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pineapplesandmilk's review
3.0
*I received a free copy of this book from netgalley*
"Seven children. Seven special powers. One enemy.
Addy is a typical California surfer girl until her mother dies and she is sent to a strange boarding school in Wales, where one hallway leads not to another part of the school but to another universe. Addy has always had vivid dreams. Now it seems this power to dream has made her the enemy of the powerful ruler of Gallia.
How can Addy and her new friends be any match for the powerful Grymur who calls himself The One in a world where nothing makes sense.
If you loved Harry Potter, this is for you.
By New York Times bestselling author and her daughter."
This book was very fast paced from the beginning and it continued that way throughout the entire book. This was a good thing to begin with, however it felt like it was leaving a lot of information out throughout the book. It was, however, a wonderful story, I especially enjoyed all the information pertaining to the School's location in Wales. I would recommend this book for its intended audience, which is children. I believe it would be a wonderfully enjoyable story for a child to read and it would also be very easy for them to comprehend. I give this book a 3/5 stars, but if i put myself into the perspective of a child, it would mostly likely be 5/5.
"Seven children. Seven special powers. One enemy.
Addy is a typical California surfer girl until her mother dies and she is sent to a strange boarding school in Wales, where one hallway leads not to another part of the school but to another universe. Addy has always had vivid dreams. Now it seems this power to dream has made her the enemy of the powerful ruler of Gallia.
How can Addy and her new friends be any match for the powerful Grymur who calls himself The One in a world where nothing makes sense.
If you loved Harry Potter, this is for you.
By New York Times bestselling author and her daughter."
This book was very fast paced from the beginning and it continued that way throughout the entire book. This was a good thing to begin with, however it felt like it was leaving a lot of information out throughout the book. It was, however, a wonderful story, I especially enjoyed all the information pertaining to the School's location in Wales. I would recommend this book for its intended audience, which is children. I believe it would be a wonderfully enjoyable story for a child to read and it would also be very easy for them to comprehend. I give this book a 3/5 stars, but if i put myself into the perspective of a child, it would mostly likely be 5/5.
jnikolova's review
3.0
Read on the WondrousBooks blog.
Dreamwalker is the first book of the Red Dragon Academy series. I want to stress on the fact that it's a children's book and it should be treated as such.
Just in my generation we have witnessed many books stamped as children's, which have in them enough of well... everything, to make them a favourite read for not only children, but also grown-ups of all ages. Harry Potter is the first series that comes to mind and it very well speaks on its own.
Since "Harry Potter", it has been hard reading books about magic and especially schools with magical children, without thinking of "Harry Potter" and making unfortunate comparisons. Same goes with reading fantasy and not comparing with Lord of the Rings. It's hard! But in order to give this book a proper review, I'll have to push myself to my limits in not comparing.
What happens in Dreamwalker is that we have a strange school with very unusual methods and eventually we find out that some of the pupils are in fact magicians of sorts. They don't all possess the same abilities, but instead have set roles: Dreamwalker, Traveler, Whisperer and so on.
The seven main characters, among which the narrator is a girl called Addy, are as cliched as they come. Addy is ~special~ and immensely powerful, though we still don't know the extent of her powers. Raj is a brainiac, who always relies on logic. Pippa is a spoiled brat who wants attention. Celeste: a French princess-wannabe who's rude and demanding and has no other dreams than to be by her mother's side and wear her Prada shoes. Gwylum: the lunch lady's kid, who's grown up on the school grounds and is shy and closed up. And Sam is a poor kid who's been in the system for too long, going from one home to another and is not above stealing and begging on the streets. Kobi is from Africa, and everyone assumes that he's going to be weird. So he speaks weirdly to justify expectations. Not much more is seen from him.
Wow, having written this down, I realized that it's not only that we have certain personas represented, but also a certain view of countries and what their citizens are like, which is kind of chauvinistic and very rude. The horse-riding rich girl from team UK, the French snob, the Indian math genius, Gwylum(who is not English but Welsh, therefore a provincial character) goes for the cliche of a servant boy(only a hundred years after it became distasteful to call them that), and of course, Addy: a clueless American, who doesn't even know that you drive in the opposite lanes in the UK. I'm a bit afraid to leave this here, it casts a bad light on a book which has many minuses, but is honestly NOT THAT BAD.
