When I first read the synopsis of this book, it terrified me as someone who has struggled with sleep issues at times. And honestly, I did stay up reading this one during the night, but for all the best reasons. It was a good read, fast paced and kept me interested. I love dystopian and sci-fi books and this one definitely hit the spot.

Awakened by Laura Elliott is a gripping and haunting tale of a world where sleep has been stolen and horror unleashed. The story’s tension and vivid worldbuilding kept me hooked from start to finish. I really enjoyed this book and rated it five stars.

A group of scientists are invited by a billionaire to develop a revolutionary technology. This involved creating a chip, which, when implanted in a brain removed the need for sleep. Sounds great, right? Increased productivity, more time to do things ones loves, etc……But it didn't work like that. Instead, it affected people's ability to remember, made them angry, and eventually, turned them into bitey monsters.

Civilization fell, and now a small group of scientists, living in the Tower of London, research and try to find a cure.

Main character Thea got involved with the initial chip creation project because she was trying to find a cure for her mother's fibromyalgia. She now spends her time feeling guilty, and assisting with examinations or autopsies, if a feral subject is procured. And having ethical arguments with some of her fellow scientists.

Then, one of the ferals (i.e., zombies) walks in, with a pregnant feral woman, and he's still got his wits about him. His name is Vladimir, and over several conversations, Thea gets to know him and is captivated, and really begins to question all that she and the others have done.

Though there is a plot, this is more of piece questioning some of the premises that underpin society: is it right to only look toward progress? What are the ethics of developing technology? What is the greater good?

The writing is good, with author Laura Elliott evoking such a tense and frightening atmosphere, all while creating an introspective novel. Much as I appreciated this book, I sometimes got a little lost in Thea's reminiscences and questioning, and never really felt like the author fully answered a few of the questions I had about Vladimir.

Otherwise, this is a terrific debut.

The audio is good, with voice actor Antonia Beamish inhabiting Thea and Vladimir beautifully, as well as the fussy, lead scientist.

Thank you to Netgalley, Angry Robot and to Dreamscape Media for these ARCs in exchange for my review.

‘What, then, is the body but a vessel for the mind? Is it right that we should be limited by it? Is it not monstrous to constrain ourselves when there might be another way?’

In this surreal and grotesque, conflict-driven literary debut (my mind is boggled by that – how can this be a debut?!), the epistolary novel meets dystopian vampire Body Horror.

Swinging between points on a timeline (with the principal events 40-odd years from now), Laura Elliott brings civilisation to its knees, asking ‘[where] does the difference between nature and science lie?’ Elliott’s trope is rest: a character battling doctors’ misconceptions of M. E. (the protagonist’s mother) is the premise whereby Elliott investigates the impact of mutations of natural rest cycles and the consequences of alchemising such.

‘Awakened’ is a deeply personal account from an author with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis of how the medical industry turns people into monsters when clinicians sever themselves from patient experience:

‘There was little dignity in suffering, but even less in suffering that was doubted. My mother suffered, and she suffered more so because there was a question mark hanging like the sword of Damocles over the legitimacy of her plight. The doubt of doctors was a poison to her efforts to survive. Every appointment became a battleground when it should have been a relief. The effort to become well again was blocked by the very people who were meant to help her. When doctors don’t believe you, who else can you turn to for help?’

The author situates Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as provocation for her vivid and discomfiting exploration of sleep as poison; of tiredness, exhaustion, fatigue, as corruptions of the ideal state of being (‘Sleep, those little slices of death, carving out ever-greater chunks of life’), and of how science, in its attempt to resolve this disproportion in the near future, destroys humanity.

Quite brilliantly, Elliott detonates this premise and propels readers into a horrific dystopia where the antithesis – sleeplessness – science’s misguided remedy to the ‘astonishing force’ of sleep and rest, has become the paradigm of monstrosity:

“Is what is natural the same as what is good? Is divergence from a norm unnatural […]?”
[…]
“Tell me, Doctor Chares, where do you draw the line between unnatural science and nature’s monstrosity? How far would you step over it to survive?”

