I really wanted to like this book. The premise was really interesting and the cover was very cool but it just didn't work for me. It is in the journal entry style which can be really hard to do well. Much life if you were writing in your own journal this book just gives tiny bits of information and little to now background information- or at least background information that would be useful.
If this concept was written in a different format I think it could be done very well.

When the zombie apocalypse comes, we will have caused it, and we’ll be holed up in the Tower of London. Not that they’re zombies - more like feral monsters. And it’s a collapse of civilisation rather than an apocalypse. But we did cause it, and we are holed up in the Tower of London.

The story is set in a near-future world where there has been mass adoption of an implanted neural chip that was designed to minimise the need for sleep, but also bestows a variety of other physical advantages. The spontaneous and simultaneous malfunction of all of these chips, turning their hosts into the aforementioned feral monsters, has resulted in the collapse of civilisation.

A rag-tag and diverse group of scientists (whose fault it is) and other survivors are bastioned inside the Tower of London contemplating their situation. The story is presented in short, dated chapters - like diary entries - from the perspective of one of the scientists, Thea. The writing style verges on the literary, and with the diary-like presentation it has somewhat of the feel of gothic horror.

This is not a fast-paced plot driven story. What plot there is involves the remaining scientists trying to find a remedy for the situation, while the arrival of two strangers - a man and a woman, apparently also survivors - creates additional tension. The storytelling is contemplative and introspective, and the diary-like narrative gives it a sense of detachment, while also being a vehicle for Thea’s rumination on her situation, her past, and her priorities.

The enigmatic male stranger acts as a foil for Thea, forcing her to question her motivations, and highlights her conflicting emotions and senses of loyalty, guilt and duty. It is in this that the story has its power - exploring questions about the advancement of science for the greater good versus the potential abuse or unintended consequences of the results, both at a personal and societal level.

The concept is engaging and the storytelling is compelling, but I did have a couple of important niggles: there is a lot of vagueness around how and why the neural chips have had such a devastating effect on their hosts; and I found the male stranger somewhat too mysterious and all-knowing. And while neither of these niggles really got in the way of the narrative, they are nonetheless niggles with two of the more important aspects of the story and I found both of them quite distracting.

A solid 3.5 stars, rounded up rather than down because this is a debut work, and the niggles are as much my foibles as anything.

Thank you #NetGalley and Angry Robot for the free review copy of #Awakened without obligation. All opinions are my own.

I expected a horror novel with hints of scifi or dystopia but it was, in fact, litfic. So my disappointement was major as litfic and I don't get along. The comp of The Girl With All the Gifts is completely wrong as there is barely any action in it.

In classic litfic way, it is mostly people talking, people thinking, people saying profound things and talking philosophy and a lot of "what have we done, what does this mean" etc.

If you enjoy books where not much happens except people talking and having weird dreams, with a dash of gross description of surgeries (I guess this is the horror element of the story) you will love it. Otherwise you can truly skip it.

Also, maybe because I was bored out of my mind and was skipping some stuff but I am utterly confused by the ending so please feel free to drop in my dms to explain it to me.

The concept was super strong and I would have loved a more classic horror novel approach to it (even action scifi !!!). Alas, it is litfic.

Giving it two stars because people who love litfic are going to eat (hah) this up and nothing personnally offended me in it.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book

Find my reviews on Goodreads, The StoryGraph, and Fable

Awakened by Laura Elliott

An impressive debut novel from Laura Elliott finds us thrust into the near future where a technological leap to extend our productive hours was met with tragic unforeseen consequences.

We follow Dr Thea Chares as she and her colleagues, based at the Tower of London, seek a cure to this new condition which has created “The Sleepless”.

Wonderfully paced and at times tragically heartbreaking - this is the sort of dystopian horror I can really get behind.

The characters are well fleshed out, the emotions feel real, and the themes often a little too close to the bone. My only gripe with this book is that the ending felt a little rushed and too abruptly concluded.

Laura Elliott is a serious talent.

An interesting science fiction novel with several original twists. I really liked the London setting and the way it was described and while the first part of the book felt somewhat slow it gained momentum as the story progressed.

I really enjoyed this story. The idea was great, I loved the discussion of the ethics and science and all the things surrounding sleep and ME and CFS and all of it. I enjoyed the characters and how it was written like a journal for our main character. It was an interesting idea and not your normal zombie-esque book. So why isn't my rating higher? Something in the writing was missing and I am not sure what. Like I didn't feel tense or really care about anyone, but I still enjoyed it. It was a solid read and I am looking forward to what the author comes up with next.

The world has turned to chaos, society to ruin, and all because a few bright minds dared to rid people of their need for sleep. As they were soon to discover, however, sleep is a dangerous thing to lose.

I was drawn to Laura Elliott’s Awakened because I love horror, and the premise sounded so intriguing. I was definitely getting zombie vibes when I started to read. The story does not delve very far from the core characters however, and there’s not a lot of action (i.e. fighting hordes of sleepless zombies). It’s not the type of horror story that will scare your pants off, which is what I typically look for in the horror genre. That being said, it’s creepy and unnerving and might make you uncomfortable, but in all the best ways. You come to understand that even with a world gone to absolute ruin and volatile creatures lurking behind closed doors, the real danger is sometimes much closer than you think and comes from unexpected sources.

