonishing for its psychological acuity, this promises great things from Jones.
(Posted with permission from Shelf Awareness.)
March 25, 2025
Really loved reading this book-I did not have any idea how dark this secret was within the family and how no one could speak up about it because it is such a taboo subject. This could be a trigger for some. Highly recommend.
July 21, 2025
4 stars. 🎧
November 16, 2025
Margaret wears the trauma of childhood sexual abuse like an annoying corrective accessory: think, adult braces, or bifocals, or more apt—something hidden and embarrassing, like an incontinence pad. It's necessary, undeniable, and ever-present, but after awhile you get used to it and sometimes even forget it's there. Sleep is the story of a woman who presents an affable face to the world while seething within.
Middle-aged Margaret, recently divorced, lives in a tiny Brooklyn apartment with her two young daughters, Helen and Jo. She co-parents with her ex, Ezra, with whom she maintains an amicable relationship. On the days when Ezra has the girls, she rushes to meet her new lover, Duncan. An editor at an important New York periodical, she rearranges others' words, but fails to find her own when visiting her neurotic mother in New Jersey. In-between these scenes of Margaret adulting there are flashbacks to Margaret as a child, enduring the haunting intrusions of her older brother, Neal, and the cruelties of her self-absorbed mother, Elizabeth.
Sleep is astutely written but often distant and disengaged. There is genuine warmth in the way Honor Jones depicts the Margaret's relationship with her two young daughters, and with her childhood best friend, Biddy, so perhaps it's not surprising that she lingers in these scenes until they become repetitive. Margaret seems stalled in her life and the novel stalls with her. Although there is much to admire in Jones's crisp dialogue and the gentle humor that infuses scenes with Margaret's daughters and her memories of madcap times with Biddy, the present-day scenes feel flat. Her romance with Duncan comes off as bleak and sordid and just made me sad. The result is an uneven reading experience. Honor Jones is a skilled writer, but this didn't add anything new or revelatory to the canon of stories of dysfunctional families.
Middle-aged Margaret, recently divorced, lives in a tiny Brooklyn apartment with her two young daughters, Helen and Jo. She co-parents with her ex, Ezra, with whom she maintains an amicable relationship. On the days when Ezra has the girls, she rushes to meet her new lover, Duncan. An editor at an important New York periodical, she rearranges others' words, but fails to find her own when visiting her neurotic mother in New Jersey. In-between these scenes of Margaret adulting there are flashbacks to Margaret as a child, enduring the haunting intrusions of her older brother, Neal, and the cruelties of her self-absorbed mother, Elizabeth.
Sleep is astutely written but often distant and disengaged. There is genuine warmth in the way Honor Jones depicts the Margaret's relationship with her two young daughters, and with her childhood best friend, Biddy, so perhaps it's not surprising that she lingers in these scenes until they become repetitive. Margaret seems stalled in her life and the novel stalls with her. Although there is much to admire in Jones's crisp dialogue and the gentle humor that infuses scenes with Margaret's daughters and her memories of madcap times with Biddy, the present-day scenes feel flat. Her romance with Duncan comes off as bleak and sordid and just made me sad. The result is an uneven reading experience. Honor Jones is a skilled writer, but this didn't add anything new or revelatory to the canon of stories of dysfunctional families.
January 27, 2025
I think dysfunctional American families are one of my favourite storylines. Very readable book.
May 24, 2025
the characters were not likeable and much of the book bored me
August 11, 2025
4.75 stars!!
First and foremost, shoutout to the Goodreads Debut challenge for leading me to this book! I was surprised by how quickly I connected with it, and how it continued making an impact on me through the different parts. Although I am not the biggest literary fiction girly out there, I can appreciate a thoughtful book that brings out pure emotion in the reader.
