You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
snugglyoranges 's review for:
Dream a Little Dream
by Kerstin Gier
4 stars
As a huge fan of Kerstin Gier's Precious Stone Trilogy, when I heard that Macmillan would be releasing the Silver trilogy as well, my heart LEAPED in delight. Dream a Little Dream was a super fun adventure that I just tore through.
What appealed to me most about this book is the cool, creative concept of lucid shared dreaming. Honestly, it's just such a cool freaking idea, and the execution was excellent! I loved getting the flashes of Liv's dreams and the recurrence of the door that would allow her to enter the shared dreams. The settings in the dreams were wonderfully vivid, and I was overall just completely delighted by this story - especially the first part, where she's discovering all these things about the dreams.
Where it gets a little complicated, though, is the fact that this shared dreaming concept lands Liv in a select group of teens purportedly trying to unlock a demon. It started off as a game on Halloween, much as friends at a sleepover may play with a Ouji board, but it's been going on for months when Liv gets there. They steadily unlock the seals holding back that demon, in exchange for which they would get their wishes granted. I found it a little hard to swallow that people would go through with this for so long. When it becomes evident that this demon may actually be *real*, I would think they would stop, considering it's potentially bad news for the WORLD. To an extent I could understand that they fear repercussions if they stop - though I don't feel that fear was conveyed really well in the story - but that doesn't explain why Liv would join in on it.
And that's kind of my issue with Liv. In a lot of things, I could see that she was like Gwen from Gier's Precious Stone Trilogy - she's curious, a little naive, but she doesn't back down from a challenge. But she is so unbelievably stupid sometimes. I still feel like her character could be plausible, but she's just not quite as endearing as Gwen was.
I'm of two minds about the romance, to be honest. At first, I thought this was a reverse harem situation, because hello, Liv lands herself in a group of four ultra hot guys. Each of them has a certain appeal, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't truly curious about Grayson, her future step-brother, because I could potentially ship that. But the romance ended up being more straightforward than I was expecting, and though I thought the ship was cute, it wasn't MAJOR FEELSVILLE - it felt a tiny bit rushed. Who knows where this will go in the rest of the series though? I'm pretty darn excited to find out. Yeah, I wouldn't mind a love triangle/square/pentagon in this series. I think Kerstin Gier could pull it off.
What I do feel is stronger than the Precious Stone Trilogy though is the storytelling. The time travel concept was just not exactly plausible and the explanations in the world building kind of lacked throughout the whole series. In Dream a Little Dream, I feel like the construction is much stronger. I love the concept of the dreams, and already there are more explanations to give the story more cohesion. Dream a Little Dream clearly has its own story arc, whereas the Precious Stone Trilogy felt more like one long book chopped up into three uneven parts. But what both series have in common is that they are just super duper fun. Honestly, I couldn't wait to pick this book up again when I put it down, and I blazed through the pages in record speed. This author is one I'm definitely keeping my eye on.
Summing Up:
If you want a fun, different kind of urban fantasy and love the idea of shared lucid dreaming, you absolutely must pick up Dream a Little Dream. In all fairness, the characters aren't the most memorable (though I'm hoping my reverse harem pulls through), and there are more than a few clichés (I mean, new girl at a new school being "special" and absorbed into the group of popular guys? A school which has its own version of Gossip Girl?), but it's a fast-paced fun adventure. I can't wait for more. I need more. I need it like yesterday.
GIF it to me straight!
Recommended To:
It's like the dreaming in Inception matched with the doors of Monsters, Inc., and the teens go to a school with a Gossip Girl and basically have their own Secret Circle. So. Like. If you like those things. GO FOR IT.
*ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the contents of the review.
As a huge fan of Kerstin Gier's Precious Stone Trilogy, when I heard that Macmillan would be releasing the Silver trilogy as well, my heart LEAPED in delight. Dream a Little Dream was a super fun adventure that I just tore through.
What appealed to me most about this book is the cool, creative concept of lucid shared dreaming. Honestly, it's just such a cool freaking idea, and the execution was excellent! I loved getting the flashes of Liv's dreams and the recurrence of the door that would allow her to enter the shared dreams. The settings in the dreams were wonderfully vivid, and I was overall just completely delighted by this story - especially the first part, where she's discovering all these things about the dreams.
Where it gets a little complicated, though, is the fact that this shared dreaming concept lands Liv in a select group of teens purportedly trying to unlock a demon. It started off as a game on Halloween, much as friends at a sleepover may play with a Ouji board, but it's been going on for months when Liv gets there. They steadily unlock the seals holding back that demon, in exchange for which they would get their wishes granted. I found it a little hard to swallow that people would go through with this for so long. When it becomes evident that this demon may actually be *real*, I would think they would stop, considering it's potentially bad news for the WORLD. To an extent I could understand that they fear repercussions if they stop - though I don't feel that fear was conveyed really well in the story - but that doesn't explain why Liv would join in on it.
And that's kind of my issue with Liv. In a lot of things, I could see that she was like Gwen from Gier's Precious Stone Trilogy - she's curious, a little naive, but she doesn't back down from a challenge. But she is so unbelievably stupid sometimes. I still feel like her character could be plausible, but she's just not quite as endearing as Gwen was.
I'm of two minds about the romance, to be honest. At first, I thought this was a reverse harem situation, because hello, Liv lands herself in a group of four ultra hot guys. Each of them has a certain appeal, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't truly curious about Grayson, her future step-brother, because I could potentially ship that. But the romance ended up being more straightforward than I was expecting, and though I thought the ship was cute, it wasn't MAJOR FEELSVILLE - it felt a tiny bit rushed. Who knows where this will go in the rest of the series though? I'm pretty darn excited to find out. Yeah, I wouldn't mind a love triangle/square/pentagon in this series. I think Kerstin Gier could pull it off.
What I do feel is stronger than the Precious Stone Trilogy though is the storytelling. The time travel concept was just not exactly plausible and the explanations in the world building kind of lacked throughout the whole series. In Dream a Little Dream, I feel like the construction is much stronger. I love the concept of the dreams, and already there are more explanations to give the story more cohesion. Dream a Little Dream clearly has its own story arc, whereas the Precious Stone Trilogy felt more like one long book chopped up into three uneven parts. But what both series have in common is that they are just super duper fun. Honestly, I couldn't wait to pick this book up again when I put it down, and I blazed through the pages in record speed. This author is one I'm definitely keeping my eye on.
Summing Up:
If you want a fun, different kind of urban fantasy and love the idea of shared lucid dreaming, you absolutely must pick up Dream a Little Dream. In all fairness, the characters aren't the most memorable (though I'm hoping my reverse harem pulls through), and there are more than a few clichés (I mean, new girl at a new school being "special" and absorbed into the group of popular guys? A school which has its own version of Gossip Girl?), but it's a fast-paced fun adventure. I can't wait for more. I need more. I need it like yesterday.
GIF it to me straight!
Recommended To:
It's like the dreaming in Inception matched with the doors of Monsters, Inc., and the teens go to a school with a Gossip Girl and basically have their own Secret Circle. So. Like. If you like those things. GO FOR IT.
*ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the contents of the review.