Wake (Dream Catcher 1) by Lisa McMann

NOT ALL DREAMS ARE SWEET.

For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people’s dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie’s seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime.

She can’t tell anybody about what she does — they’d never believe her, or worse, they’d think she’s a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn’t want and can’t control.

Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else’s twisted psyche. She is a participant…. (Goodreads)

Janie was 8 years old when she discovered that when she is close to someone who is asleep, she gets sucked into the dreams. She slowly starts to learn more about how to control it and then she meets Cabel who can speak to her in his dreams and remember it. Janie has never told anyone what she can do, nor even her mother, but is forced to told Cabel after he sees Janie getting paralyzed while getting into a dream. She gets to know Cabel better and learns that he is hiding something.

I hadn’t read many reviews about this before reading it and had vague idea about what’s it about. And what a mistake that was.

I had problems with the writing style which was choppy and there was lots of short sentences one after another and there’s date and time told when everything happens.

She sees it, vividly.
Cabel, leaving the house. Slamming the door.
The man on the steps, yelling. Following.
The punch to Cabel’s face.
The lighter fluid to his belly.
The fire and screaming.
The transformation.
pg. 168

It grew old very quickly and plainly started to annoy me pretty soon. It also made it sound like children’s book more than ya book. Actually my friend saw me reading it and seeing how the pages looked said that it looks like children’s book.

I absolutely loved that after reading few books from library about dreaming of course solves all the problems and she learns all about her gift and all. Why is it never that easy in real life? And the twist near the end is the most ridiculous and so not needed in long time I’ve read.

I believe this is the first in a trilogy but I’m not planning to read the rest. This was more than enough for me.

2/5
Published: Simon Pulse (2008)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 210
Source: my own