This is beautifully written and quietly powerful, with Sarah Crossan’s lyrical style shining through every page. I loved how it explored identity, relationships, and the messiness of marriage in such an intimate, reflective way. That said, the pacing felt a little uneven for me, and I didn’t always connect emotionally with Dolores as much as I wanted to. Still, it’s thoughtful, moving, and full of sharp observations about what it means to be a woman, definitely worth a read if you like slower, character-driven stories.

Are You Awake? surprised me in the best way. On the surface, it’s about a woman who finds an AI sex doll in her garage that belongs to her husband but the real story goes so much deeper. It’s a smart, emotional exploration of love, loneliness, family, trauma, and the ways people find connection in unexpected places. I loved how Crossan takes what could’ve been a quirky plot and turns it into something raw, moving, and genuinely human. Her writing is exactly my style witty, sharp, and honest. I found myself wanting to keep reading, not just for the story, but for the way she tells it.

One thing that really threw me was the casual mention of Israel. It might seem like a small detail, just a reference to it's landscape for a holiday and the food at a restaurant, but you can’t just drop a country like that into a book without acknowledging the weight and symbolism it carries, especially right now. It made me wonder if it was an intentional choice? With everything going on, it felt jarring and a bit tone-deaf in an otherwise thoughtful and sensitive novel.

Thank you Netgalley, the author and the publisher for letting me read a copy in advance in exchange for an honest review.

i found this a bit of a hard book to get into. The style of writing (more a stream of Dolores's thoughts in no particular order) left me feeling that none of the characters were well enough introduced both as themselves and within their relationships, before we jumped straight into Zoey the sex doll.
Zoey is however very cleverly used as a vehicle to explore Dolores's state of mind and how that links to her childhood trauma but I couldnt quite get past the oddness of the characters and the storyline to really enjoy the book.

I'm not sure if I got sent the right book but this book centres around Dolores, a schoolteacher who discovers her husband has bought a robot sex doll. It makes her go back and start to unravel where her marriage went wrong and how her husband ended up picking up a doll over her.

Dolores is a messy protagonist who starts to go back to her past to figure out her future. Zoey, the robot becomes slightly likeable, more of a companion for Dolores when her she discovers her husband is leaving and has spent £10,000 on a doll. Everyone woman' worst nightmare.

I enjoyed reading the passages when it related to her husband but less so the flashbacks. Overall, I found it easy to read and an interesting plot which kept me hooked to find out what happened to Dolores.

I am a little late to the table with my review been off for 2 months so getting round to writing up my review- thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury for allowing me to review this

I would say the book was odd but I wanted to keep reading till the end, it delt with some difficult topics but I enjoye the read.

School teacher Dolores finds that her husband has bought an AI doll and throws the husband out! and starts to rely on said doll called Zoey.

She realises her relationship with her husband was as I would put it comfy slippers and no real comms between them. She is lonely

The story explores childhood trauma, relationships and the effect technology has on us.

Interesting story and glad I was able to read this

Absolutely brilliant! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance copy, I will definitely be recommending it.

I couldn't stop reading, so weird, like wtf ? But also i love that feeling when i'm reading a book. I WANTED to know why.
I'll let you read it to know too ;)

Thank you netgalley for the copy !

This is definitely a strange book and not what 8 was expecting. Zoey and her husband are experiencing marital problems which they are struggling to resolve

The final straw is when Zoey finds what appears to be a body in a bag in their garage. Further investigation shows that the body is in fact a sec doll purchased by her husband.

Zoey throws her husband out the house and then moves the doll into her home. She buys her clothes and has conversations with her.

Very strange story

Another smash from Sarah Crossan - I loved this book, the weird irreverance of it and the parasocial aspects to it. I also loved the way the narrator unravels as we read - another masterful commentary from Crossan.