As readers, we are used to the concept of vampires sleeping during the day and being ‘awakened’ at night, inverting the natural rhythms of our human bodies (one of the reasons we can assign them their place in Horror – they are ‘other’ than the ‘norm’, as Vlad puts it, above). Yet, Elliott’s vampire-aberrations, the Sleepless, enact a further ‘divergence from a norm’, being mutations of human bodies that have been – through the neural chip our protagonist Thea has designed – denied any portion of sleep at all.

So, Thea – scientist – and Vladimir – aberration – pull us into what is a very insular novel; with dramatic staging (moonlit battlements), and all taking place in a single setting (the Tower of London), ‘Awakened’ is intimate and immediate and theatric in the best way. Incredible characterisation plays its part in carrying the staging; I was quite happy for the supporting characters to stay foggy and watered-down in the background because it serves to cast Thea and Vladimir into the spotlight.

Vlad’s provocative yet insightful character takes readers deep into moral rationalisations. He is Thea’s cross-examiner; it is Vlad who prompts us to consider whether Thea can be classified as a sympathetic protagonist. Her motivation is benevolent (combatting her mother’s M.E./C.F.S.): ‘If mother couldn’t be the moon anymore then I would be the tide that brought her home.’ Yet ‘Awakened’ is certainly, if anything, a hubris|nemesis novel. The retribution visited upon Thea in the climax is inevitably vivid and grisly. Thea is – as are readers – conflicted over whether she should pay, or, indeed, has already paid, her dues. Vlad questions her:

“Do you think that if you sacrifice enough you will find absolution? […] If you hurt yourself enough, deny yourself enough, you might be redeemed for the choices you’ve made?”

And if the names Thea (‘goddess’ in Greek) and Vladimir (‘ruler of the world’ in Slavic translation) seem conspicuous, you’d be right in suspecting that the naming of names is a strong theme in the novel: “names have power, even if they aren’t intended to control”, Vladimir says. This cannot help but conjure Genesis, where Adam was given the power to name/control ‘every living thing’ in the Garden of Eden. The nameless aberration we come to know as Vlad is nicknamed by those inside the battlements variously, The Count, Vlad the Impaler, Vladimir, Dracula, Dantès, Drac, “and I believe sometimes Adam”, Thea says. Vlad replies:

“And Adam is Biblical, perhaps? The first of my kind, like the first man?”

Symbolic in the most exemplary way, Eden as the backdrop to the birth of humankind is also the setting of ‘the Fall’ of humanity. Thus, Elliott likes to lay her parallels directly, and revels in signifying Garden of Eden imagery with her use of the motifs of incursion and expulsion, and thresholds, in what is essentially a classical siege narrative.

Thea immediately proceeds to invoke another textual touchpoint as she corrects Vladimir’s assumption:

“Yes and no. Adam was Edgar’s suggestion, and I think it was more to do with the Adam of Victor’s labours.”
“The child of Frankenstein? Charming.”
“Are you offended?”
[…] “Why should I be offended? It isn’t the child who’s the monster in the story.”

Elliott grabs Shelley’s image of the macabre laboratory and flips it so that her hubristic protagonist is working on post-mortems and tissue or fluid extraction, and the disassembly of her ghastly humanoid mutations, rather than assembly and vivification as per Frankenstein. The ‘Frankenstein’ plot is also back-to-front because Vladimir independently appears and presents himself for study, surrendering to the examination table himself.

Before he does so, however, Elliott takes the opportunity to overturn Mary Shelley’s deliberate choice not to assign a name to Victor Frankenstein’s ‘spectre’, Victor’s ‘creature’ in Shelley’s original text. Instead, Elliott dwells upon the deliberate act of naming Thea’s ‘fiend’. Vlad muses, “the absence of my name has begun to bother me more than it did before”, and he turns to the scientist, Thea, asking her to name him. She reacts:

‘[The] act of naming is intimate. It suggests a deep level of care for the one being named, and perhaps a certain level of ownership by the one doing the naming. Parents name their children. Owners name their pets. Scientists occasionally get to name our discoveries. I didn’t want the responsibility of claiming either ownership or care of him, but he’d offered it to me anyway.’

