Young Adult Fiction
HarperCollins
April 12, 2016
DARC
336
Edeweiss
Vibrantly offbeat and utterly original, Lucy Keating’s debut novel combines the unconventional romance of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with the sweetness and heart of Jenny Han. For as long as Alice can remember, she has dreamed of Max. Together, they have traveled the world and fallen deliriously, hopelessly in love. Max is the boy of her dreams—and only her dreams. Because he doesn’t exist. But when Alice walks into class on her first day at a new school, there he is. Real Max is nothing like Dream Max. He’s stubborn and complicated. And he has a whole life Alice isn’t a part of. Getting to know each other in reality isn’t as perfect as Alice always hoped. Alarmingly, when their dreams start to bleed into their waking hours, the pair realize that they might have to put an end to a lifetime of dreaming about each other. But when you fall in love in your dreams, can reality ever be enough?
I am so pleased that I was given the chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review because it was an amazingly well written and captivating book. It told the story of young girl named Alice who dreams about a boy named Max every night and has done as long as long as she can remember, and how she discovers how they know each other after she moves to her moms home town where she finds out he’s a real person.
The concept of there being a dream boy/girl for everyone and that a persons dreams can come true was a fantastic one, and that the author wrote about it very well. All the dream sequences in the book were written with such vivid description that as a reader I felt that I was experiencing them personally.
I gave this a book a five star rating because I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and thought although with the way it was written it was very clearly aimed at the young adult age group it was also a book that would appeal to people who are no longer young adults as well. It also received this rating because after reading the book I will without question be on the look out for any more books by this author as I enjoy her writing so much, as well as happy recommend this book to / buy it as a gift for anyone who I know who enjoys good contemporary romance book with a little magical realism thrown in for good measure.
All the characters were well developed and multi layered which made them really believable and easy to connect with on different levels and for different reasons. Alice and Max were great main characters their in dream relationship was really amazing and how their real one developed once they met was great.
This book is listed on good reads as being a contemporary romance fantasy with hints of magical The magical realism elements of this book come into play when the main characters dreams start to bleed into their real life which means they start to become unable to differentiate between what is real and what isn’t.
It was lovely seeing the inter-relationships between the main characters and the other characters especially the one between Max and his girlfriend & Alice and Max’s girlfriend. I particularly found the one between Alice and Max’s girlfriend very interesting because she went from being someone who was Alice’s friend to someone who was really angry with Alice because she felt she was trying to steel her boyfriend from her as she didn’t full understand the nature of their relationship, back to being her friend again but totally on her side with the situation she was in with regard her & max’s relationship.
I loved the fact that the story was based around the characters receiving dream therapy to deal with their dreams after they’d experienced loss in one form or another and what happened to them while they were receiving this treatment. It was great how sensitively the author wrote about the subjects of loss, abandonment, respect loyalty and love.