Saturday, February 23, 2013

Review: Wake by Lisa McMann

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.

Random (yet very true) quote:
Janie's only had a few close calls in school before high school. But the older she gets, the more often her classmates fall asleep in school. And the more the kids sleep, the more of a mess it makes for Janie. She has to get away, wake them up, or risk the consequences. (Page 36)

Title: Wake
Series: Dream Catcher #1
Published March 4th 2008 by Simon Pulse
ISBN: 1416953574 (ISBN13: 9781416953579)
Barnes & Noble|Amazon

I, personally, love this book, it’s my second time reading it (still as amazing as the first, yet I haven’t read the second) but I also realize it's not for everyone. What the little blurb up there fails to mention is that this book is darker that you might originally expect. Janie's life isn't easy. She has no idea who her father is, her mother is an alcoholically and is rarely there for her (if at all). They are extremely poor and the support checks they get can only cover the rent and her mother's drinking problems, Janie pays for the rest it with the job she has while also saving up for her desperate dream to go to college.

The book itself is written in a really simplistic way (some people will disagree and say it’s choppy), but I also like how it’s also set up like a diary with the dates and times. When she dreams, or gets sucked into another person’s dream, the font is changed, which I thought was not only helpful, but also a good idea. It was paced really well, and I didn't want to put the book down (nor did I, it only took me a few hours to read, sadly).

All of the characters are complex. I already explained Janie’s troubled life, other than that I love how hardworking she is, and how she wants to truly help people in their dreams. Even though her mother basically abandons her Janie says she wants to stay close to home so she can keep an eye on her.
Janie finds help with her curse in places you wouldn’t imagine to look; library books and a blind women she attends to at the nursing home she works at.
Carrie moved next close to Janie and automatically she becomes exactly what Janie really needs-a best friend. Her parents fight a lot, and she feels guilty because of what happened to Carson (her little brother).
Cabel father wasn’t great to him and he’s left Cabel with scars that will never go away. At first you see him going through his Goth phase, and can appear to be just a loner to everyone else, when he’s much deeper than that. He’ll go to great lengths for the girl he loves, he risks everything for her. His and Janie’s lives become intertwined to the point that maybe, she’ll eventually have to reveal her secret to him.
My favorite part must be the end in Cabel's point of view.

On to the second book!
Book Nerd and Proud,
K.G.

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