The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To

The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To by D.C. Pierson was an oddly entertaining read, although it was not usually the kind of book I tend to read. I think the best part of the book was how well developed the characters were. Pierson wrote about each as if he had known them personally. I think what bugged me about the book was that if the characters existed, they would be the type of people to bug me. That being said, the two main characters (Darren and Eric) did grow on me as the book progressed. In the novel, Eric confesses his inability to sleep to Darren. To release whatever it is that people do when they dream, Eric has “bad days” where he cannot differentiate reality from hallucination. During these days, parts of his hallucinations become reality—an idea difficult to grasp at first, but an interesting concept that Pierson explains well. I found it interesting that Eric may have, in fact, created his enemy in reality (a figure called “the man”). I think this is true on several levels. Pierson took the idea of creating one’s own problem to the most literal sense by personifying the issue. This is what intrigued me most about the book, although I wish it had been a theme throughout more of the book, rather than just the end.