His choice of Vladimir signifies him as extremely powerful (‘ruler of the world’), and through inference, extremely cruel (Vlad the Impaler, known for his bloodthirstiness), as well as calling upon associations with imprisonment (Vlad Dracula was held in captivity for over a decade).

And here we are back at the Garden of Eden, and the gravity of separation from the rest of the world. The setting in ‘Awakened’ – what I would describe as a perverted Eden – is both a fortress and a prison, the Tower of London standing for protection and execution simultaneously. The Tower is a powerful emblem of some of Elliott’s most significant themes, and setting her narrative there is a type of shorthand for the kind of conflict and struggle for supremacy that will take place within its battlements over the course of the novel.

The Tower of London signifies English history, and here we have Elliott drawing that very history to a close in a novel of apocalypse. The Tower symbolises oppression, fear, the awe-full power (and wealth – Crown Jewels!) of the monarchy and yet – as a gateway into Medieval London – is an iconic symbol for the idea of a threshold. As with Eden, the threshold in any siege narrative carries the double threat of both eviction and infiltration.

Furthermore, illustrated on that glorious cover, Elliott plays with the trope of abandonment of the fortification defences, embodied by the Tower of London ravens, figures of lore and superstition: doom harbingers, power-holders, prophetic. Elliott’s choice of setting could not be more appropriately tied to her plot – the given associations of the Tower ravens portending the fall of the realm, summons precisely the right ominous tone. It’s also fun to analogise Vladimir to the Tower ravens: fiercely intelligent as are corvids; a game-player like them; a problem-solver (for Thea); a convincing mimic (of a human); he effectively has his wings clipped within the walls of the Tower, as the ravens do; and he is – above all – a blood-eater. The laboratory scene with the plate of raw meat is a spectacular canvas painting Vladimir as carrion guzzler. In fact, the science in ‘Awakened’ is nightmarishly real, until it slides into a kind of philosophical existentialism, which is yet perfectly paced.

I feel like smaller plot points in ‘Awakened’ need to be digested in order to savour the finale fully – Elliott doesn’t so much foreshadow as she does leave a trail of breadcrumbs to prepare your stomach for the hard-to-swallow conclusion. If she hadn’t tempted me all the way along with very gradual pacing, I fear I might have felt betrayed by the author for Thea’s final reckoning.

The climax lurches into the paranormal from the sci-fi:

‘I’ve always thought of sleep as a form of possession and dreams as a symptom of haunting. Waves of hormones roll through our bodies demanding obedience and unconsciousness, and as we sink beneath their weight our minds replay images and sounds that are beyond our conscious control. In sleep, we might see people long dead, hold conversations with absent friends, walk across landscapes both real and fictional, and wake to find that we never left our beds. Can there be anything more paranormal than that?’

The ending leaves you horrifically perplexed, but it HAS to! The scientists have to be driven mad by what they’ve done – look back to Vladimir’s earlier speech to Thea about redemption; she has to be damned because she has become the embodiment of the medical profession that ignored the suffering of her mother. She has ignored the suffering of the Sleepless. That is, until she can’t ignore it any longer. But that’s all I can say about it without spoilers!

Elliott fleshes-out much more than I ever could have anticipated in the development of her principal concept. The plot is so well executed that I was invested immediately. That’s not to mention that her writing style is thick and gooey and delectable (‘the wet mist swallowing sound like a librarian’). From meticulous attention to detail at the start, dealing with the scientific and the medical, to the ending that is the exact opposite: suggestive and inference-laden. The tension in this novel is awe-inspiring.

‘Sleep is the thread that binds us to memory, and with it, secures us to ourselves.’

Thank you to Angry Robot for the thrill of reading this astonishing debut. It is unlike anything I have read. If I had to draw comparisons, I would say ‘Private Rites’ by Julia Armfield and ‘The Memory of Animals’ by Claire Fuller, and as a Pandemic Novel, the flavour is somewhere in the same variety as ‘Eat the Ones You Love’ by Sarah Maria Griffin.