Awakened is definitely worth the read. It will keep you guessing and on the edge of your seat, just waiting to see how it all plays out. I couldn’t put it down, and I found the story to be quite unpredictable. Each twist and turn caught me completely by surprise. I’m a rather critical reader, so it’s difficult for me to find a book that I can’t predict. I also quite liked the way that Elliott structured the book. It’s written like diary entries, and you can feel the chaos and confusion building as the days and months progress. In that way I felt that it was really unique. It also made the pacing of the book quite fast, but it did not provide much room for character development and you do get the sense of some lost time as the diary entries start to accelerate towards the end. All in all, I give Awakened a solid three out of five stars.

Many thanks to Angry Robot for the ARC through Netgalley.

I’ve unfortunately DNF’d this one at 23%.

I try my best to only request ARCs I think I’ll love, and the premise of Awakened certainly fit that requirement, but I think the journal-like structure didn’t quite work for me. Although the entries are in chronological order, at the start of each entry, I almost always felt like I was just opening someone’s diary to a random page and reading it without context. In the beginning, that was fine, but as I kept reading, I started to wonder when I’d stop feeling like every journal entry was random, and it turns out that 23% in is when I didn’t want to wonder anymore.

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read Awakened. I’m sorry it wasn’t for me!

Post-apocalyptic UK. Microchips in people's brains, designed to help them function better with less sleep, have malfunctioned, robbing people of the ability to sleep. The Sleepless are little more than feral monsters, attacking anyone without the chip, and a small group of survivors live in the Tower of London, watching the city deteriorate around them. There is no hope. No hope until a pair of survivors walks out of the Sleepless city and straight up to the Tower's gates. Maybe one of these holds the key to understanding the Sleepless and finding a way to fix the microchip.
Awakened is a Gothic novel focusing on Thea, a scientist who, in devoting her career to finding a way to cure her mother's post-viral fatigue syndrome (PVFS), has created a microchip that reduces the amount of sleep a person needs to function. But the chip was misused or malfunctioned, and now everyone with a chip is Sleepless, a zombie attacking anyone without a chip. Trapped in the Tower of London, Thea and her fellow scientists watch the fruits of their labour destroying the world and live with the guilt of their actions. At first, the monsters all appear outside the Tower, an idea further enforced when two survivors of the ruined city join Thea, and one seems to be Sleepless but fully in control. He has no memory of his life before he became aware, as if waking up, but he is a reasoning individual, mostly human in appearance, but with enough differences that he is obviously Other.
The Sleepless man, later referred to as Vladimir, is described as a vampire, further playing on the gothic themes. He is intelligent and engaging, forcing Thea to face the reality of her actions, and stripping away the illusions she is hiding behind to see her fellow survivors in a different light, as well as consider whether there is anything wrong with the Sleepless or are they a new phase of humanities evolution, albeit one not previously considered. Through Vladimir, Thea begins to realise that maybe the monster in the Tower is not who she initially thought it was.
Under this story of a young, well-meaning woman caught between a father-figure mad doctor and an engaging 'monster' is a story about people suffering with PVFS, chronic fatigue, ME, Long Covid, and the struggle they face in being believed, particularly by medical professionals. Awakened doesn't shy away from the disbelief and negativity they face. I liked this realistic element. Although this is a story, the news is full of real life stories of people who have gone on the same journey as Thea and her mother. Just for this alone, I recommend you read this book. You might never suffer with this yourself, but Awakened is a sympathetic exploration of the silent struggle of sufferers.
Awakened is written in the literary style, and sometimes, the existential crisis Thea is going through gets in the way of the story. Not only is she grappling with the guilt of what she's done and her feelings for Vladimir, but she also has survivor's guilt and insomnia. There is a lot of introspection, which sometimes borders on repetition and that slowed the pacing. It also confused the ending. I am fan of not having the complete picture at the end of the story, I am completely comfortable with there being no HEAs. However, I do like a basic idea, and with Awakened, without giving away any details, I had to reread the ending a few times to see if I'd missed anything.
I know saying the ending fell flat might discourage you from reading this, but don't let it. This is a strong story full of guilt, unresolved childhood trauma, an enigmatic monster/stranger, and mad scientists. I will certainly be reading other things by Laura Elliott. Recommended.

DNF @30%
I really wanted to like it. This was right up my alley. chef’s kiss post-apocalyptic setting, cool and creepy “zombies,” and a genuinely compelling premise. But instead of diving deeper into the world or the threat, the story veers off into long, meandering discussions about philosophy and morality. Every time things started to get interesting… boom, derailment. I actually started skimming those parts, and that’s rare for me. It just didn’t move. The pacing killed the tension, and the good idea got buried under the rambling.

“The limits of the human body have changed, and I’ve had a hand in changing them. When the limits are tested, monstrosity is the result. Monster as something Other, something strange, something not like us but close enough that we see ourselves reflected back.”

