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The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping

Samantha Harvey

3.61 · Rating details · 591 ratings · 126 reviews

In 2016, Samantha Harvey began to lose sleep. She tried everything to appease her wakefulness: from medication to therapy, changes in her diet to changes in her living arrangements. Nothing seemed to help.

The Shapeless Unease is Harvey’s darkly funny and deeply intelligent anatomy of her insomnia, an immersive interior monologue of a year without one of the most basic hu

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Kindle Edition, 192 pages

Published May 12th 2020 by Grove Press (first published January 9th 2020)

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Feb 11, 2020 Fatma rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: arcs-e-review-copies, 2020-favs, favs, non-fiction

". . . my friend looks at me with infinite compassion and says, une petite nuit? Oui, I say, une petite nuit, encore. In this expression, French has it all wrong; nights awake are the longest, largest, most cavernous of things. There is acre upon acre of night, and whole eras come and go, and there isn't another soul to be found on the journey through to morning."

The Shapeless Unease is, as its subtitle puts it, about its author's year of not sleeping. But to say that this book is about insomnia ". . . my friend looks at me with infinite compassion and says, une petite nuit? Oui, I say, une petite nuit, encore. In this expression, French has it all wrong; nights awake are the longest, largest, most cavernous of things. There is acre upon acre of night, and whole eras come and go, and there isn't another soul to be found on the journey through to morning."

The Shapeless Unease is, as its subtitle puts it, about its author's year of not sleeping. But to say that this book is about insomnia is to miss the soil that that insomnia grows in: the anxiety, the existential panic, the sheer exhaustion with life. This is what Harvey writes about: insomnia as an all-encompassing thing, an ouroboros eating its tail, sleeplessness breeding anxiety, anxiety pushing a full night's sleep further out of reach.

Harvey's book is more than anything, I think, a series of meditations on her insomnia, anxiety, and existential panic. It has no structure as such, but is moreso fluid in its movement from one subject to the other. In many ways Harvey's writing mirrors her condition throughout the book: slightly stream-of-consciousness, introspective, sometimes painfully aware of her physical being and sometimes transposing herself onto vivid snippets of memory. Because the book so inextricably follows her states of being and trains of thought, it reads as particularly organic in its layout, lending its writing a distinct feeling of being unfiltered and spur-of-the-moment. And this is not even to mention the absolute beauty of Harvey's writing. "Beauty" almost feels like the wrong word to use here, given the searing intimacy of Harvey's account, but her writing really is just exquisite. It's the kind of writing style that enhances rather than buries meaning—that is, it's not superficial or flowery for the sake of being flowery, but actually gives you a more intimate sense of Harvey's experiences.

The Shapeless Unease is a book that has some of the most beautiful, painfully honest writing I've read in a while. I think everyone will find something in this book that will speak to them in some measure. Highly recommend giving it a chance when it comes out on May 22.

Thanks to Grove Press for providing me an e-ARC of this via NetGalley! ...more

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Mar 10, 2020 Valerity (Val) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020

I was so hoping to relate to this one, having myself suffered for years from insomnia due to a condition that is now (CSA) Central Sleep Apnea. This author's year of insomnia led her to express it in this book, but I must be too sleep deprived to get into her stream of consciousness delivery. It may be lovely for well-rested readers, but I threw in the towel. It caused me to be unconscious. I tried more than once, but had to give up. DNF. ...more

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Feb 10, 2020 Varsha Ravi (between.bookends) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites, non-fiction

Where do I even begin with The Shapeless Unease. It’s an amalgamation of personal memoir, essays, snippets of fiction that have been birthed from the author’s period of extreme sleep deprivation. One would assume the complete lack of such a fundamental need would result in something hazy and confused, but instead, it’s the polar opposite. Harvey’s musings, that span grief, death, philosophy and more are startlingly clear, profound, moving and deeply insightful. It really got under my skin. The i Where do I even begin with The Shapeless Unease. It’s an amalgamation of personal memoir, essays, snippets of fiction that have been birthed from the author’s period of extreme sleep deprivation. One would assume the complete lack of such a fundamental need would result in something hazy and confused, but instead, it’s the polar opposite. Harvey’s musings, that span grief, death, philosophy and more are startlingly clear, profound, moving and deeply insightful. It really got under my skin. The ideas she ponders ping-ponged in my head, rattling my brain, looping, filling me with a kind of restive energy and making me consider things I haven’t ever before.