The problem with all of these, aside from the fact that you can see at least two of them in absolutely every cliche story, is that they don't have many redeeming qualities(in this book at least). The reason for the reader to like them is simply because the authors chose to make them the main characters so you feel like you should find something in them to like.
Since everyone besides Addy is a bit shallowly written, I can mostly comment on her and boy, do I have something to say: She is stupid. I know that it's not right to say that about kids at the age of twelve, but since she was written by two grown women, I assume in their attempt to make her seem normal, they made her stupid. In the first few chapters when she is with her aunt and when she's supposed to be mourning, she is mostly bored. She has no hobbies aside from surfing and can't amuse herself with anything besides her iPod. I remember that at 12 I was reading world classics. She seems to have read just "Alice in Wonderland". She does not know what or where Wales is, or that there is a Wales, and not "whales", at all. She doesn't know what Prada is, which, though not mandatory for kids, is still weird. She goes through a mirror and she still can't figure out she is in another world, EVEN after she speaks with the locals who do everything but spell out for her that this is not her own world.
Aside from that, it's easy to get sucked in the story, it's a typical the-few-good-guys-face-a-terrifying-bad-guy type of thing. For me, the most interesting thing was to find out about the mirror world, about the abilities, about the monsters. Dreamwalker does a good job at explaining those, at least as much as the authors deemed fit for the first book. I honestly loved the world-building, as opposed to the character-building - hence the 3 stars instead of 2. I think I would have loved this if I was still a child, I was not as selective and critical, especially as far as characters go.
While Dreamwalker is not a breakthrough and you shouldn't expect Harry Potter v.2, if you are into this kind of books, you can give it a try. But I am warning you, don't expect a character that will warm up your heart or make you feel as part of the story. Actually I think one of the problems is that there are too many main characters and none of them are as explored as they should be.
Should you get it for your kid? Yes, why not.
Should you, as a grown up and a fan of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and the likes read it? If you cannot stop yourself from comparing them, don't. Otherwise, maybe.
P.S. I admit, I'm going to be waiting for book 2.
Dreamwalker is the first book of the Red Dragon Academy series. I want to stress on the fact that it's a children's book and it should be treated as such.
Just in my generation we have witnessed many books stamped as children's, which have in them enough of well... everything, to make them a favourite read for not only children, but also grown-ups of all ages. Harry Potter is the first series that comes to mind and it very well speaks on its own.
Since "Harry Potter", it has been hard reading books about magic and especially schools with magical children, without thinking of "Harry Potter" and making unfortunate comparisons. Same goes with reading fantasy and not comparing with Lord of the Rings. It's hard! But in order to give this book a proper review, I'll have to push myself to my limits in not comparing.
What happens in Dreamwalker is that we have a strange school with very unusual methods and eventually we find out that some of the pupils are in fact magicians of sorts. They don't all possess the same abilities, but instead have set roles: Dreamwalker, Traveler, Whisperer and so on.
The seven main characters, among which the narrator is a girl called Addy, are as cliched as they come. Addy is ~special~ and immensely powerful, though we still don't know the extent of her powers. Raj is a brainiac, who always relies on logic. Pippa is a spoiled brat who wants attention. Celeste: a French princess-wannabe who's rude and demanding and has no other dreams than to be by her mother's side and wear her Prada shoes. Gwylum: the lunch lady's kid, who's grown up on the school grounds and is shy and closed up. And Sam is a poor kid who's been in the system for too long, going from one home to another and is not above stealing and begging on the streets. Kobi is from Africa, and everyone assumes that he's going to be weird. So he speaks weirdly to justify expectations. Not much more is seen from him.
Wow, having written this down, I realized that it's not only that we have certain personas represented, but also a certain view of countries and what their citizens are like, which is kind of chauvinistic and very rude. The horse-riding rich girl from team UK, the French snob, the Indian math genius, Gwylum(who is not English but Welsh, therefore a provincial character) goes for the cliche of a servant boy(only a hundred years after it became distasteful to call them that), and of course, Addy: a clueless American, who doesn't even know that you drive in the opposite lanes in the UK. I'm a bit afraid to leave this here, it casts a bad light on a book which has many minuses, but is honestly NOT THAT BAD.
