Dreamology

January 1, 2016

Gr 8 Up-Alice Rowe has a wonderful relationship with her boyfriend, Max. They do fun and exciting things and go to unusual places around the world. There's just one catch-Max exists only within Alice's dreams. In the waking world, Alice is dealing with family issues, a move to Boston, and a new start at a private school. As she sits in class on her first day at Bennett Academy, she is completely amazed when Max, the boy of her dreams, walks through the door. Getting to know Max in real life, however, is surprisingly complicated, even when he admits that he also dreams about Alice and they find that they have a shared history involving the Center for Dream Discovery. Eventually, the two realize that they need to end their dreaming relationship in order to move forward with their real lives, but they now face the challenge of forging a relationship in the real world. This is a sweet, quirky romance with appealing characters and loving descriptions of Boston landmarks, but there are serious notes as well; Alice's mother has essentially walked out on her and her father in order to pursue research projects, and Max has a troubled relationship with his parents because of his sister's death in an accident. Keating is particularly good at capturing the surreal nature of dreams in her detailed depictions of dream settings and events. VERDICT Give this one to fans of Jenny Han and YA romance.-Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 15, 2016
When Alice starts at a new high school, she finds the boy she's been dreaming of her entire life. For as long as she can remember Alice has had wild and whimsical adventures in her sleep with a magnificent guy, Max. In her dreams, they've grown up together and fallen deeply in love. So it blows her mind when she enters her new high school only to meet, face to face, the boy of her dreams in real life. Turns out he's been dreaming of her too. Trying to get to the bottom of the sleep-time mystery brings them to the Center for Dream Discovery, where, as youngsters, they were both sent due to nightmares. How and why they have linked dreams that are now oozing into waking life are the big questions. What begins as potentially intriguing, light sci-fi gradually devolves into preposterousness that doesn't even try to make sense. Alice's first-person, present-tense narration is laced with puerile dream sequences that are more silly (giant Oreo cookies delivered in pizza boxes, Kate Moss as a flea-market vendor) than story-advancing. If readers are after a tale in which every character finds a soul mate, then this fluff is a success. Otherwise, the story diminishes in interest and plausibility as wacky, parrot-hoarding dream analysts attach thingamabobs to Max and Alice to disunite their dreams. Formulaic teen romance decorated with science-fiction mishmash. (Romance. 13-16)

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