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3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
You can find this review and others on my blog SleepySamReads!
Special thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
I honestly don’t even know where to begin with this review. This book was so beautifully original and unique. Reveries are daydreams that have become real, they suck people nearby into them. When this happens, most people are not lucid. They play along with their parts of the daydream without being aware. The Others are a group of teens who stay lucid in the Reveries. They keep the story going as smoothly as they can and then ‘unravel’ them so that everyone stays safe. Each of the Others has a power to help them. I thought this was so cool! It’s so incredibly original! And also huge props to La Sala for creating so many worlds within his story!
Also there’s so many queer characters!!! Love that. I always want as many queer characters as possible. Something I really enjoyed about this novel was that the villain is a drag queen. She is a villain, but not because she’s queer or a drag queen, but because she’s a genuinely bad person. That was pretty cool. It works and isn’t offensive because the main character, Kane, is gay. While I sympathized with Kane because of how ostracized he was for being gay, I just really didn’t like him? His personality is just so unlikeable, which I feel is very unusual for a main character. He was just so angry and mean to everyone. He threatened to kill the Others so many times throughout the book. He’s probably why I didn’t give this book 5 stars. He annoyed me a lot.
All the other characters were so awesome though!! They are very three dimensional characters! I especially loved Sophia, Kane’s sister. I really enjoyed their relationship too. It felt like a very organic sibling relationship, which I feel like we don’t get in novels very often. Dean was adorable! I kinda wish we could have learned a little more about his background.
I felt like the action got to be a little too much towards the end. I found myself skimming it more than reading. After all the drama was resolved, though, I really enjoyed the ending. It felt really natural and peaceful, which was perfect for the tone of the story.
I liked the originality of this story, though I wish the main character could have been a tad more likeable. I recommend this for anyone who enjoys unique and magical stories!
Special thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
I honestly don’t even know where to begin with this review. This book was so beautifully original and unique. Reveries are daydreams that have become real, they suck people nearby into them. When this happens, most people are not lucid. They play along with their parts of the daydream without being aware. The Others are a group of teens who stay lucid in the Reveries. They keep the story going as smoothly as they can and then ‘unravel’ them so that everyone stays safe. Each of the Others has a power to help them. I thought this was so cool! It’s so incredibly original! And also huge props to La Sala for creating so many worlds within his story!
Also there’s so many queer characters!!! Love that. I always want as many queer characters as possible. Something I really enjoyed about this novel was that the villain is a drag queen. She is a villain, but not because she’s queer or a drag queen, but because she’s a genuinely bad person. That was pretty cool. It works and isn’t offensive because the main character, Kane, is gay. While I sympathized with Kane because of how ostracized he was for being gay, I just really didn’t like him? His personality is just so unlikeable, which I feel is very unusual for a main character. He was just so angry and mean to everyone. He threatened to kill the Others so many times throughout the book. He’s probably why I didn’t give this book 5 stars. He annoyed me a lot.
All the other characters were so awesome though!! They are very three dimensional characters! I especially loved Sophia, Kane’s sister. I really enjoyed their relationship too. It felt like a very organic sibling relationship, which I feel like we don’t get in novels very often. Dean was adorable! I kinda wish we could have learned a little more about his background.
I felt like the action got to be a little too much towards the end. I found myself skimming it more than reading. After all the drama was resolved, though, I really enjoyed the ending. It felt really natural and peaceful, which was perfect for the tone of the story.
I liked the originality of this story, though I wish the main character could have been a tad more likeable. I recommend this for anyone who enjoys unique and magical stories!
Honestly the story is a four but I bumped it up to five for all the glorious queerness this book has. You want representation? This book is IT. I loved that about it.
The story itself was also really interesting. Using memory loss as a way to reveal a magical world was a relevant and original way to do it, and one that really resonated with me. And the world itself was so interesting!
The only thing I didn’t like about this book was discovering that this is Ryan La Sala’s first book and I will have to WAIT to read more from him!
The story itself was also really interesting. Using memory loss as a way to reveal a magical world was a relevant and original way to do it, and one that really resonated with me. And the world itself was so interesting!
The only thing I didn’t like about this book was discovering that this is Ryan La Sala’s first book and I will have to WAIT to read more from him!