The problem with all of these, aside from the fact that you can see at least two of them in absolutely every cliche story, is that they don't have many redeeming qualities(in this book at least). The reason for the reader to like them is simply because the authors chose to make them the main characters so you feel like you should find something in them to like.
Since everyone besides Addy is a bit shallowly written, I can mostly comment on her and boy, do I have something to say: She is stupid. I know that it's not right to say that about kids at the age of twelve, but since she was written by two grown women, I assume in their attempt to make her seem normal, they made her stupid. In the first few chapters when she is with her aunt and when she's supposed to be mourning, she is mostly bored. She has no hobbies aside from surfing and can't amuse herself with anything besides her iPod. I remember that at 12 I was reading world classics. She seems to have read just "Alice in Wonderland". She does not know what or where Wales is, or that there is a Wales, and not "whales", at all. She doesn't know what Prada is, which, though not mandatory for kids, is still weird. She goes through a mirror and she still can't figure out she is in another world, EVEN after she speaks with the locals who do everything but spell out for her that this is not her own world.
Aside from that, it's easy to get sucked in the story, it's a typical the-few-good-guys-face-a-terrifying-bad-guy type of thing. For me, the most interesting thing was to find out about the mirror world, about the abilities, about the monsters. Dreamwalker does a good job at explaining those, at least as much as the authors deemed fit for the first book. I honestly loved the world-building, as opposed to the character-building - hence the 3 stars instead of 2. I think I would have loved this if I was still a child, I was not as selective and critical, especially as far as characters go.
While Dreamwalker is not a breakthrough and you shouldn't expect Harry Potter v.2, if you are into this kind of books, you can give it a try. But I am warning you, don't expect a character that will warm up your heart or make you feel as part of the story. Actually I think one of the problems is that there are too many main characters and none of them are as explored as they should be.
Should you get it for your kid? Yes, why not.
Should you, as a grown up and a fan of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and the likes read it? If you cannot stop yourself from comparing them, don't. Otherwise, maybe.
P.S. I admit, I'm going to be waiting for book 2.
lisaarnsdorf's review
2.0
I had to spend a few days processing this book before I could write my review. I really struggled with this book. It felt very choppy, with major jumps in activity from chapter-to-short chapter. I had a hard time telling when we were in a dream and when we weren't. I also felt unclear about the rules of the powers and magic that the kids had, and thought that the lack of explanation because the kids had to figure it out for themselves was a cop out.
The characters were interesting, and the adventures were, too. The link to Alice Through the Looking Glass was fun, and I especially liked the details about Wales. Although I enjoyed the reading, I never looked forward to picking up the book. I don't think I'll be continuing this series.
The characters were interesting, and the adventures were, too. The link to Alice Through the Looking Glass was fun, and I especially liked the details about Wales. Although I enjoyed the reading, I never looked forward to picking up the book. I don't think I'll be continuing this series.
lhawk1's review
4.0
Thank you to Netgalley for a free copy!
Read my full review here: https://escapingrealitybookreviews.wordpress.com/2015/02/02/review-dreamwalker-by-rhys-bowen-c-m-broyles/
Okay, I have a major problem with the marketing of this book right off the bat. Did you catch that last sentence in the synopsis? “If you loved Harry Potter, this is for you.” No. Okay. NEVER EVER do that. Major Marketing Mistake #1: Comparing your book to Harry Potter. You immediately set the expectations so high that it is not physically possible to meet them. Also, it's a fantasy boarding school in Europe -- that is literally ALL that it has in common with HP.
I thought that the authors did a really great job with the plot. My absolute favorite element of the writing of this book was the fuzzy line between dream and reality. I absolutely adored it! In fact, this book did a really good job of the slightly controversial “only give your reader as much information as the character has” tactic. A lot of authors can’t pull it off — but these two did! I loved it! It was really great being left in the dark for once, and truly being just as confused and off balance as your characters. And the whole mirror world concept? Very intriguing. I’m looking forward to learning more about it. I found the writing a bit jerky at times, largely due, I expect, to the Writing Duo. But it wasn’t difficult to follow, so it’s all good.
