Never to Sleep (Soul Screamers, #5.5)

by Rachel Vincent

Don't Close Your Eyes.

Sophie Cavanaugh is not going to let her freak of a cousin's strange psychiatric condition ruin high school for them both. Not after all the work she's put into cultivating the right look, and friends, and reputation.

But then, Sophie sees something so frightening she lets out a blood-curdling scream-and finds herself stuck in a bizarre parallel world where nothing is safe and deadly creatures lurk just out of sight, waiting for her to close her eyes and sleep...forever. Could this world be real? Or does insanity run in the family...?

A Soul Screamers Ebook Novella

• ISBN10: 1426834144
• ISBN13: 9781426834141
• Publish Date: 1 January 2012
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Harlequin Teen
• Format: eBook
• Language: English

Reviews

[Berls]

My Initial Reaction...

I wish I'd known about Never to Sleep back when I first read the Soul Screamers Series. It was a really enjoyable quick read and gave a lot of background on Sophie, a character I always wished I'd known better.

Note: There are spoilers for book 1 in the series in this review.

The Good...

Getting into the head of Sophie, Kaylee's cousin, was great! She's not anyone's favorite character I imagine, because she's fairly shallow and really mean to Kaylee. But I know that by this point in the series, I also felt kind of bad for her. Her mother died extremely suspiciously and all kinds of crazy things are constantly happening around her and to her - but no one has deigned to explain to her why. She may not be a banshee, but she deserves to know what's going on IMHO!

Well, just like Kaylee - no one's going to tell Sophie until she gets herself into heaps of trouble and finds a cute boy to spill the beans. In this case it's necromancer Luca - who you'll get to know better in book 6. I found that Never to Sleep explained so much about their relationship and some of the changes you'll see in Sophie in upcoming books - I really think it's a must read for fans of the series. I loved seeing Sophie confront this world she's been teetering on discovering for so long, and to face it with the same kind of strength that I've come to admire in Kaylee. And she had a great sense of humor that made reading Never to Sleep lots of fun.

The Bad...

Well, the only thing I have a problem with in Never to Sleep, I had a problem with in the series in general. Sophie is not a Banshee. Her scream is not a Banshee's scream. This has been firmly established. She's not the first daughter of a Banshee and human ever - so why is she the first one we've ever heard of that can scream and end up in the Netherworld? It just doesn't work for me at all, even if I do like the changes it brings about in Sophie and the story. It just doesn't jive with the mythology already established in the series.

Concluding Sentiments...

I really enjoyed Never to Sleep and definitely recommend you read it if you're reading the Soul Screamers Series - or if you're a fan that missed it like I did the first time around!

[littleread1]

Getting inside Sophie’s head made me a little more sympathetic toward her. As hateful as she is, she really has had it rough, and who among us wasn’t selfish in out early teens? I for one couldn’t see past the end of my nose, so I can relate.

This short gives some hints that maybe there is more to her than meets the eye. She is a very strong, brave, and possibly not all human, girl. I am actually looking forward to seeing where she goes from here and her growth. And Luca? What. The. Heck. I have a feeling he is going to play a bigger role in the coming books.

[Angie]

In this novella we get into the head of Kaylee's awful, yet entertaining, cousin, Sophie. Sophie is going about life as usual, until she runs into Luca. Well, Luca hits her with a door! Anyway, from that moment on, Sophie's life will flipped upside down. Luca believes she's something more than human, but what? To readers of the series it's fairly obvious by the way Sophia is able to "accidentally" cross both of them over to the Netherworld.

I absolutely loved seeing more of the Netherworld, especially from new eyes. It's amazing and terrible, but I cannot get enough! Now that Sophie knows that the world is not as it seems, and she's something special, maybe she can give her cousin a break? Or maybe not! I'm definitely intrigued by Luca! He's another new student that isn't quite human. He's a necromancer, but not in the way that most people think. What that means, I have no clue, but I'm excited to find out!

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

Being such a huge Soul Screamers fan, when I heard Mira Ink were finally going to publish Never to Sleep in the UK, I was ecstatic! I have been waiting to read Never to Sleep ever since Rachel Vincent had first mentioned it on her blog, and now I finally have it! And just as I expected, it was amazing!

