Wake by Lisa McMann

Title: Wake
Author: Lisa McMann
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Rating: ★★★

Not all dreams are sweet. 

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....

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Wake is about a girl, Janie, who has the uncontrollable ability to enter people's dreams when they fall asleep in her vicinity. Growing up, this ability really hindered her having normal relationships. She couldn't attend sleepovers, and always dreaded the days when her classmates fell asleep during school. Janie doesn't want to know what her friends dream about. She hasn't been able to tell anyone her secret, especially not her alcholic mother who could care less, or even her best friend. The bulk of the story takes place during Janie's senior year at high school. Janie gets involved with brooding (yet once geeky outcast) Cabel, but things take a turn when she inadvertanly wanders into Cabel's horrible nightmare.

I felt that Wake had a good mix of the paranormal aspect and romance. The writing style is very unique; it is present tense, third person, and set up with dates and time stamps. It can take some getting used to. The book progressed at a speedy pace and was extremely short (took me about 3 hours to read.) Janie and Cabel's relationship was better than the normal ones we see in today's young adult books, but the fact that other kids in school weren't recognizing Cabel and calling him "the hot new guy" because he cut his hair and dressed differently, was a little silly.

On the upside, Lisa McMann wasn't afraid to be real. Teenage life isn't butterflies and sexy vampires all the time! There was mention of drugs, underage drinking and the like which some people may not find appealing, but come on....that's reality. Well not the going into people's dreams part, but you know what I mean.

★★★