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eggcatsreads 's review for:
The Night Guest
by Hildur Knútsdóttir
An extremely short psychological horror-thriller where our main character Iðunn begins feeling chronically fatigued when she wakes up from sleep. Nothing she does can find or solve the problem - blood tests come back clean, sleeping pills don’t seem to work, and more and more often she is noticing injuries or blood on her person when she wakes. She decides to take up walking, as suggested by a friend, and accidentally leaves her watch on overnight - and it tracks over 40,000 steps that she has no memory of making.
Suddenly coming to the conclusion that she is sleepwalking, Iðunn is left with more problems than she started with - she knows what she is doing, but not how to prevent it from happening. Sleeping pills only worked once. Locking herself in her room results in her own bloody and mangled hands as she escapes into the night. Even attempting to stop sleeping altogether doesn't solve anything. What else can she do?
This is a very quick read, and if I had not known it was a translation I would have never known. We quickly get into the struggle of our main character as she fights to figure out what is going on with her sleeping life - and what she may be doing without her knowledge. I thought the buildup was extremely well done, and as our main character slowly begins losing her grip on reality you can never be certain what exactly is really going on here. Is it supernatural? Or is it simply a medical illness?
In all honesty, the only thing that kept this from being a five star read was the multiple [redacted for spoilers] deaths and the ending, which I found confusing and a bit rushed. Otherwise, this was a solid little novella that I would recommend if you wanted to read something quick for about only an hour or so.
Trigger warning for animal death. It’s not overly explicit, but it cannot be avoided and is a very prominent part. Also mild trigger warnings for: blood, gore, injuries, mild bodily mutilation, date rape, and attempted sexual assault (only implied through the date rape).
Thank you to the author, Netgalley, and Tor Nightfire for providing me this e-ARC for an honest review.
Suddenly coming to the conclusion that she is sleepwalking, Iðunn is left with more problems than she started with - she knows what she is doing, but not how to prevent it from happening. Sleeping pills only worked once. Locking herself in her room results in her own bloody and mangled hands as she escapes into the night. Even attempting to stop sleeping altogether doesn't solve anything. What else can she do?
This is a very quick read, and if I had not known it was a translation I would have never known. We quickly get into the struggle of our main character as she fights to figure out what is going on with her sleeping life - and what she may be doing without her knowledge. I thought the buildup was extremely well done, and as our main character slowly begins losing her grip on reality you can never be certain what exactly is really going on here. Is it supernatural? Or is it simply a medical illness?
In all honesty, the only thing that kept this from being a five star read was the multiple [redacted for spoilers] deaths and the ending, which I found confusing and a bit rushed. Otherwise, this was a solid little novella that I would recommend if you wanted to read something quick for about only an hour or so.
Trigger warning for animal death. It’s not overly explicit, but it cannot be avoided and is a very prominent part. Also mild trigger warnings for: blood, gore, injuries, mild bodily mutilation, date rape, and attempted sexual assault (only implied through the date rape).
Thank you to the author, Netgalley, and Tor Nightfire for providing me this e-ARC for an honest review.