The tale follows Margaret: a recently divorced, mother of two who reminisces about how her childhood experiences made her into the woman she was today. We see an intricate exploration of emotionally abusive parents, sexual abuse, and marital incompetence in her story. Let me tell you, her relationship with her mother GOT ME. Honor Jones described the dichotomy of emotionally-hurtful mothers perfectly: the good moments were little and sparse, while the bad moments were cruel and impactful. The book starts with Margaret as a child, so we get to read the innocent perspective of a daughter unable to understand why her mother openly loves her brother more, diminishing her very existence every chance she got. We see the naivety of a child blatantly loving her mother even as she is being subtly cruel to her -- not even understanding this as cruelty. I loved how well-written this was and how even in adulthood, Margaret was subconsciously haunted by these childhood traumas.
Speaking of, the topic of sexual abuse was phenomenally discussed. Jones highlights experiences that stray from the "typical" categories of rape and assault, bringing attention to the harm behind ALL non-consensual acts, not just the ones socially accepted as being "bad enough." I liked the impact that these experiences had on Margaret's psyche and association with intimacy, as seen in her hyper-sexualization. She became entirely desensitized to sexual violence due to its subtle prevalence in her childhood, and she didn't feel the need to spread her story just for the sake of "justice." People often forget that not all "monsters" are strangers; they can be our fathers, brothers, etc. Margaret's story instantly connected the reader to her pain and necessary survival, in a gentle, coaxing way.
Okay, rant over! I just felt so connected to the characters and novel!! If the TikTok trend that says "You have become a grown up that would have protected you as a child" does anything to your emotional state, you should definitely give this book a shot!! <3
Favorite Quotes (Spoilers!!):
"The brick house was too big, like the goat was too small. They were made not for function or survival, but for something else -- to make an impression, to overwhelm or endear. Only someone very rich could have things so frivolously big and small."
"She had been changed too -- the sloughed-off dead cells of her past selves long gone, replaced. Inexorably she had been changed, and often for the better. Helen and Jo bobbed past in the water where there had been only stone and soil, life where there had been no life. But through it all one thing, one shameful, barely perceptible thing, remained the same, and it made her furious -- furious at herself -- that she bore it still, could feel it still: the line on her body that her brother had made."
"That was why people hurt children -- because they wouldn't remember, because they wouldn't tell, because people didn't think they were quite alive. That was why Neal had done things to her when she was a child, sleeping. That was a little taste of death."
First and foremost, shoutout to the Goodreads Debut challenge for leading me to this book! I was surprised by how quickly I connected with it, and how it continued making an impact on me through the different parts. Although I am not the biggest literary fiction girly out there, I can appreciate a thoughtful book that brings out pure emotion in the reader.
The tale follows Margaret: a recently divorced, mother of two who reminisces about how her childhood experiences made her into the woman she was today. We see an intricate exploration of emotionally abusive parents, sexual abuse, and marital incompetence in her story. Let me tell you, her relationship with her mother GOT ME. Honor Jones described the dichotomy of emotionally-hurtful mothers perfectly: the good moments were little and sparse, while the bad moments were cruel and impactful. The book starts with Margaret as a child, so we get to read the innocent perspective of a daughter unable to understand why her mother openly loves her brother more, diminishing her very existence every chance she got. We see the naivety of a child blatantly loving her mother even as she is being subtly cruel to her -- not even understanding this as cruelty. I loved how well-written this was and how even in adulthood, Margaret was subconsciously haunted by these childhood traumas.
Speaking of, the topic of sexual abuse was phenomenally discussed. Jones highlights experiences that stray from the "typical" categories of rape and assault, bringing attention to the harm behind ALL non-consensual acts, not just the ones socially accepted as being "bad enough." I liked the impact that these experiences had on Margaret's psyche and association with intimacy, as seen in her hyper-sexualization. She became entirely desensitized to sexual violence due to its subtle prevalence in her childhood, and she didn't feel the need to spread her story just for the sake of "justice." People often forget that not all "monsters" are strangers; they can be our fathers, brothers, etc. Margaret's story instantly connected the reader to her pain and necessary survival, in a gentle, coaxing way.
Okay, rant over! I just felt so connected to the characters and novel!! If the TikTok trend that says "You have become a grown up that would have protected you as a child" does anything to your emotional state, you should definitely give this book a shot!! <3
Favorite Quotes (Spoilers!!):
"The brick house was too big, like the goat was too small. They were made not for function or survival, but for something else -- to make an impression, to overwhelm or endear. Only someone very rich could have things so frivolously big and small."
