What’s happening to Emma? Why can’t she sleep?
Insomnia follows Emma, a woman who leads a seemingly perfect life despite her less than ideal childhood, now married with two children and working at a sucessful law firm. When Emma was younger however her life was forever ruled by her mentally ill Mother, whose strange nightime habits caused Emma and her sister Phoebe to constantly live in fear. Just before her 40th birthday Emma’s Mother finally snapped and attempted to kill Phoebe, leading to the two sisters to be taken into foster care. Now approaching her own 40th, Emma secretly worries her Mother’s madness is contagious, always labelled ‘the mad one’ when she was younger.
After a long string of sleepness nights Emma then begins her own unconscious mutterings, mimicking her own Mother’s habits which led to her full on breakdown. As things then begin to get worse and worse and Emma loses control of her own life, she must dig into her own past to find out what is really happening to her. Why fan’t Emma sleep and why is she behinning to replicate her own Mother’s breakdown? Is history repeating itself or is there something much darker at play here?
I absolutely loved this book and completely devoured the storyline. I always love a good thriller, especially ones that play around with paranoia and Insomnia was a complete master of the genre. Emma’s seemingly faltering mental health really drove the storyline and as she grew nearer and nearer to her 40th birthday party her entire world fell apart. As things got weirder and weirder I really began to wonder what the hell was going on and how everything, if it was in fact a hoax, was being pulled off. Books like this are always so clever and even with the slight fantasy tweaks, Insomnia managed to be both sinister and terrifying.
This book played on some very basic (and maybe even universal?) fears and absolutely ran wild, really playing around with Emma’s growing paranoia and insomnia. Not being able to sleep can be an absolute bitch and it really can drive you crazy (believe me I know). I also think mental health and the worry that you are ‘going insane’ can be a really scary thing and not having complete control of your surroundings can be massively unsettling. Although a fictional thriller novel, most of Insomnia was very reality based and so much of the scares came from Emma’s own mind and fears, it was scarily realistic.
I think because of the supernatural ending to Pinborough’s previous novel Behind Her Eyes, I really went into Insomnia believing absolutely anything could happen. Usually I’m not a fan of blending together crime and fantasy but in the right circumstances it can be used in a very clever way and having now read two of her books Pinborough seems to be a master of the craft. Whilst not quite as out there as Behind Her Eyes, I liked how Insomnia explored our past selves getting feelings about things yet to happen and how déjà vu can be a very real thing. Emma and her Mother had this connection and whilst it wasn’t completely rational I also don’t think it was completely unratiomal either, stranger things have definitely happened.
Overall I really loved this one and from only two books Pinborough is really shaping up to be one of my new favourite authors. I love the way she combines crime and fantasy in such a clever way because normally I’m completely against the idea. Here though I really loved the growing narrative of Emma’s paranoia and how everything around her seem to be getting worse and worse, it made for one hell of a read and it was both terrifying and massively entertaining.
Ramblings of a Supposed Writer 
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