The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To by DC Pierson

Ever wish you could stay up endlessly, that you never needed to sleep, that you could spend your sleeping hours reading, cooking, learning, walking, anything you wanted to be doing? To be honest, I haven’t wished that, but Darren, the narrator of DC Pierson’s first novel, meets Eric, a similarly unremarkable high school sophomore (if only weirder than Darren), who The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To.

Darren draws, but is not one of those artists who spend all the spare time at the end of classes drawing, as that would draw attention to him and Darren doesn’t want to be noticed. He is surprised one day when Eric approaches him at the end of a class and asks what Darren was drawing during class. From that first conversation begins a friendship that is pretty much the first solid friendship for either guy. They enjoy spending time together and create an elaborate space drama called TimeBlaze, Darren drawing all of the characters, Eric creating personalities and dossiers, and both working on the Epic. One afternoon Eric decides to share his secret with Darren: Eric never sleeps, has never slept. “Prove it” is Darren’s response and the two spend a few days awake together until Darren falls asleep (and Eric smartly videotapes himself to continue proving it).

It becomes “Eric’s thing” that they talk about periodically, that Darren wonders what Eric can do with it and their friendship continues on until Christine comes on the scene. (It’s always a girl, isn’t it?) Eric’s secret gets out and soon the two are being chased by cops and a pharmaceutical company. There’s one more incredible aspect to Eric’s thing that adds surprise to the story.

It’s an entertaining, fast-paced read, and Eric and Darren (well, Darren) speak like teenagers (with lots of swearing as well as lots of “dude”), and there’s just enough suspense and mystery to keep this book from being only a coming-of-age story.