I'm 17, and I enjoyed this book.
Read my full review here: https://escapingrealitybookreviews.wordpress.com/2015/02/02/review-dreamwalker-by-rhys-bowen-c-m-broyles/
Okay, I have a major problem with the marketing of this book right off the bat. Did you catch that last sentence in the synopsis? “If you loved Harry Potter, this is for you.” No. Okay. NEVER EVER do that. Major Marketing Mistake #1: Comparing your book to Harry Potter. You immediately set the expectations so high that it is not physically possible to meet them. Also, it's a fantasy boarding school in Europe -- that is literally ALL that it has in common with HP.
I thought that the authors did a really great job with the plot. My absolute favorite element of the writing of this book was the fuzzy line between dream and reality. I absolutely adored it! In fact, this book did a really good job of the slightly controversial “only give your reader as much information as the character has” tactic. A lot of authors can’t pull it off — but these two did! I loved it! It was really great being left in the dark for once, and truly being just as confused and off balance as your characters. And the whole mirror world concept? Very intriguing. I’m looking forward to learning more about it. I found the writing a bit jerky at times, largely due, I expect, to the Writing Duo. But it wasn’t difficult to follow, so it’s all good.
I'm 17, and I enjoyed this book.
justinereads's review
4.0
Addison is sent to a strange yet wonderful boarding school in Wales and discovers that she is a Dreamwalker, one of the seven powers of those from Gallia, a mirror world ruled by The One. The Red Dragon Academy is a great, Hogwarts-esque setting for the seven chosen ones to begin their training and become powerful enough to return to Gallia and overthrow the evil ruler.
ayanamifaerudo's review
3.0
I thought it was YA. The first few paragraphs read like YA but then as I delved further in, I realized that it was more middle-grade than YA. How could I have mistaken it for YA. Ah, the Absentee Parents Syndrome, that's how I have initially mistaken it for YA. Actually, there was one part where I was very much reminded of Heidi. Both of the characters in Heidi and in Dreamwalker lost their parents and now they're in the custody of aunts who didn't want them. The aunt wanting to get out of taking care of a child, immediately passed the girl to someone or somewhere where the child could be taken care of.
Ah, I made a note on this part. How could the aunt trust what was pop-up website of some school no one had heard about before but apparently she was convinced that it was a top boarding school for academics, manners and such. Providence, then.
This is a good book for middle grade readers, for those who love fantasy, boarding schools, adventures and a whole other world with an evil to defeat. Oh, did I mention that there were superpowers as well? Yes, if you love those then you might want to read this.
Ah, I made a note on this part. How could the aunt trust what was pop-up website of some school no one had heard about before but apparently she was convinced that it was a top boarding school for academics, manners and such. Providence, then.
This is a good book for middle grade readers, for those who love fantasy, boarding schools, adventures and a whole other world with an evil to defeat. Oh, did I mention that there were superpowers as well? Yes, if you love those then you might want to read this.
marie_thereadingotter's review
2.0
I received this book from NetGalley for review
The story was fairly generic, and not that original. The characters were a little predictable as well. The story focuses a lot around Addy, even though the blurb says it's about seven kids.
It was a fairly quick read, but for me it was pretty predictable, and while I know this is a middle grade book, the writing could have used better editing. I noticed a couple minor grammar errors, that could've been altered to help with the sentence flow.
The story was fairly generic, and not that original. The characters were a little predictable as well. The story focuses a lot around Addy, even though the blurb says it's about seven kids.
It was a fairly quick read, but for me it was pretty predictable, and while I know this is a middle grade book, the writing could have used better editing. I noticed a couple minor grammar errors, that could've been altered to help with the sentence flow.
robertalucy's review
5.0
I don't read a lot of fantasy, but enjoyed this book set in Wales very much! Fast paced with lots of imagination and a set up of great characters that the reader will enjoy following in future installments.
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