Near perfect blend of the Gothic and science fiction
—
Science doesn’t know exactly why we sleep and why we dream, but research overwhelmingly signals that we need both. In a near future London, Thea and her colleagues are holed up in the Tower of London, trying to understand the global epidemic of violence that they started with a brain chip. Those with the chip who are still alive are the Sleepless, literally unsleeping and animalistic. Thea is conflicted, having been part of the team that created the chip and trying to find a cure; when an intelligent, cogent member of the Sleepless enters the Tower, her understanding of the world pre-Sleepless and after will be undone. Will Thea have the strength to face her deepest fears and perhaps save her world?

With illness as the narrative driver and the metaphor for horror, this is a near perfect blend of the Gothic and science fiction, timeless yet set in a near future. Elliott is a new Mary Shelley, using the Tower of London as a palimpsest of time past, with all of its history, reality and above all its ghosts, and more crucially as a landscape character in an almost Peakian sense. What might the next room bring to the narrative? What horrors? What dashed hopes? Certainly Frankensteinian, but rather than creating a new Prometheus, this is about taking apart the new hellish creation. And in the end, who, really, are the monsters?

Four and a half stars

The world is over, and all that's left of humanity are the scientists that created the apocalypse and their handful of companions, trapped in the Tower of London, surrounded by the Sleepless, the feral humans with chips implanted in their brains. When two survivors arrive, Thea and the others are forced to consider if a cure is truly possible, and if it is, what that would mean for humanity.

I thought this book had a lot of interesting things to say about disability, technology that claims to fix our lives, and what is truly monstrous. I generally enjoyed the narrator, who was unreliable and very detached from her emotions. I thought it was more of a dystopian book than horror; although, there were plenty of parts of the book that were horrifying.

I found the ending of the book very confusing, and I was overall left with a lot of questions about what was actually happening in that compound. I enjoyed it, and I think I'll continue to think about a lot of the book, but I don't think I fully understood it with just one reading.

I've had to really ponder my feelings about Laura Elliot's Awakened. While technically a dystopian novel, I'm not sure how I feel about that label. I feel like it's a truly genre-defying exploration of chronic illness and its profound impact on both the individual and their loved ones.

Elliot's portrayal of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.) is remarkably vivid. She's clearly made extensive research or first-hand knowledge shines through, offering an unparalleled look at the condition and the medical establishment's approach to it.

Awakened is incredibly surreal and kept me completely enthralled for most of its duration. However, it unfortunately lost its way in the very final part. While the first half, with its slow pace and focus on characters and build up, was captivating, the shift towards Vladimir and increasingly metaphorical science led to a dip in engagement for me. The abstract and inconclusive ending further contributed to this feeling.

Despite these reservations, Awakened held my interest from start to finish. It's a debut brimming with ambitious ideas and compelling character development. While the execution fell slightly short of my expectations, I'm very eager to see what Laura Elliot writes next.

40/100 or 2.0 stars

This was such an interesting concept, but the writing style just really did not work for me. I couldn't get invested in what was going on in the story, which is unfortunate, since I was expecting to really like this based on the synposis when I requested it.

If you asked me to pick my favourite quote from this book then I would have an extremely tough time of it. I loved the writing style and just the words used to convey every emotion and plot point that was going on. There was some great commentary on everything from medical mistreatment to what it means to be human what can be justified in the name of ‘saving the world.’ Not only was it written excellently but it was super easy to read, which is not always the case with dense or even just thoughtful prose.
The struggles of our main character to see herself and the world as they really are was effective as well. Her arc develops naturally through the book and you can just see where it’s going and how everything is going to change by the end. The ending is a lot of reading between the lines and looking for what the imagery is telling you, so I didn’t find it the most compelling and it was a little abrupt but the buildup was absolutely there.
The cast of characters were not particularly focused on or developed outside of our main character but they definitely served their purposes in the story. I didn’t care for any of the romantic elements or storylines. There was less of them at the beginning than in the last third so I find myself having enjoyed that a little more.
Again, the commentary and horror elements that feel like they could happen in the real world was where I found my enjoyment in this read.