I don’t think I’ve read a story quite like this before. I came in expecting a traditional ‘zombie’-type story, but it was totally different to my expectations, and for the better.

The world is overrun by the Sleepless, people with neural chips that prevent them from sleeping, and it turned humanity into monsters. A small circle of survivors in London try to create a cure. One day, two survivors walk into the compound, and everything changes.

“There’s no rationality here. We’ve passed the point of the rational and what’s here is lunacy.”

When I started this book, I really wasn’t sure if I’d like it, but about a third of the way through, I found myself totally invested. This novel is incredibly introspective, and it reads almost like a journal entry, where we as the reader are totally privy to Thea’s thoughts and emotions. The cast of characters were uncanny, complex, and captivating.

This book really made me think; about sleep and its role in our lives, what we are without it, and how humanity’s obsession with constant progress and utopia can very much lead us astray.

“Have the scales fallen from your eyes? Do you see truth, or are you still cowering in the dark?”

Thank you Netgalley and Angry Robot for this ARC.

This debut dystopian novel explores the idea around manipulating humans for the goal of mindless productivity and greed. And as most good dystopian novels do, it forces you to answer questions on the worth of a person based on who they are, not what they provide.

The story is primarily set in the Tower in London, and scientists are desperately trying to undo all the damage they did to people-stealing sleep and in turn, creating feral monsters who only live to consume the leftovers of society. And why they are busy trying to reverse course, they never stop to question why sleeplessness was wrong in the first place. That’s where Vlad comes in.

The author creates a dynamic between Vlad and Thea that opens a way for philosophical discussions to take place-forcing Thea to questions she has longed wanted to avoid answering. She has to reckon with her hand in the fall of humanity under the guise of the common good-struggling under the weight of her callousness towards those who are suffering. But she isn’t purely stoic. She is also dealing with deep-seated trauma that has clouded her judgement on what is truly in the best interest of humanity. It is the biggest reason Vlad wrestles through difficult questions with her, and works to peel back the walls Thea has built around herself. She can only see the truth in her rawest form.

I enjoyed this novel. It wasn’t an easy read, but it was thought provoking. Read this one if you enjoy “28 Days Later” style reads.

This was a good read, I enjoyed somethings about this book while others fell flat. This story is very dystopian/post apocalyptic. The book starts out with people being implanted with chips that allow them to no longer need the burden of sleep, they are called The Sleepless. The main character, Thea and her fellow scientist colleagues are some of the only people not implanted with the chip but are responsible for the creation of it. They keep test subjects and do experiments on them, trying to undo what has been done.

I really enjoyed the flashbacks in the book, explaining more into how The Sleepless came about and the creation of them. Something else that I loved was the neuro talk, as someone who is in the neurology field, I could see the research the author put into this book. For me the ending fell a bit flat and didn’t give me that wow.

Thank you to NetGalley and Angry Robot for this ARC. Due to be published June 10, 2025.

A dystopian novel focused on the scientists who caused the downfall of society - a fabulous concept. It made me think about what makes us human. Aside from what I thought was inconsistent pacing, I liked the premise.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced reader's copy and the opportunity to this early. Review has been posted on Waterstones and Goodreads.

A man made disaster, causes a dystopian world. This book has a strong FL. I loved that it is based in London. It was very reflective and thought provoking

The narrative style is super detached - and not in a particularly compelling way. We don’t get a clear picture of what the apocalypse really looks like - what the extent is and the timeline for how it happened - within the first quarter. We also don’t learn our narrator’s name until several chapters along, which is always a really strange choice and certainly works against us caring about her and her story at all in the beginning. We don’t get a picture of the hierarchy of who lives in the Tower (though apparently narrator Thea has some serious sway). I just found myself bored by the dry tone and lack of driving force, and Thea was not a compelling enough POV character to draw me forward to when things might eventually (hopefully) pick up

DNF around 25%. I liked the idea of this one a lot but the characters and story completely failed to make any connection. I think it’s because it’s fairly science heavy, which made everything seem too detached. I don’t think it’s badly written though, it’s just not for me.

Note: ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the ability to read this book ahead of publishing. I loveedd the premise and the final execution, but the start of this one was a little bumpy. Took me a while to see if it was worth following through to the end, but I’m happy I did. 3.75stars.

Somewhere between sci-fi and horror, this was a read that definitely had interesting concepts in it. It felt like a zombie Frankenstein retelling, grappling with scientific limit and sleep as a concept and our perception of the Other. This book also explores pain really well, especially chronic or seemingly inexplicable pain - the alienation of being denied the luxury of having it, and where it might lead us both as sufferers and as a society uncaring of it. I've given this 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 because there were a lot of bits that felt like they didn't add to the story overall, and the note the ending left us on has given me mixed feelings. However, I really loved Thea as a main character: objective enough to be reliable, human enough to be relatable, conflicted enough to be interesting. All in all, I'm still not sure how I feel about this, just that some of its lines will probably pop up in my memory and send me down interesting rabbit holes for the next week or so.

This was a really interesting take on zombies. I enjoyed the story overall, but it felt like there was something missing, and I'm not quite sure what it was.