Harvey’s insomnia takes root after the sudden, untimely demise of her cousin whose body wasn’t found until a few days after. What begins as a meditation on grief, gradually unravels, and touches on various other topics ranging from personal anecdotes and incidents from Harvey’s childhood to philosophical musings and the nature of creativity. The narrative is dotted with stunning aphorisms like, “fiction is the laundering of experience into the offshore haven of words”. There are phrases of such well-worded truths, “If the mind is a cacophony, the subconscious is silent theatre; here are the players from the conscious mind, the fears, the desires, the ought and ought-not, but they are whittled down to a core cast and they re-emerge in costume.”

A particular section that left me lost in thought was Harvey’s observations on science and faith. She writes, “I don’t see much opposition between science and faith - isn’t science just another form of faith - the faith in reason? It struck me once that I can never be faithless, I am always putting my faith in something - be that agnosticism, atheism, violence, kindness, money, cynicism, writing, love, politics, compassion. Faith is a precondition for science, a precondition for everything.” She elucidates further, “The more the believer in science holds up reason as the arbiter of all things, the more the reason starts to look like a god being worshipped. Reason is a thing that proves only itself. If you use reason to work out what is valid, you’ll find that the only valid things are those you can reach by reason.”

Her condition of sleeplessness lands her in a vertiginous state, where the recursive nature of her thoughts loop into one another and play out on the page. There’s almost this pervasive quality to her writing, the stream of consciousness style of her narration allowing you to experience her thoughts in the closest way possible. I have quoted Harvey a great deal in this review because sometimes there just isn’t a better way to explain than by example. Perhaps I am not earning my keep as a reviewer. But sometimes, when an author is that good, you just need to get out of the way.
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Oct 15, 2020 Hannah rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, arc, 2020-publications

I tried and failed to read this book several times during the last few months of my pregnancy where I suffered, for the first time in my life, from insomnia myself. But the beginning of this book rang so true that it ended up too much for me. Now that falling asleep really is not a problem anymore, I finally finished the book and I am glad I did, even if it did not often work for me. Samantha Harvey approaches her insomnia from different angles, many of which are experimental in narrative struct ...more

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Feb 26, 2021 Jonathan K rated it it was ok · review of another edition

In a word, not my cup of tea. Depressing and failed to engage. While I'm sure it appeals to some, I decided against going further, aka DNF. ...more

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May 12, 2020 Serena rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: arc

I was given an ARC of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

DNF @ 26%

I'll say very little about this.
I'm a psychology student. This book NEEDS trigger warnings. I didn't have any in the info page at the beginning, the Goodreads synopsis, the NetGalley synopsis or ANYWHERE. This book WILL give people panic attacks. You can't just write whatever the fuck you want and not be responsible for it because it's a book and it's art and it can't ever be wrong. So, TRIGGER WARNINGS:
-deat ...more

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May 17, 2020 Alexandra Santos rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fic

A lyrical, swirling, furious attempt to pin down sleeplessness. Anyone who has ever suffered from insomnia will feel seen to the nth degree, with new, nicely arranged words to point at that describe the spiral that is insomnia. Funny enough, I started the book at 1am on a sleepness night and read about a third of the book all in one quiet hour on the living room couch. I put the book down, feeling recognized and peaceful enough with my struggle to give the whole sleeping thing another go. When I ...more

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Apr 01, 2020 KarenK rated it it was ok

Shelves: arc-netgalley, netgalley-read-2020

I received this from Netgalley.com for a review.

