Book Review: While You Sleep by Caillou Pettis

Title: While You Sleep

Author: Caillou Pettis

Release date: March 8th, 2022

Huge thanks to Caillou for reaching out to me over on IG and sending me a digital ARC. I’m constantly trying my best to fit in new to me authors as well as authors who’ve not got a lot of ratings/reviews posted on GR and/or Amazon.

‘While You Sleep’ intrigued me, because of the consistent location aspect. Much like King does with his work, and recently Josh Malerman with ‘Goblin’ (which I still need to read) and Alan Baxter’s fantastic Gulp novellas, there’s something about a constant connection in dark fiction that seems to grab and hold a reader’s mind.

This one is made up of ten stories, all interconnected based on taking place in the town of Newryst. The stories are of varying lengths, though the majority of them are short and snappy. I’d guess 3-5k words. It featured one longer story, but for the most part, I think you’d be able to consume this in a single sitting.

What I liked: For a debut collection, there are some really strong stories in here. Some of them fall into “tried and true” plotlines, but in dark fiction, that’s a given at this point. As I said in a different review for a book recently – it’s really about what the author can do with that narrative that matters.

In this case the highlights for me were;

‘Birthday Bumps’ – our character, Gavin, wakes up confused on his birthday and things spiral‘He’ll Be Back’ – the best story of the batch in my opinion – two boys have a sleep over and inadvertently notice something in the backyard. Great stuff.‘The Antique Store’ – the longest story in the collection, this one was a ton of fun. I’ll actually leave it there, not wanting to give anything away.‘Webs’ – a well done, quick story that went in some fun directions.

I would gather these stories were written separately over time and ultimately combined and edited to work for this collection. I say this because the stories that seem more polished and as though Pettis grew as a writer are the ones that had the best ‘readibility’ and the ones that had my interest the most.

What I didn’t like: As mentioned, the ones that seemed more realized really grabbed me. A few felt as though they were either written a while ago and not as matured/polished or were written by a writer not as sure of themselves. I wasn’t a fan of the writing voice in ‘While We Sleep’ or ‘Paralysis’ which bummed me out because the idea’s in both were great. Those stories read more like we were being given directions to find a store, not reading a story that unraveled in front of us.

Why you should buy this: I think this is a great addition to people’s TBR’s if they’re fans of collections set in a single location. Pettis has some really fun ideas that he delivers to us and the characters felt solid which really created engaging events.

Overall, a solid collection, but as always reader mileage may vary!

3/5