"She had been changed too -- the sloughed-off dead cells of her past selves long gone, replaced. Inexorably she had been changed, and often for the better. Helen and Jo bobbed past in the water where there had been only stone and soil, life where there had been no life. But through it all one thing, one shameful, barely perceptible thing, remained the same, and it made her furious -- furious at herself -- that she bore it still, could feel it still: the line on her body that her brother had made."
"That was why people hurt children -- because they wouldn't remember, because they wouldn't tell, because people didn't think they were quite alive. That was why Neal had done things to her when she was a child, sleeping. That was a little taste of death."
September 2, 2025
4.5 stars, I think! This was excellent. Funny, heartbreaking, infuriating. There were a few scenes where my heart was in my throat. I loved Margaret and her two little girls (though Jo's behaviour felt more like a toddler's than a five-year old.) I loathed Neal and wanted Margaret to fully stand up to him and their awful mother. I wish she had been less reasonable! I loved her relationship with Biddy. And I thought her distrust of boys and men around her two girls was fully rational. Her trauma and how Ezra dismissed it was heartbreaking. What a shit. But yes, loved this book!
May 19, 2025
In Honor Jones's raw and resonant debut novel Sleep, the past is never truly past—it haunts like a specter, shapes our present, and colors our future in ways both subtle and profound. Through the character of Margaret, Jones crafts a narrative that moves between childhood trauma and adult reckoning, creating an unflinching portrait of motherhood, daughterhood, and the cyclical nature of family dynamics.
The novel begins with ten-year-old Margaret hiding beneath a blackberry bush during a game of flashlight tag in her family's suburban New Jersey backyard. This seemingly innocent childhood scene sets the stage for what becomes a deeply layered examination of memory, trauma, and the complex relationship between mothers and daughters. As we follow Margaret into adulthood—newly divorced with two young daughters of her own—Jones masterfully draws parallels between past and present, revealing how the patterns established in childhood reverberate through generations.
The Architecture of Secrets
What makes Sleep such a compelling read is Jones's ability to build tension through careful withholding. The reader senses early on that something is amiss in Margaret's childhood home, but the full picture emerges gradually, like a photograph developing in darkroom chemicals.
The central trauma of Margaret's childhood—her brother Neal's sexual abuse—is handled with remarkable restraint. Jones doesn't sensationalize; instead, she demonstrates how such violations can be normalized within a family system:
"It was Neal who would come into her bedroom six, seven, maybe eight times that bad summer. He would only ever put his hands on her, only ever when she was sleeping, only until she stirred and flinched and felt the blanket around her knees like shallow water."
The quiet horror of these scenes is amplified by what follows them: silence, denial, and the continuation of family life as though nothing has happened. When Margaret discovers a hidden camera in the bathroom, her mother Elizabeth refuses to acknowledge the violation, positioning herself as the one who needs protection from the truth rather than the child who needs protection from harm.
The Inheritance of Motherhood
Twenty-five years later, Margaret is a magazine editor living in Brooklyn with her two daughters, Helen and Jo, navigating a divorce from her ex-husband Ezra and exploring a new relationship with an architect named Duncan. Jones skillfully portrays how Margaret's own mothering is both a response to and reflection of her upbringing:
- Hypervigilance - Margaret is constantly scanning for danger, particularly for her daughters. When Jo falls asleep at a party and is found in a bed with Duncan's teenage son, Margaret's immediate suspicion reveals the lens through which she views the world.
- Distance and intimacy - Like Elizabeth, Margaret struggles with emotional availability, though she fights against repeating her mother's patterns.
- Protective instincts - Unlike her own mother, Margaret is determined to protect her children, even if it means confronting uncomfortable truths.