Samantha Harvey has tried everything just to get some sleep: from medication to therapy, changes in her diet to changes in her living arrangements.

This book seems like a very cathartic way for the author to cope with insomnia. I hope she is now getting some restful sleep. I found the writing a bit disjointed and hard to follow.

2.25☆

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Dec 24, 2019 Samantha rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

An absolute triumph. Harvey puts into words so perfectly the intimate terror of anxiety that feels impossible to articulate. I've already put a reminder in my diary to reread this in a year's time, but I doubt I'll need it. ...more

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Feb 14, 2021 Bart Van Overmeire rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: essays-memoir-non-fiction, reading-women, read-2021, owned-books

This book about insomnia worked at 3am as well as Sunday afternoon, drifting between waking and sleeping (because, well, 3am the night before and drowsy on the couch beneath a blanket). Very good, but no idea whether it works for good sleepers.

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Sep 23, 2020 JacquiWine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Earlier this year, I wrote about Marina Benjamin’s Insomnia, a luminous meditation on the hinterland between longed-for sleep and unwelcome wakefulness. Samantha Harvey’s The Shapeless Unease could be viewed as something of a companion piece to the Benjamin. It’s just as beautifully written, a book that brilliantly evokes the fragmentary nature of this condition, perfectly capturing the freewheeling association between seemingly disparate thoughts as the mind flits from one topic to another.

In t Earlier this year, I wrote about Marina Benjamin’s Insomnia, a luminous meditation on the hinterland between longed-for sleep and unwelcome wakefulness. Samantha Harvey’s The Shapeless Unease could be viewed as something of a companion piece to the Benjamin. It’s just as beautifully written, a book that brilliantly evokes the fragmentary nature of this condition, perfectly capturing the freewheeling association between seemingly disparate thoughts as the mind flits from one topic to another.

In the midst of the night, Harvey trawls through the remnants of her past, searching for clues on the cause of her insomnia, the trigger that has turned her from a sleeper to a non-sleeper over the past year.

When I don’t sleep I spend the night searching the intricacies of my past, trying to find out where I went wrong, trawling through childhood to see if the genesis of the insomnia is there, trying to find the exact thought, thing or happening that turned me from a sleeper to a non-sleeper. I try to find a key to release me from it. I try to solve the logic problem that is now my life. I circle the arena of my mind, it’s shrinking perimeter, like a polar bear in its grubby blue–white plastic enclosure with fake ice caps and water that turns out to have no depth. I circle and circle. It’s 3 a.m., 4 a.m. It’s always 3 a.m., 4 a.m. I circle back. (p. 32)

So much of what Harvey says in this book resonates with me – from the differences between fear and anxiety, to her reflections on death and our own sense of mortality, to the humiliation we sometimes encounter when discussing a condition with a doctor or counsellor. I too have experienced that sense of dread and desperation when seeking a cause or label for a series of symptoms, the need to negotiate for further tests or investigations to be carried out. Moreover, the frustration of being on the receiving end of well-intentioned advice and lifestyle interventions, most of which have already been explored.

To read the rest of my review, please visit:

https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2020... ...more

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Jan 09, 2020 Natalie (CuriousReader) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Review originally published: https://curiousreaderr.wordpress.com/...

When I first stumbled upon The Shapeless Unease among upcoming releases, I thought it sounded a bit like Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation – which I along with most everyone I know loved. But while both books tackle sleep-problems and span a year, their resemblance ends there – Samantha Harvey’s The Shapeless Unease is a memoir of one year where she struggles with sleep and through this experience, she writes not about Review originally published: https://curiousreaderr.wordpress.com/...

