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  • Insomnia

  • Written by: Stephen King
  • Narrated by: Eli Wallach
  • Length: 25 hrs and 39 mins
  • 4.1 out of 5 stars (269 ratings)

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Insomnia cover art

Insomnia

Written by: Stephen King
Narrated by: Eli Wallach
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Publisher's Summary

A number-one national best seller

Since his wife died, Ralph Roberts has been having trouble sleeping. Each night he wakes up a bit earlier until he's barely sleeping at all. During his late-night walks, he observes some strange things going on in Derry, Maine. He sees colored ribbons streaming from people's heads, two strange little men wandering around town after dark, and more. He begins to suspect that these visions are something more than hallucinations brought on by lack of sleep.

There's a definite mean streak running through this small New England city; underneath its ordinary surface awesome and terrifying forces are at work. The dying has been going on in Derry for a long, long time. Now Ralph is part of it...and lack of sleep is the least of his worries.

Returning to the same Maine town where It took place, a town that has haunted Stephen King for decades, Insomnia blends King's trademark bone-chilling realism with supernatural terror to create yet another masterpiece of suspense.

©1994 Stephen King (P)1994 Penguin Audio

What the critics say

"A yarn so packed with suspense, romance, literary reference, fascinating miscellaneous knowledge, and heart that only Stephen King could have written it. Marvelous - that is, full of marvels." ( Booklist)

What listeners say about Insomnia

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
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Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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    156
  • 4 Stars
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  • 3 Stars
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  • 2 Stars
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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Not sure about this one

I had a really hard time getting into this one. The musical interludes were way to loud! I disliked them thoroughly! When you listen to audio books with ear buds like I do, the speaking parts would be fine and then the music would blast so loud sometimes... Not enjoyable. There was a nod to the dark tower.... Which I haven't read but maybe I will try yet. I'm really not sure about this one, I found myself not paying attention to it a lot and not really missing anything. I may return this one!

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good story, great narration, awful production

Insomnia is a cool story from King that ties very well into the King multiverse. Wallach does a fantastic job bringing the story to life but the production is very distracting and totally breaks the immersion into the story. Seemingly every 5 - 10 minutes you get loud music and just horrible sounds playing over the Eli's narration which just seems disrespectful to the awesome work he does.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

A weak Stephen King book. Bad audio production

I found this, unlike most of Stephen kings books, almost tiresome and did not keep my attention.
The near ration by Eli Wallach was OK, but the use of music at times was very distracting and took away hugely from the book. The music over powered the near ration. And was particularly irritating.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book!

I very much enjoyed this story and it’s connections to the dark tower. My only issue with it is the music that was played over the reading in some areas made the story hard to listen to.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

meh

the music was absolutely horrendous, completely overriding the readers voice. It was annoying and nerve rattling music. not one of my favorite Stephen King books.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

The sound design is absurd

Decent book but this is the third time I have almost given up because of the ridiculous sound design. Not a big fan of music in audiobooks, but this is insane. The story is good, the narration is great, but nobody needs random overdriven electric guitar in an audiobook.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Sound mixing is terrible.

Story is an interesting premise and it does have an introduction to the Dark Tower series. The musical interludes are too loud, cover up some of the narration, and incredibly grating on ones nerves. I understand that it's done to mimic the feeling of the haze of prolonged sleep deprivation, but it is still a bit overdone. Eli does a great performance, but its marred by instrumentals screaming over the words.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Music is so, so bad

Love everything King so of course tried to love this story. I don't mind the narrator's voice at all but I'm very annoyed by the music inserted throughout unfortunately.
update- Finally finished this book. That was a long and painful experience. The music is so excessive and this book is very dry.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Loud discordant music

I like the story, but the music is painfully loud.
The deliberately discordant music was probably created in order to convey some legitimate artistic quality, but it's just horrible.
Imagine a Grade 8 music class while the teacher is out of the room, with all the students poorly playing different pieces of music that aren't made to go together, all slightly off key, and some making other random sounds that barely count as music. Then imagine dropping a bunch of scared, angry street cats on top of the instruments and students, and the cats are clawing at the drums, the violins, the guitars, a banjo, and the chalkboard at the same time. Now imagine trying to listen to a soft voice telling you a story and all that chaos suddenly happens, and the soft voice keeps going, simultaneously with the noise.
Next time you should get a few people to listen to it before publishing it.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

it was okay

I started off liking it, but I was kinda bored through the middle and the end was very weird. it didn't make me feel anything which I'm disappointed by. I hated the music on the audio book.

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1 person found this helpful