Forget JF's jolly Nursery Crimes and Thursday Next books.  This one is much darker.  Set in a somewhat parallel world where the UK freezes over for the entirety of winter, requiring the inhabitants to hibernate in special dormatoriums.  A drug can be had to stop the user dreaming, and thus reduce energy expenditure, but it has sinister side effects.  Into this world, a young man with no family takes a job that will keep him awake all winter, can he survive not only the winter but the people who live in it?

Another great story by this author!! A huge fan of how his mind works and the stories that come out, especially the ridiculous worlds that have clever parallels with our world. It's also doubly impressive that this is a standalone, a whole world and plot done in 400 pages. 

I love when you can tell an author definitely has a hundred pages of world building lore on a drive somewhere.

A lot of the fun I had with this book was in not really knowing what I was getting into, so I suggest keeping your mind open and just diving in.

Early Riser might be best read/listened to in large chunks (one sitting if feasible) because there are a lot of little plot details and characters and subtleties to the setting. But if you read like I did, over a few days, you'll still enjoy it and know what's happening, just maybe without all the finer points. 

There were some moments where I just had to accept that the outcome of a situation was occurring to move the plot where the author wanted it to go rather than letting something more natural happen, but that wasn't too often.

I spent 75% of the book thinking of Charlie Worthing as a particular gender, and then I reread the back cover and wondered if I was projecting. Something else fun to ponder as you read. And if you like medium-dark humor and quirky, character-driven sci fi, speculative fiction, or magical realism, you should read this one.