Awakened by Laura Elliott (book cover is in image) tells a tale of how, after the end of civilization the world is plagued with feral monsters created by tech implanted into humans that is supposed to prevent people from sleeping. Scientists, after finding a man who is not affected, believe that there is now hope to find a cure and save humanity.

The Narration by Antonia Beamish was excellently done. This was my first experience with her, and I will be seeking out more from her.

Thank you, @angryrobotbooks, @dreamscape_media / @dreamscape_lore and @netgalley, for the opportunity to read this ARC. All opinions are my own.

Rating: 4 Stars
Pub Date: Jun 10 2025
Audio Release: Aug 07 2025

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The blurb for this debut novel immediately hooked me as it felt like something straight out of Black Mirror, and I’m happy to say it delivered on that premise. Set in a dystopian world where sleep has been “cured” in the name of productivity, the result is a chilling breakdown of humanity and a haunting exploration of scientific ambition gone too far.

The concept is original and unsettling, and I loved the literary tone the author took in unpacking the consequences. The pacing did feel a bit stretched in places, and I think the story could’ve been tighter overall, but the atmosphere, themes, and thought provoking premise more than made up for it.

Thank you Angry Robot, NetGalley, and Dreamscape Media for the e-ARC and ALC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for an Advanced Reader’s Copy in exchange for an honest review.

Awakened is set in London some thirty-five years in the future and follows the story of Doctor Thea Chares, a woman whose mother fell ill with chronic fatigue syndrome when Thea was just a girl. In an attempt to cure her mother’s illness, Thea worked as a doctor on a team of experimental scientists looking for a way to give the human body full function without the need to sleep. They succeed, but the neural chip they invent goes haywire, creating a quasi-zombie apocalypse of ‘Sleepless’.

Elliot’s prose is consistent, well done, and emotional. The story gives real insight into Thea’s background through present scenes and relevant, poignant flashbacks to her life prior to the apocalypse, living in the wake of her mother’s illness. Elliot also crafted fleshed out secondary characters that added fresh and important angles to the story.

The plot has a great balance of tension, conversation, and introspection. The final 10% of the novel lost me a little bit. Other than the ending not sticking the landing, I found this to be a solid and compelling dystopian novel that offered a fresh perspective on an oft-written narrative.

I’ve had to sit on this review for a while, trying to decide how I feel about the book.
Awakened I suppose it’s technically a dystopian novel but that doesn’t really do it justice, it’s genre defying. It is the exploration of a chronic illness, how it changes the life of the individual with the illness but also the effects on their loved ones.
Laura Elliot has either done impeccable research or has first hand knowledge of M.E. I have never seen such a vivid exploration of it and how the medical establishment treats it before.
Incredibly surreal, Awakened had me completely enthralled until the last 5% or so. After this unfortunately I feel like the book lost its way otherwise this would have been a 5*

Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for the eArc

Bleak and horrifying in the best possible way. I loved the depths this book goes to and was surprised by how relatable I found it. Examines feelings of shame and regret in such interesting ways. I didn't see any of the twists coming and gasped out loud at some of them.

I found that I enjoyed the first half of Awakened a lot more than the second - I appreciated the slow pace and emphasis on the characters within the tower. However, as focus pulls towards Vladimir (and the science becomes more metaphorical), I wasn't always as engaged. The ending follows this trend - it feels very abstract and inconclusive, and lost me a little. That said, whilst my enjoyment fluctuated throughout, Awakened held my interest from beginning to end. This is a debut packed full of big ideas and interesting character development - although it fell slightly short of my expectations in the execution, I'm very keen to see what Laura Elliott writes next.
3.5 rounded up to 4.