Style That Sticks to the Bone
Jones writes with a precision that cuts to the quick. Her prose is deceptively simple, with flashes of striking imagery that illuminate character and circumstance:
"Her phone buzzed—a text from Duncan. Elizabeth was sick, she reminded herself—she had another doctor's appointment on Monday to adjust her medication. She must not forget that her mother was suffering. But Margaret was not suffering, not now. She felt full, ripe, quivering out on the far edge of a stem."
The narrative moves between past and present with a dreamlike quality that mimics how memory works—how certain moments crystallize with perfect clarity while others blur at the edges. Time in the novel functions almost as another character, with chapters divided into seven parts that progress from Margaret's childhood through her mother's death and the final selling of the family home.
The Complexities of Female Desire
One of the most surprising and refreshing aspects of Sleep is its frank exploration of female sexuality. Margaret's relationship with Duncan allows her to experience desire in ways she never could in her marriage. Jones writes these scenes with unflinching honesty:
"She was surprised by how much she thought about it. Not just about sleeping with him but, specifically, about his c*ck; specifically, inside her mouth... She would have hated to have him pull at her head and gag her, and she knew he never would. Or maybe it was science, some pheromonal magnetism based on his particular smell."
This sexual awakening forms an important counterpoint to the childhood trauma, showing how Margaret reclaims her body and agency. Yet Jones resists easy narratives of healing through sex—Margaret's relationship with Duncan is complicated, sometimes problematic, and ultimately unresolved.
Mothers and Daughters: The Central Axis
The relationship between Margaret and Elizabeth forms the emotional core of the novel. Elizabeth is maddening in her contradictions—capable of genuine warmth and protection but also prone to narcissism and emotional neglect. When Margaret tries to connect with her dying mother by asking about a childhood trip to Rome, Elizabeth reveals she never went—her parents had left her behind, contradicting a story Elizabeth had told throughout Margaret's childhood.
This moment exemplifies the novel's central concern: how little we truly know those closest to us, and how the narratives we create about our lives can diverge from reality. When Elizabeth dies, Margaret feels both grief and relief, a complex emotional response that Jones treats with unflinching honesty.
Critiques and Considerations
While Sleep is a strong debut, it's not without flaws:
- The novel occasionally loses momentum in its middle sections, particularly when introducing Margaret's relationship with Duncan, which feels less fully realized than her family dynamics.
- Some readers may find the resolution between Margaret and Neal unsatisfying. Their final confrontation leads to Neal's admission—"I was curious, and you were there"—but lacks the catharsis one might expect.
- The novel's structure, with its shifting timeframes, can sometimes feel disorienting, requiring careful attention from readers.
Despite these minor issues, Jones has crafted a novel of remarkable emotional intelligence that refuses easy answers or conventional arcs of healing and reconciliation.
Final Thoughts: Awakening Through Honesty
Sleep is not a novel about resolution but about recognition—the painful but necessary acknowledgment of harm and its effects across generations. In the final scene, Margaret and her friend Biddy paddle a canoe toward a small island before deciding to turn back toward shore, where Margaret's daughters wait by a bonfire:
"We're coming, Margaret thought. She pulled her paddle hard toward her chest. She pulled the world toward herself an armful at time."
This image encapsulates the novel's ultimate message: that motherhood requires both holding on and letting go, both acknowledging the past and moving toward the future. Margaret may never fully reconcile with her mother or brother, but in claiming her own story, she breaks the cycle of silence that perpetuates harm.
Honor Jones has written a debut that announces her as a major new literary talent, unafraid to wade into the murkiest depths of family dynamics and emerge with complex, difficult truths. Sleep will resonate with readers long after they've turned the final page, like a dream that lingers in daylight—unsettling, illuminating, and impossible to forget.
The novel begins with ten-year-old Margaret hiding beneath a blackberry bush during a game of flashlight tag in her family's suburban New Jersey backyard. This seemingly innocent childhood scene sets the stage for what becomes a deeply layered examination of memory, trauma, and the complex relationship between mothers and daughters. As we follow Margaret into adulthood—newly divorced with two young daughters of her own—Jones masterfully draws parallels between past and present, revealing how the patterns established in childhood reverberate through generations.
