Wake by Lisa McMann

Target Audience: Teens/Young Adults
Genre: Fantasy

I'm not entirely sure how to start this review as this left me somewhat torn. I find my reviews on waterstones easier to write because i don't go into as much detail. Mainly because im trying to get as much info over as succinctly as possible for people trying to make a decision on whether to read a book or not. On here i can go into more depth and i'm aware that a lot of people loved this novel so i feel the need to justify the loss of 2 stars.

I am going to start with the positives first though, of which there were quite a few. Firstly, the actual concept was fascinating. As an ex psychology student who studied this sort of thing, dreams are somewhat of a fascination of mine and i've always been intrigued as to what they mean, can we change them? and why do we dream anyway?
There's so much debate around that area i found this book brilliantly inventive in the way it looked at them. In some cases it would appear dreams are memories long buried, and in other hopes and fears, some of which are clearly not meant to be viewed by a third party.

This book isn't meant to give any definitite answers, more to make you wonder and think about the possibilities of dreams, which is one of the aspects i liked about it. With regards to that, i was also fascinated by how much damage the content of people's dreams can do.

Reading about Janie dealing with people's subconcious really made me feel for her situation. As someone who's had their share of nightmares, i wouldn't wish her ability on anyone.

However, i did like the idea that she was able to learn to control dreams and help people who were suffering. The ultimate impression i got, in my opinion, was that we are in control of our dreams. We can help ourselves and we do have the strength to overcome terrifying things. And that to me was a very powerful idea.

Now to get to the reason why this lost two stars, and there are a few reasons:

1. The writing style and POV just really wasn't my cup of tea. It's not something i'm familar with and i felt it translated badly. This seems like such a personal novel that i think first person POV would have suited it better, but then i'm not the author and there's probably a very good reason for it.

2. The way the book itself was set out was also another thing i found a bit odd. Theres a lot of jumping about near the beginning of the book and i found it a bit confusing. And some events seem to pass by so quickly i didn't realise they happened so i had to jump back a bit.

Something in relation to this that annoyed was the dates, i didn't honestly get what they had to do with anything at all. There probably was a reason but i found them hard to keep track of, or maybe it was just to give some sort of timeline? I'm not sure.

3. The characters are my next point. Don't get me wrong, i loved them all, but i felt as a reader i didn't learn enough about them to get properly involved with how they were feeling fully. Although i have to admit i found Cabel and Janies relationship wonderfully different as they both attempt to overcome there dream/nightmare issues.

Okay, so overall i found this to be an interestingly different read, with some wonderfully original events and a different kind of story, but i felt that the writing could have been better. I will read Fade though when i get the chance, because i am intrigued as to what happens next.