This was fascinating and my first read from Laura Elliott. What is the premise of Awakened? Think dystopian London and science gone wrong. To be more specific, a neural chip suppresses human's ability to sleep and is connected to every human who also has a chip. At first it goes great, people with these chips are healing better and their physicality in general is boosted making them stronger. Then, things change. The chips regress their mentality into animalistic, violent, and sleepless aggressors.

This explores a variety of aspects around sleep, and it follow characters exploring what it means to play God and who the real victims of this circumstance really are. We follow main character Thea as she tries to find out if there is a solution to the sleepless and if anything can be done to reverse the social fabric of society that this event has ripped into. I highly recommend it to horror fans, I thought it was great. There is a character introduced in the book that I did predict would turn up, but honestly that didn't take away from the story or the reading experience. I look forward to reading more from this author.

Thank you to Angry Robot and NetGalley for providing this book for review, it was a blast.

The premise of Awakened by Laura Elliott intrigued me straight away. I loved the idea of scientists trying to fix their own mistake, and I love a good dystopian setting. The idea of a chip that decreases the need for sleep, thus allowing humanity to increase productivity, and the lack of sleep leading to unpredicted side effects over time, was simply amazing. I loved the world Elliott created, in which a handful of scientists are locked away in their tower trying to find a cure while zombie hordes control London.
I read and thoroughly enjoyed the first about 80% of the book, but the plot veered away from the scientific element towards the end and to be honest, I struggled to follow what was happening at the end, and finished feeling confused. I would have liked an ending that felt more like a resolution.

Awakened is set in the near future, when technology gone wrong causes many folks to be "sleepless", which is basically when their implants glitch, they never sleep, and they become basically zombies. We follow Thea and her cohorts who are still human, living in the Tower of London, trying to fix the problem they created (and also stay alive). Thea and some of the others are scientists who originally made the tech implants that caused this mess, but some of the others are survivors who have joined them in their quest and/or safe dwelling.

Then someone shows up who is neither "sleepless" nor human. He seems to be some sort of combination of the two, and of course the science-minded are fascinated by this. He brings with him a human woman who is unable to speak, so she can't shed any light on the situation. The rest of the novel explores how Thea and company got to the point they're at, and what they're willing to do to move forward.

The book is, as a whole, very introspective. Thea spends a lot of time mulling the intricacies of sleep, and its effect on the body, as well as what makes humans different than the sleepless. There's also a lot of commentary on the messiness of the current health system, as Thea's mom has been dealing with chronic illness without reprieve for quite some time. Because of the level of introspection, the pace can feel a bit slower, but the questions Thea poses are thought provoking and worthwhile. There's a lot of The 100 Season 4 morally gray questioning, and obviously I loved that.

I did not understand the ending though. Like, at all. I hope some of you read it so we can discuss it, because as much as I enjoyed the rest of the story, the end left me confused and as such, rather unfulfilled. My only negative to this otherwise engaging story, frankly!

Bottom Line: Thought provoking and relevant, I enjoyed this morally gray novel, but I really need someone to walk me through the end.

Brilliant! My first time reading this author but it won’t be my last! I love post apocalyptic fiction and this delivers all of that but so much more! It’s very deep, got me thinking about so much that happens in life! I felt like I was in a dream for parts of this! Loved it!

this was a book that was very slow beginning and after the middle went faster, it was almost like a diary that our main character did, and where she made light of what was happening and what took place in her past, and how that brought her to today… I couldn’t really connect with the characters that were introduced, but strangely enough I keep coming to know how it would end… it focus much more on consequences and choices… to be honest when the main character told us the names that the other habitants of the tower had give to the new survivors, I had a bad feeling… one is Helen of troy… and the other is Vladimir, shall I explain more? Nahh, thats for me to know and for you to find out…

its a very slow story and theres something that you find out about the new survivors during the present of the story, that gives us a foreboding that something will happen at that time, and since the book gives us dates when things happen, its more daunting… yes, even if it is slow, I came coming back for more… and something I loved about the book, is that it took place in London, survival closer to home gets more real I guess haha.

Thank you Netgalley and Angry Robot, for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion.