YA Review: Dream a Little Dream [ARC]

Dream a Little Dream (Silver, 1) by Kerstin Gier, translated by Anthea Bell, April 14, 2015. 336 pages. Published by Henry Holt and Co. (BYR). Source: publisher.

Mysterious doors with lizard-head knobs. Talking stone statues. A crazy girl with a hatchet. Yep, Liv’s dreams have been pretty weird lately. Especially this one where she’s in a graveyard at night, watching four boys perform dark magic rituals.

The really weird thing is that Liv recognizes the boys in her dream. They’re classmates from her new school in London, the school where’s she’s starting over because her mom has moved them to a new country (again). But they seem to know things about her in real life that they couldn’t possibly know, which is mystifying. Then again, Liv could never resist a good mystery. . . .

First Sentence:

The dog was snuffling at my bag.

Dream a Little Dream, this book and I got off on the wrong foot when I first began browsing it's pages. The first three chapters had me wanting to runaway and never give it another chance. Yet, as I was in the middle of the reading 'blahs' after finishing some amazing books, and because the first page didn't even grab attention, I almost washed my hands of a truly interesting read.

I cannot even begin to tell y'all how excited I am that I gave Dream a Little Dream another chance. I was literally on the verge of saying no more and moving onto my next read when I decided to read just a little more. Best decision.
   So, what was it about the beginning of Dream a Little Dream that nearly had me running for the hills, well, that would be the main character Liv and just things. Even now, I can still see that point in the book that just underwhelmed me. There's was something about Liv and her personality and view on how things would be at her new place that bothered me. Yes, annoying characters is probably my biggest reason for walking away from a book, yet, the story of this one wanted another shot to impress me.

Let's get past why I almost DNFd this one and talk about how it managed to reel me back in. Well, that would have to be that I was curious as to the purpose of being able to share dreams and what the boys had gotten involved in and how Liv played into their plans. Yeah, I had a lot of questions that prevented me from putting this one down forever. Yet, I'm glad that my curiosity drove me to continue on because I would have missed out on a really interesting read.
   While I may have figured out who was truly the trouble maker early on, I could not stop reading after I passed the half-way point because things really started happening. Even though things were easy to figure out, I really enjoyed how detailed their dreams were and all the crazy things they got into and how things began to bleed into the real world. It was just really interesting to see how things got to the point they did; also, I'm really curious about what's going to happen in the sequel.

Dream a Little Dream was my first experience with a Kerstin Geir book. Even though the first thirty pages were kind of disappointing and typical YA, I really enjoyed the rest of the book and how well Ms. Gier brought to life the dream worlds they created and the trouble heaped upon their heads from their actions. Once I got into the book, there was no turning back as I needed to know the truth.

Final Verdict: Dream a Little Dream- Really slow and unpromising start, though once it really gets going this is quite the fascinating read.

Dream a Little Dreams earns

this book was received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.