It's always great to see books with queer characters but the problem with this book is that all the characters sucked. For me, the characters were either idiots, assholes, or both. This book could have been great. The story and the plot was so fascinating. But I kept putting the book down because I would get so annoyed with something someone said or did. I just couldn't enjoy the book as much as I hoped I would. I read this book as part of the Great Library Read.
This book was enjoyable - however, there was something about how the voice was written that didn't jam with me. The over all story was interesting and new but it definitely wasn't as strong of a book as The Honeys was. Definitely was worth reading though!
Not quite what it was marketed as but still a gorgeous book! Loved the ending and felt that it had a good resolution with potential for another book.
Rating: 4.5/4 stars
There is so much to unravel (no pun intended) in Ryan La Sala's Reverie that I can understand the reviews I've seen where readers have said they were confused by the book. I don't feel the same because I find being thrown into the middle of a narrative and having to figure out what is happening to be a challenge I like.
I love this book. I did partly read it on audio book but I don't recommend that as the narrator isn't the most compelling. But everything that I read physically made me love this book. It has a wild concept: people's dreams become alternate universes and a group of teenagers with different powers work together to keep those dreams which they call reveries from overpowering the dreamer and stop them from becoming dangerous.
What stands out about this book is that we are thrust into the middle of these events and through Kane - who has lost his memory - begin to put together the pieces of what has happened. That was such an interesting way to go and made me love it even more. I more than appreciate how wonderfully queer this book is. Not only is the main character queer but several important side characters (including the villain) are and I just cannot say how much that means to me.
Ryan La Sala's writing is effortless. He has a great thread of humor in his work and he can turn a phrase: If this reverie held the brightness and warmth of a dancing flame, it was because of the gnarled, black wick of anger smoldering at its core.
If there was one thing that I would change, it would be getting the main character, Kane, to a place of understanding and maturity a little bit sooner. I found myself getting annoyed and frustrated with him in the last third as he kept making similar mistakes over and over.
I do think that many of the issues others might have with this story would have been fixed if this had been a duology and La Sala had written how Kane found his power, how he recruited The Others, and had ended that book with the incident that begins this one. It would have resolved people's confusion and maybe given them more time to understand how the magic system work. I love how this story was told, but I can see how having it more fleshed out would have helped with understanding the story.
I highly recommend.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.
There is so much to unravel (no pun intended) in Ryan La Sala's Reverie that I can understand the reviews I've seen where readers have said they were confused by the book. I don't feel the same because I find being thrown into the middle of a narrative and having to figure out what is happening to be a challenge I like.
I love this book. I did partly read it on audio book but I don't recommend that as the narrator isn't the most compelling. But everything that I read physically made me love this book. It has a wild concept: people's dreams become alternate universes and a group of teenagers with different powers work together to keep those dreams which they call reveries from overpowering the dreamer and stop them from becoming dangerous.
What stands out about this book is that we are thrust into the middle of these events and through Kane - who has lost his memory - begin to put together the pieces of what has happened. That was such an interesting way to go and made me love it even more. I more than appreciate how wonderfully queer this book is. Not only is the main character queer but several important side characters (including the villain) are and I just cannot say how much that means to me.
Ryan La Sala's writing is effortless. He has a great thread of humor in his work and he can turn a phrase: If this reverie held the brightness and warmth of a dancing flame, it was because of the gnarled, black wick of anger smoldering at its core.
If there was one thing that I would change, it would be getting the main character, Kane, to a place of understanding and maturity a little bit sooner. I found myself getting annoyed and frustrated with him in the last third as he kept making similar mistakes over and over.
I do think that many of the issues others might have with this story would have been fixed if this had been a duology and La Sala had written how Kane found his power, how he recruited The Others, and had ended that book with the incident that begins this one. It would have resolved people's confusion and maybe given them more time to understand how the magic system work. I love how this story was told, but I can see how having it more fleshed out would have helped with understanding the story.
I highly recommend.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars.
I wanted this book to be so much more than it was. It would definitely make an interesting movie because of the visuals. It just felt kind of forced yet disjointed somehow.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Reverie is a beautiful and whimsical fantasy that draws you in until the very last page. The day I started it, I only read the first two chapters and wasn't quite sure where it was going. But when I came back to it the next day, it got very good very quickly and I binged 200 pages. I love the concept of what a reverie is, and I'm so curious to know what mine would be. I highly recommend this book!