Michelle

Okay, maybe almost 4 stars? I laughed out loud at several points. My only issue, really, is that as much as I knew the book was meant to be humorous, I wish there'd been a more serious tone a smidge more often. I really wanted to know her thoughts and feelings. But I bought her next book, so that tells you I got something out of it. ‘

I'm also socially awkward and prone to panic attacks, and so I know the pain of saying something that everyone in earshot finds odd. Also, she would save her daughter from a dog attack, and I – there's a story – know for a fact I would save my DOG from a dog attack.

So, yeah.

Thoughts later.

I really expected to love this book. I loved the concept.

I believe a group of marginalized women could get together, and in admitting their sexual beings with desires and fantasies, start a journey toward liberation.

The problem is that it wasn't presented as a journey. The women shared the stories without hesitation and then everything was good.

Two women don't care for each other much, and then they do. One of these women has an issue with the nature of the class ... and then she doesn't.

A couple is not close, and then they have a night of better sex, and their marriage is fixed.

I had trouble finding satisfaction in the book, because there always seemed to be a needed step or scene missing in order for any plot line to resonate or for me to feel like the various resolutions were earned.

We're told how dangerous it is for these women to share their stories, but that never comes to fruition. The danger in the book is over something else entirely, only joined with this main plot by a general misogynistic umbrella.

I noticed multiple editorial errors such as missing words.

The biggest issue is that a contradictory information about a necklace worn by a character. She says the necklace belonged to a female friend who died, and was given to her by the friend's mother, and since that day (that her friend died and her friend's mother gave her the necklace) she has worn it every day.

Just a few pages later she says:

I didn???t have an ounce of sympathy for him. At his funeral, I wore Gulshan???s necklace for the first time. People stared but they said nothing. They all knew.???

This is not the author's fault. Things change in between drafts, and it's hard to keep track. That's why there are editors. Still, moments like that took me out of the book.

I hope to read more by this author.

This isn't a bad book. I both failed to really engage with the characters, while still caring about them some, and felt the book was going to lean to heavily on the heroine consistently giving up her dreams. I just don't need that right now. 

I am so in awe and in love with this book. I almost bailed a couple times because animal death is very tough for me, and this book has A LOT of it, but I'm glad I persevered. I think on some level, it's a better book if you do have that soft spot in your heart.

This is one of those books where you root for everyone, even as you know everyone is flawed, and that not everyone can persevere. You even root for the “antagonist.”

I wondered for a long time who was meant, on the non elk side, to be the protagonist, and then it became clear, inevitable, preordained. A test of skills and wills.

Sometimes anger covers pain, grief, and longing, I realized at the end, as I cried. This is some good next level horror!

The narrator was terrific.

Please take the time time to read and prioritize reviews by OwnVoice reviewers, of which I am not one. :)

I won a copy of this through a Goodreads giveaway, and it's also available for free though Amazon's KindleUnlimited.

I love the cover and the premise, but I have to DNF this really early on. The editing is just not there. I don't know if an earlier draft was published, but punctuation and proofreading errors abound. This has the bones of a quick, fun, juicy read, but I am too distracted trying to parse sentences, tripping over extra or missing words in a sentence, misplaced or missing punctuation, general errors, etc.

I am not rating this because I couldn't get beyond these issues to give the story a fair shake, and couldn't get to a place of relaxing and enjoying.

I think the author might have potential, and I would advise readers who are drawn to this book to give it a go through the KindleUnlimited program, or to download a sample. If you're a grammar stickler, you're probably going to be even more distracted than I was, but if that's not a big deal to you then you just might love The September Project.

I hope that this showing up in the Goodreads feed will make readers who might enjoy this aware of its existence.

Wonderful resource. Not technically well-written, but from the heart and so helpful. The first had account adopters need. This has helped me a lot with the newest member of my family – an 8 year old puppy mill Sheltie named ‘Gator. So much of what the author writes about with Lucy is what we're seeing with our new guy.

I honestly don't know what happened. I was pretty meh over the first book, and then I just kept reading them, and now this is my favorite series. :)

(Originally published at Red Adept Reviews.)

Overall: 3 stars

Plot/Storyline: 3 stars

The story description above is pretty much the story. Very simple. Dreaming, Not Sleeping was about a woman who cannot wait to go to bed because of a night visitor. A demon? An incubus? While the story deals with sexual longing, I think it's also the story about losing someone you love and being powerless to stop it, as well as falling out of love with one person and in love or lust with someone, er, something else. There is clearly a horror element here, a Hell Raiser vibe.

This is definitely a short story, but even taking that into account, the story seems ... insubstantial. I believe the story was meant to succeed by calling up dream logic, a dream landscape, but because there was nothing else – no contrast or context - something vital seemed missing to anchor it all.

Characters: 2 1/2 stars

There's not a lot of characters. The only two characters, if you don't count the night visitor, are the husband and wife, and then story shifts between the two points of view. We get no hint of their daily lives as the story only concerns her desire to go to sleep and his increasing sense of loss and powerlessness.

The husband seems completely paralyzed. He sees his wife pulling away from him, and he sees something icky in the room, and yet his response is to ask his wife what happened and accept her saying that she doesn't recall. Other than that, he seems to stand by - sleep by? - and presumably hope it all sorts out.

I can't say I bought that. I'm not sure I know anyone, even the most passive person, who would really not say or do more than this character under the circumstances. I don't quibble with the husband feeling in over his head, or where the story ended up, but I don't believe the nearly complete inertia. I do suppose that inertia in a story about sleep has a certain poetry though.

Writing Style: 3 3/4 stars

The language in the story was nicely done. There's something about dreamscapes that brings out the baroque in writers and I love reading stories that capture that feeling. Dreaming, Not Sleeping because of the use of language felt sensual when needed and horrifying when needed. I believe horror is definitely a good match for the author's skills, I just wish that the depth of the story had matched her talent with words and her ability to set a mood.