Mickey, Skye, Levi, Cyrus, and Thea are all middle schoolers with the exact same problem: they never seemed to have enough time. Then they stopped sleeping. And life became, well, pretty good. But how did this change happen? More importantly, what will it cost them?
Mickey is a middle schooler who suddenly stopped sleeping. That’s right, he doesn’t sleep at all. Not a night. Not an hour. Not a minute.
Frankly, Mickey was kinda freaked out about it at first. He went through every non-sleeping help tip that the internet had—from hot showers and white-noise machines to valerian root and warm milk.
But then it hit Mickey: Rather than roll around in bed until dawn—especially given that he was never tired the next day anyway—he should probably fill the time in some productive way.
Mickey tried playing video games. But that felt a lot like more wasted time. Then, while looking at himself in the mirror, a thought hit him: What if he started exercising? I mean, yeah, he’s a skinny 12-year-old with stick-out ears who has the constitution of an underfed gnat. But what if he used all his extra time to change that?
At first, the running and weightlifting at 2:30 a.m. was agonizing. But Mickey’s hairless terrier, Baldie, was eager enough to go running in the black of night. And that was just the motivator that Mickey needed.
The efforts paid off.
Pretty quickly Mickey got stronger, tougher, faster. He even started feeling more confident and stopped letting Carlo, a knuckleheaded jock, push him around so much. Surprisingly, even the football coach began to see the difference. And he asked Mickey to join the team.
Not sleeping was beginning to pay big and unexpected dividends. He even met a cool girl who kinda thinks he’s cool, too.
But here’s the thing. Even though Mickey thinks he’s the only non-sleeper in town, it turns out that there are other middle schoolers in the town of Shagbark who are filling their nights with something other than sleep, too.
Levi is big into social media. And he’s using four different usernames and cranking out content that’s starting to draw thousands of followers.
Cyrus spends the wee hours inventing gadgets in his basement. And is pretty sure that some of his inventions might earn him some money.
Skye spends her sleepless nights reading books and doing numerous art projects. And thanks to all her extra hours, she’s risen to the top of her class.
They’re all cranking away and reaping no-sleep benefits while other students are wasting their time sawing logs.
However, these sleepless overachievers are about to meet—and they’ll begin to wonder exactly what’s going on in Shagbark. How did this happen? What does it mean? Is someone, or something, doing this to them?
And pretty soon, they’re all going to wake up to a very uncomfortable truth.
There is no reference to faith in this book.
There are no belief systems in the mix. But readers are called upon to suspend their disbelief and go along with the idea that a chemical compound could allow kids to go sleepless with no ill effects.
Mickey’s parents are consistent and loving.
When Mickey meets Skye, he realizes that Skye’s mother was instrumental in his parents losing a great deal of money in a business venture. Because of that, Mickey and Skye fear that their parents won’t allow them to be friends. However, all three parents declare that their past dealings with one another should have nothing to do with the kids’ relationship. Mickey’s mom and dad are eager to meet Skye.
[Spoiler Warning] Dr. Malachi is an allergist-immunologist who treats all five of the kids for allergies. The kids discover that he’s been giving them an experimental sleeplessness serum disguised as allergy shots—running an experiment without the kids’ or their parents’ consent. As the five middle school friends investigate together, they find out that Malachi experimented on his own son, and the experiment led to a damaging outcome. After being confronted, Malachi disappears and is never held accountable for his crimes.
Carlo bullies smaller kids: Mickey gets shoved and thumped by the bigger boy on several occasions. However, Mickey and Carlo eventually end up on the same football team and make their peace with one another.
An enraged young man chases the five friends with a baseball bat, but they outrun him and no one is hurt. Mickey, however, is once again grabbed and manhandled a bit in the process.
We hear of a kid with a nut allergy getting peanut butter smeared on his shirt. His physical swelling reaction is almost deadly before a nurse gives him an epinephrine shot.
The five friends break into someone’s house and steal something.
[Spoiler Warning] The serum that Dr. Malachi injects into the kids has a detrimental, mind-altering impact on the doctor’s son James. Four of the five younger kids actually find the sleeplessness they experience to be beneficial. However, they all decide to pour the last of that chemical compound on the ground and walk away from it.
It’s obvious that Mickey and Skye are attracted to each other. They hug.
Have you ever considered what you might be able to accomplish if you didn’t need sleep? Do you think you’d do something super productive with that extra time? Could you still do those productive things if you just managed your time better while getting a good night’s sleep?
Did you know that the Bible talks about sleep? Take a look at Psalm 4:8 and Proverbs 3:24. What do you think those verses are saying about our best option for a good night’s rest?
Sleepless is a creative, character-driven mystery. And young readers will likely find the book fun to read. But while the story promotes thought about the concepts of youthful ambition and the potential toxicity of having heightened expectations for school kids, it doesn’t end with a strong moral message.
In fact, parents should note that an adult character breaks the trust of five young kids, injects them with experimental drugs and gets no comeuppance for his criminal actions.
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Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books, not necessarily their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
