The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker

I absolutely could not put this book down. “The Dreamers” is a triumph in imagination and the art of storytelling. Karen Thompson Walker slowly unfolds her disturbing plot in an entirely creepy yet thrillingly delicate way. A strange sleeping sickness begins to spread through a small southern California town—those affected do not wake up. With a running wildfire as metaphor, the sickness begins small, an ember, but with flying sparks and lack of attention it becomes an epidemic. As scientists, the government and the town’s inhabitants try to cure the mysterious contagion, the balance of community comes into question: what does it mean to share this world with others? Are we ever truly alone? With a combination of perspectives and a blending of imagination and reality, I found my experience reading this book to be absorbing, disorienting and all too fleeting, much like a dream.”