John Dreamer
Elise Celine
Rating (out of 5): 3.5
Genre: Young Adult Romance
Release Date: February 12, 2014
Series: John Dreamer
Series Volume: 1
Profanity: Mild
Violence: Mild
Sexual Content: None
Age Recommendation: 10+
Author Website: http://www.eliseceline.com/Summary:
Andy wasn’t usually sure about much, but she was absolutely certain this was the weirdest day of her life as she stood stranded in the middle of a great white room with six strangers. Well, they were mostly strangers. She could have sworn she’d seen the guy with the green eyes before, and maybe that was why he kept staring at her. When a man calling himself the Guardian appeared and said they had come to make their deepest dreams come true, they embark on an adventure none of them ever imagined, and the consequences of their actions would change them forever.
Review:
Allow me to start off by saying that I really did enjoy this book. Despite the areas that needed cleaning and tightening I thought the plot and story were very good. John Dreamer is a book that along with a gorgeous cover has a great premise. Andy and another 6 people end up in a white room that spurns them into an adventure where all of their dreams can come true and they can change and grow themselves. My expectations were high going in, and after the first few pages I felt like I was really going to enjoy the book. I had a few problems with it though.
I feel like with some editing this book could have been really great. Now I'm not saying that there were typos all over the place, what I'm saying is that the plot could have been tighter and more planned out. As I read through the dreams of each of the characters I felt like many of the scenes were pieced together in a choppy way. Yes they flowed, and I never found myself suddenly going from once scene to another, but there was something missing especially in the beginning. As the book continued the pacing and stories tightness seemed to get better and have an easier flow.
My second problem also has to do with the pacing, often times I would read a sentence or few words that just should have been left out. It felt like many times things that were thought or said could have been taken out in the editing process. These extras often jarred me out of the story causing me to have to stop and wonder why that was even there in the first place.
The characters while I liked them felt almost one dimensional. Many of them had one major character trait that basically personified them completely. This bothered me a little in the beginning and then more as the story went on when the characters were still doing the same thing's they had been in the first few chapters. Even Andy and John began to get on my nerves a little with their sameness. I did however really like the growth that came about for each character as they were fulfilling their dreams. This added a chance for me to get to know a different side of them and gave them more depth than they had before.
The relationships each character had with the other felt very rushed, and I think this is another part of the stories pacing issue. Many times things felt very rushed while others they were too slow. Andy's 8 1/2 second love at first sight experience seemed way to rushed for me in the beginning, but by the end I understood it's significance, and was pleasantly surprised by it. Sometimes the love story seemed a little too sappy for me even knowing the details but overall I didn't have too much of a problem with it.
Now that I've rambled on about what I didn't like let me tell you what I did enjoy.
The dreams, and how the were fulfilled. Elise Celine was very creative with each dream and many of them I wasn't expecting. She didn't fall into the trap of using a set pattern for each dream's appearing and resolution. But she also made it clear when one was over. The character's back stories were another thing I enjoyed and some of the shocks that came with birthdays and events that happened on them really surprised me and made me think.
The second half of the book's pacing was as I've said much better than the first half. It seems that the author really began to figure it out and kept the action moving building into an amazingly suspenseful ending. The prose was still a little loose in places but for the most part it had cleaned up as well. And the second half had scenes that moved me to tears, some of the back story and dreams were really heart wrenching and beautifully done.
The books ending was my favorite part of all, and not because it was the end. Things really began to move fast and much was reviled that I wasn't expecting. I was left desperately wanting to know more about John and the Guardian as well as the reason behind it all. I hope to see more information about the importance of the dates in future books, along with getting to see the other characters again. I feel like things that happened at the end were what I'd been waiting for the whole book, like it was all leading up to this one part. And I hope that the next book answers all the questions I'm now left with.
I've given this book 3.5 stars because I loved the story, but it really needed going over with a fine toothed comb. I hope to see more from this author because I can see a lot of great things coming from her. I would just like to see her stuff cleaner and a little more planned out. I will be reading the next book and may even recommend this one to a few people.
~Dawn
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