Dolores’ marriage is in trouble and we don’t really know why. Her and her husband have stopped communicating and are living inseparable it seems. When Delores finds Zoey, she is disgusted with her husband for having thought a sex doll, as a price of about £10,000.
The marriage is a disaster and her husband moves out leaving Zoey behind. Dolores takes on Zoey as a type of flatmate, and companion. She has very mixed feelings about Zoe and what possessed her husband to spend a huge quantities of money on this.
Dolores visits her sister several times, and also her stepbrother Gavin. It later transpires quite towards the end of the book that’s Dolores‘ childhood was not as pleasant as we had believed. Dolores‘ trauma and that of her sister, have cost a long dark shadow over their lives.
Dolores seems an unlikable character, although she cares deeply for her sister. At one point she considers fostering a child, knowing that if she doesn’t like the child, she can return the child to the care system.
I have mixed feelings about this book, I can understand how Dolores has found relationships difficult, and her own self absorption as a result of the trauma, but she has a good relationship with her sister, although together they have neither confronted the issues of their past until the surprise at the end.

This was a bit on the weird side for me, unfortunately. I love Crossan’s writing style but the topic and plot line left me cold. With thanks to the publisher anyway for access to this review copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a pleasant surprise. I went in with no expectations and found myself really enjoying the journey. Thank you to the writer, publisher, and NetGalley for letting me read this book.

Dolores has her marriage shattered when she discovers her husband's female robot in the garage. She learns that the doll is named Zoey, and after her husband leaves, she decides to plug the doll in and spend time with it.

This story is written as a stream of consciousness as Dolores works through things that happened in her childhood, and through to meeting and marrying her husband. It jumps around a lot and so I felt a little bit lost in the beginning, but then got used to it, and then got engrossed seeing how it would all end.

This deals with heavy topics. I couldn't put it down, but I do wish that the ending had a bit more of a solid feel to it.

Thank you to Bloomsbury and Netgalley for the e-Arc of this book.

A really surprising read, I didn't expect the secret to be what it was.

The book had dual timelines, which I love, and was so well written. Very powerful and emotional I really enjoyed this.

Triggers and difficult subjects covered. The book is in short paragraphs that flip between now and childhood, making it an easy read.After discovering her husbands secret, their marriage breaks down, and what is left is love, loss, trauma, and loneliness. I am struggling with this one. Do you ever read a book and think what did I just read or think eh what exactly happened?" It's one of those. It ended abruptly, which I never liked, but it has left me thinking, what !

Thank you netgalley for allowing me to read for a review.

Emotional
The story of Dolores, who discovers her husband has been keeping an AI robot in the garage as his sex toy.

This book is told in two timelines. The time after Dolores discovered Zoey and then all of the key incidents that happened before Zoey.

This is a fascinating story. An apparent stream of consciousness, with seemingly disparate chunks of Dolores’s life laid out in front of us.

Her hurt and confusion at her husband’s behaviour is palpable but as we read more, we discover how we arrived at the space where Zoey was necessary for Dolores’s husband.

There is warmth, wit and humour here but there is also raw, biting, painful emotion and I absolutely could not stop reading.

This book also appears to have been published under another title - one which eventually made much more sense to me, and horrified me.

I also read the synopsis of the book under the other title, and it described a book much closer, in my opinion, than the synopsis used for ‘Hey Zoey’.

Unputdownable.

Wow! An incredible and sometimes disturbing portrait of the mind of a woman I couldn't like, but was utterly compelled by. Close to a horror story at times (this book has a lot of themes that some may find troubling and upsetting). There were several moments I felt like the story was going to tip us into the obscene, but it always held back, giving us just enough to be stressed, but not enough to be truly horrific. To walk such a fine line is true genius, because I never knew what might happen next, and was holding my breath in places too.

I did laugh when there was mention of a music gig in Edgware. After living there for 40 years, can someone tell me where the music venue is, because I was never aware of it (besides a church hall)?!

A great, short, easy read. It was very much not what I was expecting, and I flew through it!

Thank you to the author, publisher and netgalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't know what to expect from this when I started but I absolutely loved it.

It was a quick read but with heavy topics. A story about loss and friendships.

This is one of those quiet, powerful novels that sneaks up on you and stays with you long after you’ve finished. It asks big questions in subtle ways, and the writing is just so beautifully raw. If you like introspective, character-driven stories about messy people trying to figure themselves out, definitely give this one a read.