Title: WakeAuthor: Lisa McMann
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Copyright Date: 2008
Date Available: March 2008
ISBN: 9781416595151
Pages: 104 (eBook)
Series: 1st in the Dream Catcher trilogy about Janie Hannagan
Book Description (from lisamcmann.com):
For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime.
She can't tell anybody about what she does — they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can't control.
Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant....
Comments:
This is the first book I've read on my new Reader (!!!). I acquired it free (temporarily... they gave me like a month) from a five day promotional thing they were doing in prep of the third book in this series, Gone, coming out this February. My thanks to the person that tweeted about it, since I got it about 3 hours before the offer ended.
Anyway, before starting writing this post I checked out some other blog reviews and noticed some complaints about the writing being written in such choppy style. That's not what bothered me. Nor was it the episodic format (others called it flashbacks, though it's really one flashback followed by a series of flashes forward).
It took awhile (about half-way in) before eventually realizing what it was that nagged at me. The entire book is written in present tense. I can't think of any books I've read in present tense lately, but I'm pretty sure the few I've read were first person. It felt completely weird and rather uncomfortable to read a third-person present-tense book.
Other than that... I enjoyed the story. The dream thing was interesting and different/new. I liked Janie; I liked Cabel (though I still have trouble not reading that as Caleb). The other characters were pretty irrelevant.
There is a free download for Cabel's side if the story available here at Simon & Schuster. It's short and starts part-way into the Wake story. As for the rest of the trilogy...I'm on hold at the local library for book two, Fade, and I'll see how it goes.
I think I liked Wake just a little bit more. What rating would you give it? I guess what made the difference for me was the writing style. I liked that it was in present, short, choppy, and direct. I like the authors voice.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I've tried so hard not to do the rating thing, that I'm not sure I could now even if I did try. I have to say, though, your rating system is great. I'm not big on beaches, but I guess I could semi-rate it with my version of your system. =)
ReplyDeleteWake is a Pablo Picasso to me. The cubism is so close to the surrealism that I love, it certainly attracts some people, and I'm interested in seeing more... but it just doesn't feel comfortable/right to look at. If all her works feel that way, I may decide to pass in the future.
Keeping that in mind...I had no problem with short, choppy, or direct. But the present tense annoyed me. It was so different that it became a distraction, and distractions take away from my enjoyment. I think I have to read Fade and maybe Gone too before I can make any judgements on her voice. I may adjust to the present tense and even grow to enjoy it. Or it might become an even bigger distraction.
lol. Did any of that rambling make sense?