Review: Dreamland

Dreamland by Robert L. Anderson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: September 22nd, 2015
Source: Edelweiss
Date Read: 12/30/15 to 12/31/15
336 pages

Rating: ✰✰✰1/2

Odea Donahue has been able to travel through people’s dreams since she was six years old. Her mother taught her the three rules of walking: Never interfere. Never be seen. Never walk the same person’s dream more than once. Dea has never questioned her mother, not about the rules, not about the clocks or the mirrors, not about moving from place to place to be one step ahead of the unseen monsters that Dea’s mother is certain are right behind them.

Then a mysterious new boy, Connor, comes to town and Dea finally starts to feel normal. As Connor breaks down the walls that she’s had up for so long, he gets closer to learning her secret. For the first time she wonders if that’s so bad. But when Dea breaks the rules, the boundary between worlds begins to deteriorate. How can she know what’s real and what’s not?

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I received this ARC in exchange for an honest review. Quotes taken from ARC may or may not be in the published edition.

Another September eARC! Yay! Anyways, I actually liked Dreamland, and I'm happy I did. I will admit, my expectations were a little low because of previous reads, which may be a good thing, because I did not put this book down once. 

What originally drew me into the book, was the idea of walking dreams. You see, Odea (Dea) can walk the dreams of other people as long as she is touching them or has something that belongs to them. If she doesn't enter their dreams, she gets really sick and weak. Ever since she's shown this ability, which is also shared by her mother, she's been told to follow a number of rules, or else they'll come after her. *Cue creepy shadow people from horror movies*

Dea has been doing a pretty good job following these rules, not going into the same person's dream twice, not to be seen in the dream, and lastly, to not interfere. But when she meets Connor, she can't get enough of him. This causes a number of rules to be broken, because she figures "What the heck, mom never told me the reasoning of all these rules, so why bother following them?"

Well it turns out she gets into some deep shit and has faceless creepy dream men come after her (The source of all my nightmares). And not only that, but her mother goes missing at this exact time. And she's been charged with identity theft? Man, what a time to LIVE.

The way this story turned out REALLY surprised me, and I do not think I would have ever predicted the ending or the explanation of it all. Not only did I get a story about walking into dreams, but I also got a murder mystery. Way to get two stories in one book! Seriously, as said before, I did not put this down once because I was so interested in what would happen next. Where the heck did Dea's mom go? Who killed Connor's family? Why are all these dreams dangerous? WHAT IS WITH THE FACELESS MEN (ugh).

Unfortunately, I did feel like the character development suffered a little bit. In the end, I do not really know much about Dea's and Connor's personality, and I felt that their romance was just there, with no justification for it. I also really would have liked more of an explanation to the dream world. A lot could have been expanded on from this, like where do dreams come from? Or how do you escape a dream? And so on.

I am really glad I got to read Dreamland, however, despite some gripes here and there. I felt that the good outweighed the bad, and I would definitely read a sequel if there is one (Is there?). So hopefully, I have that to look forward to!