The Architecture of Secrets
What makes Sleep such a compelling read is Jones's ability to build tension through careful withholding. The reader senses early on that something is amiss in Margaret's childhood home, but the full picture emerges gradually, like a photograph developing in darkroom chemicals.
The central trauma of Margaret's childhood—her brother Neal's sexual abuse—is handled with remarkable restraint. Jones doesn't sensationalize; instead, she demonstrates how such violations can be normalized within a family system:
"It was Neal who would come into her bedroom six, seven, maybe eight times that bad summer. He would only ever put his hands on her, only ever when she was sleeping, only until she stirred and flinched and felt the blanket around her knees like shallow water."
The quiet horror of these scenes is amplified by what follows them: silence, denial, and the continuation of family life as though nothing has happened. When Margaret discovers a hidden camera in the bathroom, her mother Elizabeth refuses to acknowledge the violation, positioning herself as the one who needs protection from the truth rather than the child who needs protection from harm.
The Inheritance of Motherhood
Twenty-five years later, Margaret is a magazine editor living in Brooklyn with her two daughters, Helen and Jo, navigating a divorce from her ex-husband Ezra and exploring a new relationship with an architect named Duncan. Jones skillfully portrays how Margaret's own mothering is both a response to and reflection of her upbringing:
- Hypervigilance - Margaret is constantly scanning for danger, particularly for her daughters. When Jo falls asleep at a party and is found in a bed with Duncan's teenage son, Margaret's immediate suspicion reveals the lens through which she views the world.
- Distance and intimacy - Like Elizabeth, Margaret struggles with emotional availability, though she fights against repeating her mother's patterns.
- Protective instincts - Unlike her own mother, Margaret is determined to protect her children, even if it means confronting uncomfortable truths.
Style That Sticks to the Bone
Jones writes with a precision that cuts to the quick. Her prose is deceptively simple, with flashes of striking imagery that illuminate character and circumstance:
"Her phone buzzed—a text from Duncan. Elizabeth was sick, she reminded herself—she had another doctor's appointment on Monday to adjust her medication. She must not forget that her mother was suffering. But Margaret was not suffering, not now. She felt full, ripe, quivering out on the far edge of a stem."
The narrative moves between past and present with a dreamlike quality that mimics how memory works—how certain moments crystallize with perfect clarity while others blur at the edges. Time in the novel functions almost as another character, with chapters divided into seven parts that progress from Margaret's childhood through her mother's death and the final selling of the family home.
The Complexities of Female Desire
One of the most surprising and refreshing aspects of Sleep is its frank exploration of female sexuality. Margaret's relationship with Duncan allows her to experience desire in ways she never could in her marriage. Jones writes these scenes with unflinching honesty:
"She was surprised by how much she thought about it. Not just about sleeping with him but, specifically, about his c*ck; specifically, inside her mouth... She would have hated to have him pull at her head and gag her, and she knew he never would. Or maybe it was science, some pheromonal magnetism based on his particular smell."
This sexual awakening forms an important counterpoint to the childhood trauma, showing how Margaret reclaims her body and agency. Yet Jones resists easy narratives of healing through sex—Margaret's relationship with Duncan is complicated, sometimes problematic, and ultimately unresolved.
Mothers and Daughters: The Central Axis
The relationship between Margaret and Elizabeth forms the emotional core of the novel. Elizabeth is maddening in her contradictions—capable of genuine warmth and protection but also prone to narcissism and emotional neglect. When Margaret tries to connect with her dying mother by asking about a childhood trip to Rome, Elizabeth reveals she never went—her parents had left her behind, contradicting a story Elizabeth had told throughout Margaret's childhood.
This moment exemplifies the novel's central concern: how little we truly know those closest to us, and how the narratives we create about our lives can diverge from reality. When Elizabeth dies, Margaret feels both grief and relief, a complex emotional response that Jones treats with unflinching honesty.
Critiques and Considerations
While Sleep is a strong debut, it's not without flaws:
- The novel occasionally loses momentum in its middle sections, particularly when introducing Margaret's relationship with Duncan, which feels less fully realized than her family dynamics.
