Sleeping Giants

Sleeping Giants (Themis Files #1) by Sylvain Neuvel

my rating: ★★★★☆

genre: adult, science-fiction

goodreads rating: 3.83

**SPOILERS**

Sleeping Giants is the first book in a series and it certainly feels that way. As I read this book I certainly got the impression that while it had it’s own plot, it certainly had more story to it.

Also, I should probably mention that this isn’t a young adult book. it has some stronger themes. A teen could certainly read it , but the characters are all adults and so they are generally more mature and tend not to shy away from talk of sex or violence.

PLOT 

This is a strange story, told through a series of interviews and files. Sleeping Giants starts with a young girl on her birthday who sneaks off with her new bike  . She then cycles off into the woods and falls into a massive metal hand.  Seventeen years later, the girl and a team of scientists and soldiers are all working together to see if there is anything more to the hand.

That’s a really lacking summary but it’s hard to go any further into the story without spoiling the plot, it’s best to go into the story without knowing too much.

MY THOUGHTS 

What I really liked about this novel, aside from the awesome plot is the way it’s told. The story is told in a series of case fils and interviews. What makes these so interesting though, is that the interviewer is an anonymous characters – we have no idea who they are. From the audiobook, because it has a full cast, we can suppose that the character is male because the narrator for the character is male, but really who knows. It’s a really intriguing premise, not knowing who a character takes the whole story to a whole nother level.

We soon find out that the team, lead by ROse Franklin (the little girl who fell into the hand) are actually using the metal hand and the intricate symbols carved into it, to try and find other body parts that might be buried in other parts of the world. The Government soon becomes involved, and because the parts are buried all over the world the robot soon becomes an interest to countries all over the world, and really gets you hooked in. Will this robot cause WWIII? How many people are going to die for this robot to form?

My only issue that I really had with the book was that I felt it difficult to connect with the characters. I had this same problem with Illuminae, which is told in the same format. I think that because o the way it’s told I just don’t have enough access to the emotions or thought process of the characters which really makes it difficult to understand their motivations or feelings.

SCHEDULED ON 04/04/2017

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