A review by deedles
Upon a Waking Dream by J.S. Bailey

2.5

Recieved a copy from a giveaway. 

It's a good story collection featuring mundane magic, scifi, specfic, &c, though I must say it's really not for me. I love fantasy, and the exploration of themes via vast worldbuilding and interpersonal relationships, so this should've been right up my alley but I was a little disappointed.

The writing feels... young. Like it was meant to be either for the middleschoolers or on the younger side of young adult. A bit of the themes felt like they were just slapped on top of the pages in bold and red ink. Perhaps I just prefer it when the writing style is a bit more mature.

In any case, the stories felt a bit lackluster -- the strongest was The Family Name. It was chilling, it was dark. I could literally see this happening in real life, and it was good.

I think it really would've been a lot better if the stories had some sort of unifying theme besides just the author "slapping it into the collection", so it would've been more cohesive, and to help the reader keep in the mindset of expectation of each story.

The weirdest, most surreal one, was definitely The Man Of Her Dreams. I think it would've made an excellent commentary on stan culture if it was fleshed out a bit more, and if it was tweaked up, I would definitely want to read it. The absolute inherent unhingedness of the whole thing was so absurd, I just kept wanting to read more.