Never to Sleep is a novella set during the events of If I Die - but completely separate to everything that happens in that book - well, except for Kaylee and Tod's public display of affection, which we see from the outside this time. Never to Sleep follows Sophie, Kaylee's spoilt, self-centered, entitled younger cousin, as a chance meeting with a new student and the sudden appearance of a soulless reaper bring about Sophie's first visit the Netherworld, and opens her eyes to all things evil.

Sophie may be a right cow and too shallow for words, but in this story, I could only admire her. With hardly any information about what's happened, why it happened, and how, Sophie manages to keep her head despite being completely terriefied and the thousands of questions running through her head. Because of how shallow and bitchy Sophie is in all the previous books, it is to assume that Sophie is all surface and no depth, that she's actually stupid - but she's not. She might despair over being related to Kaylee, but the fact that they are is clear throughout the story through how alike they are when in trouble. She actually has a head on her shoulders, and is capable of thinking clearly and logically even under huge stress. Her ability to think on her feet and able to get herself out of the tightest of scrapes is just brilliant! Sophie is not a dumb bimbo; despite her moments of annoying self-centered behaviour, Sophie is someone to be in awe of.

Being a short story, it's a little hard for me to say much more without spoiling things. It's awesome to be introduced to new characters and to revisit old ones. It's even better to have questions that need answers, that will hopefully be answered in the next book, along with all the left over questions from If I Die.

It's a fantastic story, and I'm excited to see where it all leads in Before I Wake. All Soul Screamers fans should read it!

[Kelsenator]

Originally posted on my blog Kelsey's Cluttered Bookshelf

This is the short story set during the time of the fifth book, If I Die. If you haven’t read that yet, I’ll try to keep it spoiler free, but I suggest you do first.

The main character of this story is Sophie, Kaylee’s cousin. I was interested to see how much I’d like reading through her perspective, but I enjoyed it. She can be a bit much and demanding at times, but in the end that determination might be what saves her. She doesn’t think she’s anything like Kaylee, but maybe her strong will is closer than she thinks. She still has room to grow, but this was a great start for a short story, and I’m so excited to read the next book in the series!

Since it isn’t too long, I won’t go into the story, as it goes by pretty fast, but if you’re a fan of this series go find a copy at the library or for your eReader and get involved in even more Soul Screamer’s goodness!

[Linda]

Short, to the point, quite funny... but still from Sophie's POV...

In this novella, Sophie meets Luca, the necromancer, and a soulless reaper who makes her screem so hard she and Luca end up in the Netherworld. Most of the story is about how to get back to the real world, and it actually had loads of hilarious quotes :

"I don't even like regular plants. Except for corsages and long-stemmed roses." And htose only hurt you when they don't show up...

"You're not... human?" "Well, I am human. But I'm more."

Maybe Kaylee was actually the sanest person I knew.

"Okay, time out. That's all the crazy talk I can take for now. I want to go home. What do I have to do? Click my heels together?" My shoes weren't ruby, nor were they slippers, but for what my dad paid for the designer label, they damn well ought to take me wherever I wanted to go.

"I never joke about carnivorous bunnies."

"Aplologies, Your Highnexx, I meant to mistake you for someone who wants to survive."

In the end, my conscience won, but only because letting Luca die in the Netherworld would be an unacceptable waste of a perfectly good six-pack.

"I always knew popularity was a survival skill i high school, but here, it's really an issue of life and death."

I wanted the courage to face whaterver was coming to kill me, but who was I kidding? I didn't even have the guts to defent Laura - my own best friend - when Peyton started raggin on her, so what good would I be against an actual monster?

People called Kaylee special, but what they really meant was "special." In that straitjackets and padded walls kind of way. She wasn't special like Luca thought I was special. She could never handle what I'd just seen and done. She wasn't stable enough.

All right, then, Sophie - you really make me look forward to seeing how you'll react to just how special Kaylee is - and how you only have a tiny part of that family special-ness in you :D