A decent book, interesting dystopian world. Rating 3.5 as more could have been done to make it better. I'm not sure what is missing, most of the book not enough is known about the world. It is all clear near the end, but I feel like depth is missing to make it better.

Ending was[ sad. I kinda hoped they managed to escape and for us to see how world actually looks like.

I was left confused about NSF. It was hard to judge if they were justified or not. I was not sure what they really wanted to achieve. It ended up just being violence for no cause. Maybe that was the point, maybe I didn't understand it right.

I really want to know more about how the world is outside of Sleeper cities. I wish we got a glimpse.

This book surprised me and I enjoyed it a lot.
First of all, I want to highlight that the story is very well constructed, because it gives you bits and pieces of information about the characters and what has happened, but until the last chapters you don't get the full picture, so you want to keep reading until the end.
Besides, in my opinion this is not just a science fiction book, but a story about family and love, set in a dystopia that is frighteningly foreboding.
Finally, to keep the review short, although there are more good things to say, I found interesting the way in which world leaders are portrayed, being a critique of how in a time of global crisis, they would sacrifice the freedom of many to maintain the standard of living of a few.
In short, it is a book about a not-so-distant future, with political struggles, the discovery of long-forgotten truths and relationships that go beyond blood ties.

A great inventive intelligent sci fi novel ,I loved the concept of sending the population to sleep 3 weeks in 4 to save the limited resources of the planet.I was expecting this to be the main element of the story which instead follows a group of climate activists who are against this policy without clearly having alternate plans of their own ,think Extinction Rebellion plus .Their antics become increasingly violent as the story progresses .I found it hard to fully invest in the characters I think primarily because their own views apart from being anti government were not well detailed it wasn’t really clear what their aims were
I loved the relationship between man and wife who he was loosing to dementia and found this tender and touching
The book is a fast paced interesting read

Going into this book I expected a science fiction story about a possible future of our planet, and the remaining population's fight for survival. However, this story is so much more than that.
It doesn't matter if you are a sci-fi fan, I guarantee you will find something here that you like. It is a dystopia, which shows how politics and idealism fight for dominance when faced with the end of a world as we know it. How drastic decisions made by few can impact the lives of all for decades to come.
But most of all, this is a story of love. Not the romantic kind that you swoon over, but the real kind. The kind that will make you feel things and question everything that you knew at the start.

As a result of environmental changes, the Earth's resources are dwindling. The solution is The Sleep; the population is in a cycle, put to sleep for three months then awake for one month. Ben is one of these Sleepers. He struggles with his limited waking time as it robs him of valuable time with his wife, Rose, whom he's losing to a disease.

Watching the hibernating city is Jack Peruzzi, one of the Janitors- the ones who spend the three months trading to make credits for the Sleepers to spend during their month awake.

Apparently, dissatisfaction is growing and the city is about to wake but I can't comment on this as I only got 51% through this book before I felt I could no longer continue.

The multiple perspectives used in this book are what got me through so much of it. I found I liked roughly half of each of them.

I adored the viewpoint of Ben during his awake status, specifically when he is thinking about Rose. The exploration of dementia- its impact on both the sufferer and their loved one- is striking. You can't help but be swallowed by Ben's grief at watching Rose deteriorate but, because of The Sleep, at an accelerated rate; he sees he is losing her but can do even less than we could in that situation.

It's beautifully horrific and horrifically beautiful.

Ben's time spent with Hassan is fine. So is Peruzzi's viewpoint. Truly, however, I just didn't care. I cared even less for the reminiscences of Ben in the 'Before' chapters.

I found my interest waning around the 40% mark but kept reading as I wanted to see more from Ben and Rose. However, I got to over halfway and the 'everyone is waking up' plot hadn't happened or been particularly explored. I get the impression that either the story doesn't explore the after-effects of them waking up or does it at a rapid pace to fit it into the remainder of the book. Neither of these options intrigue me.

As someone who is not usually a dystopian genre reader I was surprised how intrigued by this book I was from just the blurb, so when I got the change to read it I snapped it up.

There are two strands of story told from very different viewpoints, Ben, who is one of the 'sleepers' trying to live in the new world order and Peruzzi who watches over the sleepers. I think that Mollart does a good job of switching between the two enough that it keeps the reader engaged and asking important questions.

As I said I am not usually a dystopian reader so I cannot compare this book to many others but I thought that the world building was great but I would have liked a little more explanation of how the world got that way (but have a feeling there may be other books so maybe it gets explained then) but what we do get is a short leap from understandable.

My only real issue with the book is that it is a bit of a sausage fest, there aren't any strong female characters or indeed any characters that aren't in the book except to be a plaything for the male characters. Even Rose - Ben's wife is mainly there as a hinderance. Perhaps that will change in upcoming books but for now I am only looking at this one.

Despite that I did really enjoy the book and would probably read the sequel if there is one to find out what happens next in this world and where it all goes from there. It is hard to talk about the book without giving spoilers so I will just say, definitely give this book a go and see what you think and then come talk to me about it!

Thank you to @Netgalley and @Sandstonepress for the complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.