Wake by Lisa McMann
Release Date: December 23, 2008
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pages: 224
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 
Buy It: Amazon | Book Depository
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… – Goodreads
Review:
Having had my eye on this one for a while, I was excited to finally get a chance to read it. With such an interesting premise, I was sure to get hooked to the series, right?
Wrong. Unfortunately, almost immediately, I knew I wouldn’t be enjoying the book as much as I imagined. While I am perfectly understanding of using different styles of writing to add to the story, I felt that the fragmented sentences were just too distracting. Here’s an example: “He’s awake now. Rubbing his eyes and grinning sheepishly at the two other football players who stand around him, laughing. Shoving him. Whapping him on the head.” It was SO frustrating to have this type of writing throughout the book, completely disrupting any flow the story could have.
The rest of the book wasn’t much better. I expected a bit more excitement, more details about Janie’s ability or, at the very least, get to know Janie’s character better, but Wake delivered none of that. It was very difficult to get pulled into the story and, ultimately, it just lacked in everything. It almost felt like I was reading a first draft of the book, the bare bones, because the content and characters just weren’t fleshed out enough for me to care.
I know there’s two more books in the series, but I don’t plan on reading them anytime soon. If I ever do get around to them, I hope they’re an improvement on this one: the potential is there and hopefully McMann allowed her characters and story to develop in complete sentences.
About Stephanie
Uh oh. I kind of hate choppy writing styles. This one’s on my TBR but after your review, who knows when I’ll ever get to it? :P Thanks for the head’s up.
Ack, yeah, it was just too much for me! I hear it maybe improved in the sequel, but I’m still too annoyed to give it a try right now.