RaveElectric LiteratureRussell excels at creating solitary, profoundly-damaged female narrators who are singularly-focused ... Readers who delight in the more peculiar and surreal will enjoy the sequence that takes place in one of the \'Night Worlds,\' a camp on the outskirts of town. The place has a seedy, underbelly vibe; it’s where orexins gather to indulge in black market remedies. Trish visits and shells out for a drink, even though she’s not afflicted, and is offered a plot of dirt to fall asleep on. At a price, of course. The reader is suddenly jerked out of the fantastical surroundings we’ve been immersed in and faced with Trish’s straightforward opinion ... That’s precisely what makes Russell’s brand of magical realism so effective ... the tone and language in Sleep Donation is so deliberate and well-crafted that it provides a framework for any and all things outlandish. The reader is guided along by prose so intimately conversational and frank that we feel for Trish, taking her opinions to heart; and find even the most otherworldly parts of the storyline entirely plausible. In Sleep Donation, Russell once again proves herself to be a master storyteller: she is the type of author who can effortlessly convince readers to suspend our disbelief and invest in a character in a way that many of us haven’t done since we were children listening to a bedtime story.