When I first stumbled upon The Shapeless Unease among upcoming releases, I thought it sounded a bit like Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation – which I along with most everyone I know loved. But while both books tackle sleep-problems and span a year, their resemblance ends there – Samantha Harvey’s The Shapeless Unease is a memoir of one year where she struggles with sleep and through this experience, she writes not about sleep so much as everything else. As she puts it herself at one point, sleep like money is something that you only really think about when you have too little of it. Sleep then, to the insomniac, becomes the prism through which you see and move in the world – that is a pretty accurate representation of the book as well, sleep becomes the prism through which Harvey experiences, thinks, feels and narrates her life. It is rarely the subject of discussion but at the same time it’s always there, forming everything within the life it’s holding in its grip.

The Shapeless Unease is a memoir told in a stream-of-conciousness style, a literary style which for me has turned out to be kind of a marmite thing. Usually, I find it ends up allowing for too much fragmentation in writing – rather than staying with one thing, dedicating time and effort to dig deeper into it – the writer is allowed to flick from point to point without bothering to get beyond the most surface-level notes. On the other hand, it can at times bring out an authenticity of the truest sensory experience without the cloak of narrative rules, sense of propriety or time. Speaking from the heart, I suppose is the cheesy way of putting it. Harvey’s book is a mixture of both – the good and the bad with the form.

When her writing is at its weakest is when her words almost seem hollow; it’s short snappy phrases and over-written sentences that seem to weigh nothing else but conveying to the reader the emotional state of its creator. It does serve a purpose in reflecting the mind of an insomniac, the way her mind is in fact fragmented because she has not the energy or the sense of presence to keep hold of longer strains of thought or form true order of what she’s narrating. It all ends up being mushy, with deprived thoughts hardly worth printing. As a reader, I felt I could appreciate the technical value in the writing form and what it does to the book – how it tells a story beyond the actual wording, how the shape of the book reflects the story (the shapelessness) it is holding in its covers. But there’s a difference between appreciation for worth and reading enjoyment, in this case it doesn’t work beyond its idea.

On the other hand, when Harvey’s is at the top of her game she appears to reach beyond the veil – there’s honesty and something akin to a vision, of seeing all the way to the core of things, stripping away the layers of accepted narrative and clichés, commonly accepted truths and comfortable thinking patterns – to reveal something recognisably true. She manages to do this with topics as varied as world politics, identity, death, relationships, writing, sleep, and philosophy. I found myself stopping at the way she writes about anxiety and fear, especially – she writes about the way anxiety, like sleeplessness, reproduces itself in an endless cycle and how worrying about worrying will only worsen the experience but there’s no stopping it. It’s a helpless feeling that she equals to that of her sleeplessness, “the more you want it the less it comes”.

Ultimately, she closes the book with questioning her own sense in the world and why she keeps on moving forward, even in the midst of this political and worldly turmoil – how do any of us keep on even when it feels like the sky is falling? Even when it seems everything is going to shit? “What is it that is leaning forward in me now, towards the world?” She doesn’t necessarily have the answers, but it’s a notion I can’t help but think we could all do with, in this current state of the world. Generations before us have struggled, have faced prejudice and hatred and wars and suffering and discrimination and injustice and many struggles beside, we’re not alone in this experience and yet it is our experience now. How do we face it? Why do we keep on leaning in, towards the world, each other, ourselves? It seems a good thing to return to in times of trouble of the external or internal kind. To be reminded of that something which does, against the odds, lean forward towards the world and propels us to “swim with, with with”. ...more

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Apr 26, 2020 Vanya rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own

As someone who has never had trouble sleeping I have always wondered what could render people sleepless. In fact, I am ashamed to admit that I have, on some occasions, thought of insomnia as the privileged’s preserve—a manifestation of their solipsism. I couldn’t have found a better book than The Shapeless Unease to rectify my ill-founded prejudices.

The Shapeless Unease is Samantha Harvey’s account of her year long tussle with sleeplessness, a period in which she felt intense exhaustion and dre As someone who has never had trouble sleeping I have always wondered what could render people sleepless. In fact, I am ashamed to admit that I have, on some occasions, thought of insomnia as the privileged’s preserve—a manifestation of their solipsism. I couldn’t have found a better book than The Shapeless Unease to rectify my ill-founded prejudices.

