Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel.

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel.

This book is: completely fascinating and exceptionally well-written.
Other elements: giant mysterious statues, improbable medical procedures, aliens.
Read it: if you like great stories with perfect pacing.
Overall rating: 9.5/10

My feelings about Sleeping Giants are almost identical to my feelings about The Girl with All of the Gifts and The Book of Strange New Things. All three books are in a genre I don’t generally like (SciFi), about subjects I don’t generally enjoy (aliens / zombie pandemics). But they were all SO GOOD that I loved them anyway.

I also read both books blindly – knowing nothing about them – just because my Book Riot buddies recommended them. So basically: when I like a book about aliens, you know it’s a really good book about aliens. And I loved this book about aliens.

I mentioned Sleeping Giants once before: on my Best Books of 2015 list. I’m mentioning it again now because its about to be published, and you can all read it too! Which you should, because it’s amazing.

Sleeping Giants is one of those books where you don’t really know what’s happening for the first few chapters…or half of the book…but it’s so well written that you’re willing to wait and trust the author to make everything clear. The unfolding of the mystery is a lot of the enjoyment. You piece together the puzzle pieces of the strange events of the story as if you had happened across a box of strange old files and are reading through them, gradually developing an understanding of what went on.

I don’t want to spoil anything about this book, so here are a few hints:

• Giant mysterious sculpture.
• Crack team of scientists and military experts
• Top secret missions
• Life on other planets?
• Love
• Betrayal
• Knees that bend backwards

That’s all I’m giving you. Go read this. It’s amazing.

My thanks to Del Ray for providing me with a copy of Sleeping Giants for review consideration.

Sylvain Neuvel also sent me a thank-you note and a small gift (a tiny, handmade model of the mysterious statue in her book!!) after I included Sleeping Giants on my best books of 2015 list, and that delighted me but did not influence my opinion of his novel or my decision to review it. 

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