- Some readers may find the resolution between Margaret and Neal unsatisfying. Their final confrontation leads to Neal's admission—"I was curious, and you were there"—but lacks the catharsis one might expect.
- The novel's structure, with its shifting timeframes, can sometimes feel disorienting, requiring careful attention from readers.
Despite these minor issues, Jones has crafted a novel of remarkable emotional intelligence that refuses easy answers or conventional arcs of healing and reconciliation.
Final Thoughts: Awakening Through Honesty
Sleep is not a novel about resolution but about recognition—the painful but necessary acknowledgment of harm and its effects across generations. In the final scene, Margaret and her friend Biddy paddle a canoe toward a small island before deciding to turn back toward shore, where Margaret's daughters wait by a bonfire:
"We're coming, Margaret thought. She pulled her paddle hard toward her chest. She pulled the world toward herself an armful at time."
This image encapsulates the novel's ultimate message: that motherhood requires both holding on and letting go, both acknowledging the past and moving toward the future. Margaret may never fully reconcile with her mother or brother, but in claiming her own story, she breaks the cycle of silence that perpetuates harm.
Honor Jones has written a debut that announces her as a major new literary talent, unafraid to wade into the murkiest depths of family dynamics and emerge with complex, difficult truths. Sleep will resonate with readers long after they've turned the final page, like a dream that lingers in daylight—unsettling, illuminating, and impossible to forget.
June 19, 2025
“For now all she could think about was how thin, how thin to fucking vanishing, was the line between normalcy and horror.”
Actual Rating: 2.5/5 stars
I desperately wanted to give this book a higher rating, or at least have more to say about it. but I guess I can only give it as much (or as little) as it gave me…
Sleep is a contemporary literary fiction novel about a young mother reckoning with her own childhood trauma’s as she revisits her childhood home with her own family. It’s also the definition of a 2.5-star book for me. It’s a story that has been told before, told in a way that colors neatly within the lines of its predecessors. It’s the bookish equivalent of bland oatmeal; perfectly serviceable and acceptable, but utterly forgettable. Considering the subject matter that’s being covered here, “forgettable” shouldn’t be able to touch this story with a ten-foot pole, which makes it all the more disappointing.
If you’ve read the synopsis, you’ve basically read the book. That thing you’re thinking happened based off the words “transgressions”, “models of masculinity” and “pleasure” and “swimming pools” in the blurb…? Yeah, that’s the thing that happens.
This novel should’ve gripped me by the throat. Instead, I’m afraid I won’t think back on it even once a few months after finishing it.
Big credits to the cover-artist though, because this cover-picture somehow put a spell on me.
Actual Rating: 2.5/5 stars
I desperately wanted to give this book a higher rating, or at least have more to say about it. but I guess I can only give it as much (or as little) as it gave me…
Sleep is a contemporary literary fiction novel about a young mother reckoning with her own childhood trauma’s as she revisits her childhood home with her own family. It’s also the definition of a 2.5-star book for me. It’s a story that has been told before, told in a way that colors neatly within the lines of its predecessors. It’s the bookish equivalent of bland oatmeal; perfectly serviceable and acceptable, but utterly forgettable. Considering the subject matter that’s being covered here, “forgettable” shouldn’t be able to touch this story with a ten-foot pole, which makes it all the more disappointing.
If you’ve read the synopsis, you’ve basically read the book. That thing you’re thinking happened based off the words “transgressions”, “models of masculinity” and “pleasure” and “swimming pools” in the blurb…? Yeah, that’s the thing that happens.
This novel should’ve gripped me by the throat. Instead, I’m afraid I won’t think back on it even once a few months after finishing it.
Big credits to the cover-artist though, because this cover-picture somehow put a spell on me.
June 10, 2025
One of those books where the author describes an unexplainable feeling with the most accurate metaphor, putting words to something I have never been able to before. Beautifully written and gets at the nuances of family relationships and trauma. Just felt like a very real glimpse into the complexities of family dynamics and life in general.
June 6, 2025
It took me forever to finish. I found it a bit of a snore and inconsistent but some parts were very compelling.
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