The premise of this story is that we get informed, in a series of case files, the events that led to the United States finding a giant alien robot which had been buried underneath the earth thousands upon thousands of years ago. They put the robot together and thus begins political pandemonium as you can imagine seeing as humans see anything as a weapon. I had previously read dossier-style books before - they seem to be the 'letter writing' style of the late 1800s (The Time Machine, Dracula, etc) as many authors today choose to do their books as such however despite some succeeding (Illuminae is a great example), Sleeping Giants missed the mark by a mile. This book is a quick read as it feels like you're reading a movie script, if you've ever read a script or a play you understand the general gist. We are presented with a series of interviews done by an unnamed man who seems to be the puppet master of the rest of the group. 
 The main issue that I had with this book was the utter lack of the human element. The point of a book is usually a connection between the reader and the writer; the writer attempts to make the reader feel something and the reader accepts this and internalizes it. However this book was so disconnected, the format made it even worse given that the characters were so stereotypical and lacking in dimension. The bad people were all bad, the clever people were always clever and you do not get to understand the why behind the decisions. There needs to be a balance between characters and plot and here the scale tipped drastically. 
 So we follow 2 pilots of the giant statue/weapon and these characters were absolutely painful to read. The plot of this book is ridiculous, which is fine, this is sci-fi, plots are meant to be ridiculous but it was all plot, plot, plot, the entire time and the human element was not woven throughout the novel which left the reader alienated. I cannot tell you how incredibly let down I felt, the disappointment was palpable because the premise held such promise and I was so excited to read this. I believe this is a debut novel so I can see how Mr. Neuvel will grow, he knows how to do plots, he just needs to learn to bring the reader to his characters. I also think this format does him no favors; this is truly better suited for a big blockbuster script than a piece of literature.