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| Review by Coll 3.5 Stars |
**I received a copy of this ebook from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**
Love, confusion, love, confusion, that is what I felt while reading this book. (As if I were in a teenage romance.) Once I finished I spent a lot of time trying to get my thoughts and feelings together and I think I have finally done that. Sleeping Giants, by Sylvain Neuvel, is a science fiction / fantasy book that is the first in the series Themis Files. A young girl named Rose falls into a whole in the earth after wandering into the woods to investigate a turquoise light. When a rescue team finds her and begins work to extract her from the hole, they come to find that she is lying in a giant metal hand sitting amidst a turquoise light. Seventeen years later the mystery of this artefact has still yet to be unearthed (pun intended) and the lead physicist / scientist on the study team just so happens to be the grown up Rose. The military and government are pushing to figure out the secret of the hand and look for more pieces, trying to determine what it means to humanity, and no cost is too great for this mission.
The first thing you should know about is the style that Sleeping Giants is written in. The majority is recorded in interview form, with Rose and the rest of her team being questioned by an unknown interrogator. Occasionally there will be chapters thrown in where a character is speaking by themselves as they leave a recorded log, and there are other chapters of reports from the military or other agencies. Neuvel did an amazing job with this writing style, having the dialogue flow easily and into a cohesive story. You always know who is talking and you are able to get the emotions being conveyed by the characters with no problem. I loved the use of this writing style and felt it really added to the story.
Okay, so the first half of Sleeping Giants I absolutely adored. I was so completely absorbed and felt like it could be a five-star book. Then, well, then the second half just started to let me down. At first the book was exciting, intriguing, and even had that “Shit just got real!” moment that takes a story to a whole new level. I was into it and loving it! Then something happened that caught me off guard and the conditions seemed to change. Suddenly it felt like things were being left out and the plot shift made everything feel a little disjointed. The order in which things were spoken about seemed a little off and I found myself thinking back to certain moments and saying to myself “Well what ended up happening with that?” Some things were resolved, some were not, and I felt the book left you with too many cliffhangers. I know, I know, it is the first in a series so there should be cliffhangers, but in this case there were just too many.
Unfortunately for me, I did not feel a connection with any of the characters. Not much background was given on them so it was hard to get to know them and care much. I also felt like characters behaviors were not reacted to as they would be in normal relationships. For example (vague example as to not give spoilers) a character would do something awful and/or criminal and be slightly punished, but then it would go treated like all they did was jaywalk, or some other trivial offense. Things like that, along with some other character interactions and behaviors, felt a little inhuman to me.
I must say though that all in all, the story idea is brilliant. The things I can imagine happening and the direction I feel the story can take are just so exciting to me. I went from loving this book to being unsure of it, but the entire time I remained a huge fan the main idea behind it all. I know it is often hard to have the first book in a series be perfect because of all the things that cannot yet be given away, and I am hoping that was just the case with this book. As I said, the first half I wanted to give five stars to! Unfortunately there was that disconnect between the first and second half. All that being said, I will continue on with the series and I do recommend giving Sleeping Giants a shot with the hope that the rest of the series will be as amazing as I feel it can be.
Interested in Sleeping Giants? Check it out on Goodreads.
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