336 pages
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy/Other
Publisher: HarperTeen
Source: The library.
Purchase: Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository | Amazon
My Rating:
Goodreads Summary: Odea Donahue has been able to travel through people’s dreams since she was six years old. Her mother taught her the three rules of walking:
Never interfere.
Never be seen.
Never walk the same person’s dream more than once.
Dea has never questioned her mother, not about the rules, not about the clocks or the mirrors, not about moving from place to place to be one step ahead of the unseen monsters that Dea’s mother is certain are right behind them.
Then a mysterious new boy, Connor, comes to town, and Dea finally starts to feel normal. As Connor breaks down the walls that she’s had up for so long, he gets closer to learning her secret. For the first time she wonders if that’s so bad. But when Dea breaks the rules, the boundary between worlds begins to deteriorate. How can she know what’s real and what’s not?
From talented debut author Robert L. Anderson comes a stunning, complex, and imaginative story of the fine line between our dreams and reality.
My Review
I had a really hard time writing this review for Dreamland. Perhaps I had a hard time writing my review because of my own personal issues (It seems that I am in a slight reviewing slump), or perhaps it was also because my feelings for this book are all over the place. I guess I'm just going to break it down into nice little categories.
The Writing: It seemed a little choppy to me. This is also a personal prefernece.
The Characters: Likeable and also aggravating. Dea is a likeable and enjoyable enough MC, but her mom fits perfectly into the young adult mom trope, where she hides important information from her daughter to keep her safe/because she thinks it is for the best, but really it just makes everything worse/that much harder.
The Setting: The dream world was intense and dark. I loved it and yet I wanted more. (I think the pacing has something to do with my uneasiness of the dream stuff.) I did like the small town setting a lot.
The Story: Hmmm.... I can't really go into it much, but I sometimes felt disjointed from what was going on.
The Pacing: Was on point and also wasn't. Mostly it was good enough to keep me curious, but sometimes waiting for the details of the dream world to unfold was horrible.
The Romance: This was average.
A Standalone?: This book would make a good first book in a duology.
The Bottom Line: I can't really say more without giving away a lot of the interesting little surprises Dreamland has in store for its reader. I can say that I was somewhat disappointed, but I still did enjoy this quick read. The cover still makes me smile.
The Writing: It seemed a little choppy to me. This is also a personal prefernece.
The Characters: Likeable and also aggravating. Dea is a likeable and enjoyable enough MC, but her mom fits perfectly into the young adult mom trope, where she hides important information from her daughter to keep her safe/because she thinks it is for the best, but really it just makes everything worse/that much harder.
The Setting: The dream world was intense and dark. I loved it and yet I wanted more. (I think the pacing has something to do with my uneasiness of the dream stuff.) I did like the small town setting a lot.
The Story: Hmmm.... I can't really go into it much, but I sometimes felt disjointed from what was going on.
The Pacing: Was on point and also wasn't. Mostly it was good enough to keep me curious, but sometimes waiting for the details of the dream world to unfold was horrible.
The Romance: This was average.
A Standalone?: This book would make a good first book in a duology.
The Bottom Line: I can't really say more without giving away a lot of the interesting little surprises Dreamland has in store for its reader. I can say that I was somewhat disappointed, but I still did enjoy this quick read. The cover still makes me smile.
Sorry this one was a bit disappointing! Looking forward to your review of Illumanae! :)
ReplyDeleteIllumanae is one interesting book! I am almost finished.
DeleteI am curious about this one, but not 100% sold on it yet. If I see it around then I would probably give it a try though, as it does sound quite interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt is a very interesting book, but it just didn't live up to my expectations for it.
DeleteYES. I feel almost exactly the same. I was really frustrated with the ending because DIDN'T IT seem like it was supposed to be a book one?? I'm guessing it could have been a thing where there was more than one book planned and maybe didn't get picked up? But I was super bummed about that because this whole other THING emerged and then was never developed.
ReplyDeleteI had some serious issues with the world building but I think since I listened to the audio, I was mostly okay with the characters (there was a good narrator) and the pacing.
It did seem like a book one! It is super weird it isn't. We pretty much did have the same feels on this one! I was just a little disappointed how the whole thing worked out. :/
DeleteI have this one and I was very much looking forward to it because of the dream based factor of the novel. I love it when it is about dreams. But it seems like there were a few issues with style here, and it led to it being choppy in places... which is a bit of a shame :/
ReplyDeleteI love dream books as well and although I did enjoy this book, I felt like it could have been better. I still hope you give it a chance if you are in the mood!
DeleteHmm so I have this one and I am very interested in the setting but I would be surprised if I liked it more than you did so while I still might read it i'm not going to rush to pick it up...
ReplyDeleteI would be interested to see what you think, but you are right, I wouldn't go rush off to read it right now. So many other amazing fall releases to read!
Delete