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kayceereads 's review for:
Reverie
by Ryan La Sala
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.