The Shapeless Unease is Samantha Harvey’s account of her year long tussle with sleeplessness, a period in which she felt intense exhaustion and dread. The writers starts experiencing disturbed sleep after the announcement of Brexit, a news that makes her fret over the future of her country. The death of her cousin exacerbates her existing feelings of anxiety. Whorling into long spells of sleeplessness, she begins to contemplate the death of all her loved ones. The offices of doctors she consults resound with the oft-repeated mantra of “stay positive” as if a patient deliberately chooses to believe the worst. Harvey tries out all the suggested cures from practicing sleep hygiene to meditation. But sleep evades her with a deft stubbornness.

The writer peppers her memoir with fictional short stories that she writes during the year, taking us into the realm of her writing process. She tells us how her outlook on the craft changes as she grapples with sleep-deprivation. Her condition affects her writing—she subconsciously taps into the traits of people she knows for the characters she forges, the resulting stories a heady confluence of the real and the imagined.

This is a memoir that talks about many things at once—politics, grief, anxiety, illness, writing—without once slipping into pontification. The book excels not only on account of its coruscating prose but also because of its striking lucidity. It’s astonishing how eloquently Harvey conveys her anguish and her grief in a state that cripples both mental and creative faculties. At one point, Harvey mentions how language can hold one aloft in times of crisis. I felt a similar buoyancy as I read The Shapeless Unease.

...more

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Nov 22, 2020 Nathalie (keepreadingbooks) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I don’t have a lot of smart words to describe this one, and I’m not sure I can even attempt to review it objectively – my reasons for liking this book are too personal.

Having had more-or-less serious sleeping problems on and off since 2016, I see a lot of myself in Harvey’s book. The things she does to help herself sleep (and failing), the thoughts that haunt her, the very raw emotions that emerge when the whole world is asleep and you’re not.

The fragmented style of the book is perfect, mirrori ...more

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Feb 17, 2020 vidyuth Kini rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I bought this book on a hunch, having never heard of the author nor having read any recommendations. I do however have a deep interest in consciousness and have suffered brief periods of insomnia (3 to 4 days max at a time) for several years.

In that sense the book resonated with me. It’s structure mimics the mind in a state of continuous sleeplessness. It is often a troubled mind that can’t sleep and this book is a testament to that. I have found this is not always a bad thing and the lack of s ...more

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Jan 17, 2020 Amber rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, books-i-own

How do you review something that resonates so deeply with you?

Blending essay, memoir, and fiction, Harvey’s fragmented prose reflects that of her sleepless state: she meanders through memories, existential anxieties and present emotions with a succinct style that articulates her courage in the face of a potentially life-shattering condition.

Harvey’s aphorisms resonated with me powerfully, intensely and searchingly. She deftly weaves together a narrative concerned not only with sleeplessness, an ...more

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Jan 22, 2020 Paul "Axl" Hurman rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: first-published-in-2020-uk

I can't exactly pinpoint what it is that made me love this book as much as I do. It's a bit of a mish mash jumble of styles, but it feels totally natural. It is written in a way that somehow manages to read like how insomnia feels. Tangents and sidesteps and diversions, never settling into any one thing. It should be a confused mess of a book, but it is exquisitely written and utterly wonderful. Yeah, I loved it. ...more

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Feb 06, 2020 Kay Cardona rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I have no words to describe this book. The language, the detail, the atmosphere... it's an amazing , amazing book. What a wonderful writer. The beauty of realism! I loved every word, every emotion every observation of life. I will read it again as I am sure I missed out on some emotion as I was still surfing a previous one. ...more

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Jun 15, 2020 Moritz Mueller-Freitag rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: pandemic-book-club

An introspective, stream-of-conscious memoir about the author’s year-long struggle with insomnia. Harvey’s fragmented prose mimics the wandering of the sleepless mind perfectly. Profound and deeply insightful; not at all soporific!

