Book Review: Wake

Wake (Dream Catcher #1)

By: Lisa McMann

Published By: Simon Pulse

Publication Date: March 2008

Page Count: 210

Buy it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or IndieBound

Source: Purchased by Reviewer

Audience: Young Adult - Fantasy

I loved the style of Wake - it was bitesize and that made it easy to devour in one sitting. The style is quite different from anything I have ever read before; it reminds me almost of a newspaper report because it is written in the third person, but in the present tense. For whatever reason, that really works for me. I find that because the level of detail is kept to a really light level, there was a lot of room for me to imagine things in this story. In fact, I felt upon finishing that I had never before had such a strong sense of place in a book - usually I read descriptions and sort of cobble together an idea of what I should be thinking of, but I sometimes get too lost in the detail. 

In the story we follow Janie, who has an unfortunate ability to get sucked in to other people's dreams. She meets Cabel, a mysterious boy who pushes her home from a dance on his skateboard when she is forced to walk home barefoot by some pinching shoes. I fell in love with him right then, although it took Janie a while longer. Their relationship is developed in an intelligent and interesting way, and I love these characters. They don't need anyone to look after them; but they come to need each other. This book makes my heart pound. I love how you get to see how Cabel feels about Janie as she does through his dreams, and the waking interplay between them is just delicious. Cabel is a boy of few words, but long, intense looks and he is one of my all-time favorite leading men. I know Tevya also agrees, and you can read her Book Boyfriend post here: http://readinglark.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-book-boyfriend-8.html

My one word of warning about this book is that it contains a number of instances of strong cursing.

Summary:

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.