#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman

This week has been all about the Best of 2024 lists over on the general blog, so I thought it would be fun to giveaway a book that is already one of the best of 2025. It is book I already gave a star in Booklist and I have an ARC, courtesy of the publisher, for one of you. Details below but first, here are the rules on how to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American Library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.

Click here for the previous giveaway. Our winner was Becky (but not me!). Now on to this week's giveaway.

Okay I need you all to get ready for this one. I'm serious. This book is terrifyingly realistic, it is by a trusted #HorrorForLibraries authors, and it is coming out in just over 4 weeks. It is Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman. Here is my draft review and three words from the general blog:

With his most ambitious novel yet, Chapman (What Kind of Mother), leans on established possession and zombie tropes and spins them into an original tale that hijacks readers’ nervous systems. It’s a few days before Christmas and Noah cannot reach his conservative parents in Virginia. Worried, he reluctantly leaves his family behind in Brooklyn to race south arriving at a disaster scene. His parents are clearly not well, and Fax* News is blaring in every room. But this opening is a brilliant red-herring, lulling readers into thinking they know what is coming. They do not. Told in three “phases” each with a distinct writing style, from Noah’s perspective to flashbacks of from his brother's family to a race through an apocalyptic landscape as Noah desperately heads home, incorporating social media, video transcripts, and news reports throughout, Chapman, chronicles The Great Reawakening– a virus that has patiently threaded its way through screens to infect half of America. A compelling, cinematic, visceral, and disturbing tale, driven by fully realized, sympathetic characters, this is a memorable novel that implicates all, regardless of where they stand on “the issues. A terrifying update to King’s classic Cell, for fans of discomforting, social commentary Horror like Wendig’s Wanderers duology, Felker-Martin’s Manhunt and Leede’s American Rapture. 

*Fax is not a typo 

Three Words That Describe This Book: visceral, nuanced, discomfitingly realistic

I need you all to click through to see my further appeal comments in the blog post from when the review first published. Seriously, this book is viscerally and existentially terrifying, it uses all five sense to involve fear, and it has a whopper of an ending. 

Just trust me and click through. And I hope everyone has this one on order already. Everyone will be talking about this one in January. EVERY ONE. I can see it being picked up by cable news as we enter the inauguration season. 

Thank you to Quirk Books for the ARC. This one hasn't even been cracked because I read a PDF for review very early.

Enter now and you are entered going forward into 2025. Which reminds me, this is the last giveaway of the year. I do not want to tax the postal service with unnecessary packages after this week.

Good Luck.