210 pages
Seventeen-year-old Janie has never known her dad and her mom is an alcoholic, so she has to rely on herself to get by and work hard to save money for college. But those are the least of her worries; since she was eight, she has been repeatedly sucked into other people's dreams, literally. If she's in close proximity to someone (with no doors or walls in between) as he or she sleeps, she unwillingly goes numb, blacks out, and becomes part of their dream. It's always been a pain, but now it's making her life miserable. She's always kept her distance from others in order to stay out of their dreams and prevent them from learning her secret, but now there's a new guy in her life and he's starting to catch on. On top of that, he's been acting pretty strange himself. Janie has to figure out whether or not she can trust him.
This is a really quick read, and it grabbed my attention right away. I like the fast pace of the plot, but the writing itself is too choppy for my taste. Also, I think it's unrealistic in a lot of ways--yes, I know, this a story about someone entering other people's dreams, so I shouldn't nitpick over the details. In my defense: I have no problem accepting a big fantasy scenario because that makes books interesting, but I want the events to play out in a way that makes sense. One of the things that bothered me the most was that almost all of the dreams involve sex or something that happened in the past. In real life, I hardly ever have a dream that makes sense. The story would ring true to me if Janie had to do some dream interpretation to learn anything. Plus, Janie is getting pulled into dreams all day long--do kids really sleep that much at school? I don't think so. Despite the annoyances, I did enjoy this book and plan to read the sequels.
I share your rants! All her dreams made too much sense and I would have liked soem dream interpretations too. And the whole twist with Cabel? Still annoys me! But like you, it grabbed me and I had to read the sequels.
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