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nightstitch96's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Medical trauma
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail and Child death
Minor: War and Violence
arlorees's review
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I would recommend listening to this book, I listened to the audiobook over a few long drives and it was fantastic. The characters are super engaging, the story is fascinating and I love sci-fi which focuses on the human reaction to alien things. There are a lot of serious topics touched upon in this but none are in too much depth.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Torture, Sexual content, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Car accident, Medical trauma, and Death
maxierosalee's review
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Hovering around 3.75-4 stars.
This was a book where my star rating went up the more as I read the book. It started as a pretty "meh" 3 out of 5, but the score had risen by the time I reached the end.
It had an intriguing premise: a mysterious, giant hand is uncovered by a young girl in her backyard. As the years go on, the journey to find the other parts of whatever enormous robotic body it belonged to unfolds, along with the mission to find out what exactly it is and what it does. But it wasn't just the premise that caught my interest: the format did as well. Instead of traditional narrative prose, the book is told in epistolary format. It uses the form of documents and transcripts, but mostly interviews between characters to tell the story. For me, the epistolary format is a bit of a mixed bag. It can be a very intriguing way to tell a story and give it a certain kind of tone/atmosphere...but it's a common shortcoming that due to their nature, epistolary novels often suffer from a very bad case of "telling, not showing." I've read books in this format that were just exposition dump after exposition dump, and it gets to be a drag to read.
This one was a pretty engaging read. I was pretty invested in the plot. I wanted to read on as the characters worked to untangle the mystery of the giant robotic hand and see what would happen. Also, with the interview format, I found the characters decently captivating, and the author did a good job giving the main characters their voices and showcasing their personality through their words only, which I consider pretty hard to do since you can't use described action to show what these characters are like. Certain developments in the plot got me hooked enough to want to keep going and events happening to characters took me for a surprise.
I have some complaints with the book: it does sort of fall into the exposition dump from time to time, but it is by no means bad, in my viewpoint. It also suffers from a common epistolary problem in that sometimes, characters say things in supposed "interviews" that don't sound natural, since you're supposed to believe that the characters are saying this out loud in a conversation (I cannot imagine anyone saying with any kind of natural tone a sentence like "he had leathery-esque skin" out loud to someone else). A big plot complaint is, without any spoilers, how we get the "explanation" for the giant robot body parts. It seemed to come absolutely out of nowhere with no build-up, no foreshadowing, just dump a random exposition character in there.
On that last note...to be fair, this is the first in a trilogy of books, and it may be meant to be explored in the later books. The book ends on a cliffhanger, and a pretty intriguing one...
All in all, a pretty good book that's held back by some flaws, but an enjoyable read with a unique format!
This was a book where my star rating went up the more as I read the book. It started as a pretty "meh" 3 out of 5, but the score had risen by the time I reached the end.
It had an intriguing premise: a mysterious, giant hand is uncovered by a young girl in her backyard. As the years go on, the journey to find the other parts of whatever enormous robotic body it belonged to unfolds, along with the mission to find out what exactly it is and what it does. But it wasn't just the premise that caught my interest: the format did as well. Instead of traditional narrative prose, the book is told in epistolary format. It uses the form of documents and transcripts, but mostly interviews between characters to tell the story. For me, the epistolary format is a bit of a mixed bag. It can be a very intriguing way to tell a story and give it a certain kind of tone/atmosphere...but it's a common shortcoming that due to their nature, epistolary novels often suffer from a very bad case of "telling, not showing." I've read books in this format that were just exposition dump after exposition dump, and it gets to be a drag to read.
This one was a pretty engaging read. I was pretty invested in the plot. I wanted to read on as the characters worked to untangle the mystery of the giant robotic hand and see what would happen. Also, with the interview format, I found the characters decently captivating, and the author did a good job giving the main characters their voices and showcasing their personality through their words only, which I consider pretty hard to do since you can't use described action to show what these characters are like. Certain developments in the plot got me hooked enough to want to keep going and events happening to characters took me for a surprise.
I have some complaints with the book: it does sort of fall into the exposition dump from time to time, but it is by no means bad, in my viewpoint. It also suffers from a common epistolary problem in that sometimes, characters say things in supposed "interviews" that don't sound natural, since you're supposed to believe that the characters are saying this out loud in a conversation (I cannot imagine anyone saying with any kind of natural tone a sentence like "he had leathery-esque skin" out loud to someone else). A big plot complaint is, without any spoilers, how we get the "explanation" for the giant robot body parts. It seemed to come absolutely out of nowhere with no build-up, no foreshadowing, just dump a random exposition character in there.
On that last note...to be fair, this is the first in a trilogy of books, and it may be meant to be explored in the later books. The book ends on a cliffhanger, and a pretty intriguing one...
All in all, a pretty good book that's held back by some flaws, but an enjoyable read with a unique format!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: War, Medical trauma, and Body horror
Minor: Deportation
The body horror might seem like a weird one, but there's honestly a part that counts as body horror to me and gave me the slightest feeling of squick. One of the charactersdogearedbooks's review
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Medical trauma
garbagebarge69's review
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Minor: Violence, Medical trauma, Torture, and War
yvo_about_books's review against another edition
4.25
Finished reading: September 7th 2023
“I was smart enough to know it was wrong, but not brave enough to stop them.”
It's true that I don't usually read a lot of sci-fi, and especially when there are aliens involved... But there was something about Sleeping Giants that made me curious ever since it was first published back in 2016. I guess my TBR jar thought it was time I finally gave this first book of a trilogy a chance, and I'm very glad this title popped up now. Why? I have to say that I was very much impressed by Sleeping Giants! There was just something about this story that was both addictive and able to make you feel humble at the same time. The fact that you don't exactly know what is going on only adds to the suspense, and it was absolutely fascinating learning more about what was being discovered. The writing style itself stands out as it is told through interviews, diaries and other files, but somehow the story was still very readable. It makes you wonder what would happen if such a discovery would be made in real life, and how the people involved would react... The different characters involved added humanity to the story and while I could have done without the love triangle, in general I enjoyed learning more about them. And after how things ended, I also can't wait to pick up the sequel to see what will happen next!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, War, Toxic relationship, Car accident, Confinement, Forced institutionalization, Body horror, Medical content, Infidelity, and Death
Moderate: Kidnapping, Child death, Sexual content, Ableism, Genocide, Xenophobia, and Torture
jj_tj's review
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Death
Minor: War
surprisebear's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Xenophobia, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical trauma, Emotional abuse, Grief, Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and War
Moderate: Ableism, Infidelity, Kidnapping, and Confinement
Minor: Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence
mengzhenreads's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Listening to this as an audiobook was super cool, it's a fun premise that is really interesting and engaging. I just really enjoyed myself.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical trauma, Death, and Medical content
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Body horror, and Violence
Minor: Gun violence and Ableism
ireadinbed's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Honestly the shadowy figure made this book for me. I liked the way all threads lead back to them.
Unfortunately i dont think it lived up to the premise. Like it was fun dont get me wrong, but the characters really feel flat, and the Ebook is not formatted particularly well.
The pitch was whimsical but thw execution lacks that wonder
Unfortunately i dont think it lived up to the premise. Like it was fun dont get me wrong, but the characters really feel flat, and the Ebook is not formatted particularly well.
The pitch was whimsical but thw execution lacks that wonder
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror and Medical trauma