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Jun 06, 2020 Sam S rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook, non-fiction

3.5 stars

This was a very stream of consciousness style book about the emotions and thoughts the author had while struggling with insomnia.

Though I find the writing very lyrical, it was hard to follow at times, which makes sense. There was a heavy focus on death, which was unexpected.

I read this book because I am struggling with mild to moderate insomnia, and this book put me to sleep twice... Not sure what to say about that! Thank you?

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Sep 05, 2020 Annikky rated it liked it · review of another edition

I liked but didn’t love it, possibly because I wanted this to be Marina Benjamin’s Insomnia. Benjamin’s take on not sleeping is gentler, more essey-like and perhaps too romanticised, but I enjoyed it a lot and recommend it highly. If you are fascinated by the topic, Harvey is well worth reading too.

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Dec 20, 2020 Lindsey King rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This is potentially the best book I’ve read this year. Perfect in many ways.

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Mar 09, 2020 Jamila Herman-Prowse rated it really liked it · review of another edition

For a book about not sleeping Samantha Harvey’s The Shapeless Unease is overflowing with rationale and clarity. The prose were so smooth, articulate and enjoyable to read, as was the combination of non-fiction, stream of consciousness and short fiction. I found the book to be soothing even through the discussion of insomnia, grief and death. This is how I wish I could write - with an intelligence and skill that is unshakeable even in the communication of personal and oft frustrating experiences, ...more

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Sep 19, 2020 Erin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

There is no sequential story but for some reason I didn't find that frustrating. It's more a collection of the writer's experiences and observations. She describes some feelings and thoughts that probably all humans have but don't know how to or just never try to verbalise. I've never had full blown insomnia myself but I found how she articulated how sleep deprivation feels very relatable. ...more

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Dec 17, 2019 Jess Smiley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Sprawling meditations on insomnia, struggle, language, Great Britain, kinship, faith, reason, writing, a bank robbery, ineffable dreams.

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Sep 22, 2020 Jonathan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Absolutely gorgeous, I'm so grateful for the sincere, haunted beauty of this book! ...more

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Dec 20, 2020 Kay (aka) Miss Bates rated it liked it · review of another edition

My sole response to reaching the end of Samantha Harvey’s The Shapeless Unease was gratitude, not to Harvey, but to reaching the end and not giving up. It was a long, difficult slog, but I made it, sheer stubbornness propelling me forward to its vague conclusion. It’s not a terrible book, not by litfic, and not memfic, standards: it has the requisite lyrical prose, occasional, brilliant insight, only to lapse into lyrical existential-babble that hopes to dissolve the self, or digressive, tangent My sole response to reaching the end of Samantha Harvey’s The Shapeless Unease was gratitude, not to Harvey, but to reaching the end and not giving up. It was a long, difficult slog, but I made it, sheer stubbornness propelling me forward to its vague conclusion. It’s not a terrible book, not by litfic, and not memfic, standards: it has the requisite lyrical prose, occasional, brilliant insight, only to lapse into lyrical existential-babble that hopes to dissolve the self, or digressive, tangential passages, never coming together with what came before, or what comes after.

Initially, I was drawn to the topic, but driven away by the style. As someone who has experienced bouts of insomnia, one in particular, I’d say, debilitating, and is an obsessive lover of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the greatest account of insomnias ever written, I wanted to read Harvey’s memoir. It started out great: Harvey, a regular sleeper pre-year-of-not-sleeping, recounts the incident at the heart of her not-sleeping: her cousin’s death. My understanding, and who knows, given the impenetrable style, I may be wrong, is that Harvey’s insomnia is linked to an existential dread of death, triggered by her cousin’s loss: “my cousin’s death has invited all deaths”.

