Wake by Lisa McMann

Who: Lisa McMann
What: Wake
When: March 4th, 2008
Where: Simon Pulse
Why: Hype
How: Bought

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…

I've been procrastinating reading this for a while now, I'd always see it at Barnes and Nobles and just...look at it. I'm always weary of books with a lot of hype unless one of my close friends has read it and can tell me if it's good. But hey, it was on sale at the Miami Book Fair so I threw that out the window and gave it a go!

Wake follows Janie, who gets sucked into dreams when people fall asleep around her. To cut off the mini-explanation, I'm just gonna say I thought that was so cool and unique. I've read books where they can just..go in, but never against their will or the way Janie uses it to her advantage towards the end. But then she starts falling into this gruesome nightmares that completely paralyze her in the outside world, and she meets a boy named Cabel and mystery ensues. The reason of the dreams was pretty heart-breaking but the fact that she's a participant? Not that much.

Now, I wasn't all that happy with the plot since after she meets Cabel...there really isn't one besides finding out why the heck he's so hot and cold. But it's a short and quick read so the romance keeps you sticking until the end.

Janie was conflicted and confused, which is totally appropriate for someone who has to deal with getting sucked into dreams every hour. I felt so bad for her when they go on that field trip. All of her friends though, including her best friend and neighbor, was pretty flat and superficial, which I suppose was the point. I would've liked to see them have a bit more depth to them though, especially since Carrie was such a key point in the first book.

Cabel was a sweetheart, even though I wanted to smack him in the face a few times. And wash his mouth with soap, but hey, I'm in High School so I never say the cursing was too much. Because I listen to my classmates and...yeah. The cursing in YA books is perfectly realistic. Their romance was cute and what kept me reading, plus my curiosity about Janie's special abilities.

My rating? AHHH-Great! (I just finished Cryer's Cross, her next book, and look out for that one! It's really, really good!)

Happy Reading!
-Harmony B.