Wake

—4—

There wasn’t much to Wake by Lisa McMann, as was evident by my reading the whole book in one sitting.  And yet, I really enjoyed it, perhaps due to its simplicity.  This is a YA novel in all definitions of the genre, but it had enough substance and uniqueness to keep myself satisfactorily entertained.

Janie is 17, but she has more problems than even the average 17 year old.  When people around her fall asleep, she is pulled into their dreams.  And it’s getting old.  She hates study hall, she can’t escape her fellow classmates weird fears and cliche fantasies.  And of course she can’t divulge her secret “affliction”; people would think she was nuts.  So she goes along counting down the day until she can disappear to college (although I’d like to point out that more people fall asleep in college courses than in high school).

Everything changes for Janie when she falls into a terrible nightmare of one of her classmates, Caleb.  But this boy realizes what Jamie can see, and so they forge a new relationship over Janie’s strange “talent”.  Janie learns that she can help people in their dreams, and so a new course is set.

I thought the premise of this story was pretty interesting.  Janie’s character really struggles to control what is practically uncontrollable, and must do a lot to avoid the slumbering of the world.  And Caleb is a bit of a mystery himself.  The book jacket has made this book seem much spookier and darker than it really is.  A quick read, but entertaining.

4/5