Dreamfall

March 20, 2017
The premise of Plum’s thriller is intriguing, if not entirely original: seven teenagers struggling with debilitating insomnia are chosen for an experimental program that hopes to cure them; instead, it plunges them into dreamscapes that represent their nightmares. Observing the procedure is Jaime, a Yale premed student who plans to write a paper on the project. Plum (the After the End series) alternates among the perspectives of Jaime, 16-year-old Catalina Cordova, and 18-year-old college student Fergus Willson, maintaining a quick pace as the teens bounce through each other’s nightmares, facing off against their fears, while Jaime digs into their backgrounds. However, the scientists’ actions after the death of one of the participants in the project is head scratching, and while the nightmares are mildly scary, the gore (of which there is a fair amount) seems forced. Overly familiar character types don’t help (Catalina is a token “stubborn” girl, while another teen, Ant, harbors a secret that won’t surprise anyone), and the jarring cliffhanger ending may leave readers more irritated than anxious to learn what happens next. Ages 14–up. Agent: Stacey Glick, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

March 1, 2017
Jaime Salvator, a top pre-med student at Yale, witnesses an unprecedented sleep experiment involving teenagers who suffer from insomnia--and how it goes dreadfully wrong. At the beginning of the experiment, an earthquake occurs that disrupts the Tower, an electrical output system that is attached to the seven subjects, who have been induced into REM sleep. Each of the sleepers has been catapulted into a shared dreamlike state filled with monsters, slime, and like scenarios based upon some of their worst nightmares. Narrative perspective alternates among the teens as they rely on one another to evade the horrors of their collective nightmare. In the experiment lab, Jaime secretly engages a hacker friend to help find information in an attempt to learn more about the patients' backgrounds. The frame story takes a wildly unrealistic turn when, after a horrific fatality occurs in the lab, the doctors conducting the experiment actually leave Jaime alone in the lab with the remaining six comatose patients. With plotting reminiscent of a teen B-movie, the author relies upon a cast of stereotypical characters that in one case borders on xenophobic, as one of the narrating subjects describes Remi, a refugee from a fictional, war-torn country in Africa, as a kid who "looks out of place in a way only a foreigner can." Jaime is probably black, implied by references to affirmative action and her origins in "one of Detroit's worst neighborhoods." Falling in line with the trend of the multivolume series, the abrupt ending to this book is not an innovative cliffhanger but a shallow contrivance to sell the next book. In this case, as each chapter is predictable, the sequel will be more of the same. (Science fiction. 14-18)

COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 1, 2017
Gr 7 Up-Cata, Fergus, and five other teens are test subjects in a sleep disorder treatment study. Fears or traumas have resulted in various sleep disorders, such as nightmares, night terrors, sleepwalking, and insomnia. This treatment promises the teens a cure and finally a good night's sleep. But after the test begins, a small earthquake causes equipment to malfunction, and the test goes horribly wrong. Instead of peacefully waking from the treatment, the test subjects are comatose, but in their heads, they are trapped in a communal nightmare, much more terrifying than anything each has experienced individually. The teens must navigate their way through the dream world without being killed by the monsters they face-among them zombie monks, soldiers, and sinister clowns-while Jaime, a medical student observer, tries to tell the disbelieving doctors what's really happening. Reminiscent of Neal Shusterman's Full Tilt, this novel is a fast-paced nightmare come to life, told in alternating points of view. It seems everyone, from the test subject teens to the doctors, has something to hide. Plum develops the characters just enough to keep readers guessing about their motivations. VERDICT A definite purchase for libraries serving younger sci-fi and horror fans, who will be eagerly waiting for the sequel.-Jillian Woychowski, West Haven High School, CT

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2017
Grades 8-11 While undergoing an experimental electroconvulsive procedure designed to cure crippling insomnia, seven teenagers enter a shared dream world when an earthquake causes a brief power outage. To the doctors pioneering the treatment, the sleepers appear to be comatose, but they are actually trapped in a series of nightmares, each one springing from their deepest fears and secrets. Only a premed student named Jaime, there to observe, thinks something else is happening and researches the patients' lives, a contrived way to provide necessary backstory. Inside the dream world, Cata, an abuse survivor with PTSD, and Fergus, a narcoleptic, alternate first-person narratives, while outside, Jaime is the focal character. The situation takes another dark turn when the teens learn that they can die for real, and when Jaime learns that one of them is a killer. Light on character, story, and credibility, this first in a duology will nonetheless appeal to fans of nightmarish fiction looking for an easy, but scary, read with a relatable premise. After all, who hasn't had a nightmare?(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)