The book starts with a great premise: one day, a young girl seems to go into a trance, and starts walking towards some unknown destination. Her sister tries to wake her, but no matter what she does, the young girl remains unresponsive, and keeps walking. Soon, a man joins her, also seeming in a trance. And then a woman joins them. And as they keep walking, more and more “sleepwalkers” join the “herd.” These sleepwalkers begin to walk across the nation, joined by their family members (the “shepherds”) who try to take protect them, and members of the CDC, who try to figure out the cause of this bizarre epidemic. All of this is happening amidst the backdrop of a US that is increasingly boiling over with tension over racism, xenophobia, science denial, climate change denial, polarized politics, religious charlatans, and so on (in short, more or less the US as it is today).
The combination of a grippy opening, intriguing central mystery, interesting characters, and (sadly) realistic setting made the book hard to put down… At first. Unfortunately, the mystery is gradually revealed to be a bit zany and overcomplicated with too many elements, and some of the characters gradually become a bit too cartoony (especially the bad guys). Fortunately, it doesn’t devolve into a total mess (like The Stand). The writing is far better, and the (non-bad guy) characters are endearing. There are even a few interesting twists towards the end. But the story just tries to do a little too much. Had it stuck to just the “sleepwalker” epidemic, and how society might deal with that, I think this book could’ve been far better.