Her analysis of her problem was insightful and compelling. Her initial scene-setting an echo of every insomniac’s experience: “Into bed and lie down. Head goes on pillow. And with the light out, here they come, all of them, the holy and the horrifying; here they are.” Yes, “for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come”. In this pandemic year, goodness knows, no one sleeps well. At first I did, well and deep, released from the worries of work, which is the only thing that keeps me awake; when the world “opened up” again, ugh, the early morning wake-up, with the whirring mind, started up again. But Harvey’s sleeplessness cannot bear comparison: she didn’t sleep for days, weeks, months. And her initial descriptions of it are compelling and fascinating. But not too long after the first pages, it began: “the desire for sleep is also the denial of it”. The thing that sent me away from contemporary writing to genre fiction and nonfiction (which this is and isn’t, more of that later): the statement that isn’t a statement except insofar as it states the obvious. But I stuck it through to the end, because it’s a short book, “novella” length, and skimmed the parts where Harvey tells a fictional account of a man who robs ATMs because he loves his wife and wants to offer her money. I never figured out what this had to do with her horrific insomnia. And it is horrific and I feel terrible for her and I hope she can sleep like a baby for years and years, but I’m glad not to be in her experience, head, and prose anymore.

Samantha Harvey’s The Shapeless Unease is published by Grove. It was released in May and you may find it at your preferred vendors. I received an e-galley from Grove, via Netgalley. ...more

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Aug 19, 2020 Kim rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020-int-release, act-library, borrowbox-act-library, library-ebook, 2020-read

Actually put me to sleep!
I was disappointed in this. I was hoping for some resolution but it was more a disjointed stream of consciousness of all her fears that came up when she couldn't sleep. Came across as quite naive and superficial. I wasn't happy with her explanation about why she "believed in" Science. Quite rightly she said Science is not a belief but Science doesn't just verify "facts". Scientific method is a repeatable process where given a set of parameters you get the same result eac ...more

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Nov 29, 2020 AJ rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Reading this book was painfully excruciating— I get what the author was trying to depict here by writing an endless stream of conscious thoughts that came to mind while she couldn’t sleep, but it just didn’t work for me. Nothing flowed, nothing made sense, and the only reason I even finished the book was because it wasn’t very long. Still, I’m baffled at why this was long listed for the Booker Prize, but maybe some folks out there love this sort of random rambling because it feels artsy or diffe ...more

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May 26, 2020 Kristine rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: amazon-reviewed, deliberately-unfinished

The Shapeless Unease by Samantha Harvey is a free NetGalley ebook that I read in late April.

Though Harvey mentions straightaway that this is going to be a dread-full book, yeah, it is most definitely that and a book matching what might be meandering in someone’s mind during depressive quarantine in a flow of heavy consciousness, while analyzing their sleep cycle and how they’ve faulted in waking life, pondering their impending demise, waning between comfort and discomfort.

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About Samantha Harvey

Samantha Harvey

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Samantha Harvey has completed postgraduate courses in philosophy and in Creative Writing. In addition to writing, she has traveled extensively and taught in Japan and has lived in Ireland and New Zealand. She recently co-founded an environmental charity and lives in Bath, England.

Her first novel, The Wilderness, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2009, longlisted for the 2009 Man Boo ...more

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32 Short, New Books to Help You CRUSH Your Reading Challenge

Someday, this year will end! And with the ringing in of 2021, we will come to the end of this year's Goodreads Reading Challenge. Of course,...

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“When I don't sleep, it's not that I feel tired so much as assaulted. In the morning after a night of no sleep my eyes are sore and tender and can barely open. My joints ache. There's a taste in my mouth which isn't like any other taste, only a feeling, and that feeling is defeat. My skull aches evenly across its hemisphere. [...] I go to bed at night, I get beaten up, come downstairs in the morning. Then I go about the day as if things were normal and I hadn't been beaten up, and everyone else treats me as if I hadn't been beaten up, and that way I survive, but no more than that. If somebody willed your destruction they could do it this way, by taking away your sleep. Of course, it's tried and tested” — 3 likes

“To write fiction you have to engage in organised fraud, the laundering of experience into the offshore haven of words.” — 2 likes

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The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping

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The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping

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