Dreamfall Review
Title: DreamfallAuthor: Amy Plum
Series: Dreamfall #1
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: 10 July 2018
Source: Jonathan Ball Publishers
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reading Timeline: 16 March 2019
Goodreads Synopsis:
A Nightmare on Elm Street meets Inception in this gripping psychological thriller from international bestselling author Amy Plum. Seven teenagers who suffer from debilitating insomnia agree to take part in an experimental new procedure to cure it because they think it can’t get any worse. But they couldn’t be more wrong.When the lab equipment malfunctions, the patients are plunged into a terrifying dreamworld where their worst nightmares have come to life—and they have no memory of how they got there. Hunted by monsters from their darkest imaginations and tormented by secrets they’d rather keep buried, these seven strangers will be forced to band together to face their biggest fears. And if they can’t find a way to defeat their dreams, they will never wake up.
Book Review:
Pre-reading Thoughts:
An old friend of mine read the Revenants series by Amy Plum and really enjoyed it! So keeping that in mind, I decided to request this book. I also really liked the sound of the synopsis and was curious to see how this would play out.
Thank you so much to Jonathan Ball Publishers for providing me with a copy of this book! Just a small disclaimer for those reading this review, I have received this book for free. Please note that this does not affect my opinions in any way. All thoughts are my own!
The writing was good. It pulled me in and the dialogue either had me laughing at some moments and other moments it had me rooting for certain people to get together. However, with that being said, I think that the writing needed to be more gritty and detailed to truly make the scenes nerve-wracking. The writing didn't bring across that sense of fear and need for survival.
I really enjoyed the premise of this story. Not only do we have multiple perspectives to give us a wider understanding as we get insight from both those who are dealing with the nightmares but also what those outside of the experiments are doing. Personally, I found the nightmares to not necessarily be scary, instead, they were more intriguing. I think that these scenes lacked the gore and grittiness that was needed to truly make it horror. However, despite this, I really enjoyed how everything played out. I wanted to know more and I still do.
Due to the multiple perspectives and the length of the novel itself, none of the characters is ever fully developed in this book. This meant that I struggled to form attachments to any one character. The lack of development meant that a lot of the characters were two dimensional and intangible. Another thing that annoyed me to a small extent was that as readers we are introduced to a possible love interest at the beginning of the novel and then as soon as things start to happen, that is completely ignored and the love interest is matched with someone else entirely.
Overall, I liked this book. It definitely had its ups and downs but at the end of the day I still want to know what happens next and that is the important thing. The writing pulled me but it lacked the detail and grittiness to make it the psychological/horror book I thought it would be. The plot was interesting as we get a rounded perspective of what is going on both inside and outside of the experiment. The characters were underdeveloped due to both the length of the novel and the multiple points of views. However, I can't wait to see what happens next. Thank you so much to Jonathan Ball Publishers for providing me with a copy of this book!
Thank you so much to Jonathan Ball Publishers for providing me with a copy of this book! Just a small disclaimer for those reading this review, I have received this book for free. Please note that this does not affect my opinions in any way. All thoughts are my own!
Writing Thoughts:
The writing was good. It pulled me in and the dialogue either had me laughing at some moments and other moments it had me rooting for certain people to get together. However, with that being said, I think that the writing needed to be more gritty and detailed to truly make the scenes nerve-wracking. The writing didn't bring across that sense of fear and need for survival.
Plot Thoughts:
I really enjoyed the premise of this story. Not only do we have multiple perspectives to give us a wider understanding as we get insight from both those who are dealing with the nightmares but also what those outside of the experiments are doing. Personally, I found the nightmares to not necessarily be scary, instead, they were more intriguing. I think that these scenes lacked the gore and grittiness that was needed to truly make it horror. However, despite this, I really enjoyed how everything played out. I wanted to know more and I still do.
Character Thoughts:
Due to the multiple perspectives and the length of the novel itself, none of the characters is ever fully developed in this book. This meant that I struggled to form attachments to any one character. The lack of development meant that a lot of the characters were two dimensional and intangible. Another thing that annoyed me to a small extent was that as readers we are introduced to a possible love interest at the beginning of the novel and then as soon as things start to happen, that is completely ignored and the love interest is matched with someone else entirely.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, I liked this book. It definitely had its ups and downs but at the end of the day I still want to know what happens next and that is the important thing. The writing pulled me but it lacked the detail and grittiness to make it the psychological/horror book I thought it would be. The plot was interesting as we get a rounded perspective of what is going on both inside and outside of the experiment. The characters were underdeveloped due to both the length of the novel and the multiple points of views. However, I can't wait to see what happens next. Thank you so much to Jonathan Ball Publishers for providing me with a copy of this book!
Yours in Reading,
Melleny
Comments
Post a Comment