Wake [ Dream Catcher #1 ] by Lisa McMann

Title: Wake
Series: Dream Catcher
Author: Lisa McMann
Publication Date: March 4th, 2008
Publisher: Simon Pulse
ISBN: 1416953574
Rating: 1 star

Janie is a teenage girl with a tough life. In addition to being poor and having a drunk, emotionally negligent mother, Janie has the burden of experiencing the dreams of others. If someone falls asleep and begins to dream, Janie comes right along for the ride. This becomes a huge problem when she begins to experience someone’s nightmares, which affect her so strongly that she has violent seizures.
 
This book sounded so interesting! Dreams are so fascinating, there are so many directions to go, and with the addition of horrible nightmares? It just seemed like such a great concept. The execution, however, was most disappointing, and I really struggled with finishing this book. It’s a short book, too, and I just wanted to drop it. I have the entire series, so I’m in the midst of debating whether or not I’m enough of a masochist to go ahead and read them, too.





So, why was this book so bad? First off, the dreams themselves were so boring. The dream sequences weren’t fun. They weren’t interesting. They did not let us get to know the characters that were experiencing them. In fact, most of the dreams were such clichés, that I don’t understand why the author chose to make a dream-based book if she had no fresh ideas. Really, the only dreams we see are those overdone showing up in nothing but your underwear dreams and sex dreams. They dragged and were so dull that I wonder if the author wanted to just get the dream scenes over with to get to the romance.

However, the romance wasn’t any better. Janie and her love interest, Cabel, were both as interesting as cardboard. There was no chemistry, but really, that was no feeling of any sort in this book. I didn’t have the slightest concern or care about any of the characters, the plot, anything. Anyway, Janie more than experiences Cabel’s dreams – which are, by the way, the aforementioned nightmares – she participates. But that doesn’t make it any more interesting. Cabel is, apparently, a “bad boy.” Janie learns that he sells drugs, has a bunch of sex, and has a troubled past. Their relationship becomes strained when she finds out that he is involved with a flat, one-dimensional popular character. Like everything else in this book, however, it seemed completely forced.

Not only were the characters and the plot a hot mess, but the writing was just completely not my style. The sentences were insanely choppy, and the skill level seemed like that of an average eighth grade English student.

I might read the rest of the series, but even that thought exhausts me. I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone, and I plan on getting rid of it pretty soon. I’d really like to cast it out of my mind.