Book Review: Dreamwalk by Sarah MacManus

 Title: Dream walk

 Author: Sarah MacManus

 Series: N/A

 Published: 14 March 2011 by Young Rebel Publications

 Length: 149 pages

 Warnings: romance, sex references, drugs ref, kissing and a bit more, profanity 14+

 Other info: Sarah MacManus has also written Lord of the Trash.

 Summary: DREAMWALK is a romantic mixed beat of time travel and mythology for both teens and adults. After the death of her mother, Chloe Hawthorn is haunted by terrifying night-time hallucinations. Determined to take control of her dreams, she uses them to find Shane Anderson, a charming and troubled musician whose online videos have been holding her in thrall. She finds him in the Dreamtime, sweating out heroin detox in a run-down rehab centre.
Chloe sets out to find Shane in the waking world and discovers her dreams have been taking her into the past. Horrified, Chloe realizes Shane doesn't survive his addictions. In order to save him, Chloe must master her Australian mother's legacy — the secret of walking the Dreaming through time. But what price will Chloe pay for this Dream walk and will she save Shane only to lose him forever

 Review: "I had enough time to hope that I wouldn't hit anyone on the sidewalk below.” a very interesting first line that makes you wonders a lot of things: where is this person, why do they think this, why are they falling. It makes you want to find out more. There’s a lot of description, it makes you feel as though you’re falling with them, and from that line I wanted to read on.

Chloe is having this nightmare, because of her mother’s death. She's been having that same nightmare forever.  She then goes on to discover an email with a video of a guy playing the guitar. The next night, she dreams of that same guy.

He is Shane, a guy in rehab who keeps a diary. And while Chloe dreams of him, he also dreams of her. And so, via dreams, they fall in love. And so they start kissing, and get further. (They don’t end up having sex).

The interesting thing is that any marks inflicted in the Dreamtime, show up in real life. That’s one of the things I like about this book. It’s a new take on paranormal romance, as for the most of the book, they only interact via dreams.

All this is recounted in Shane’s diary. After the first few diary entries thought, they ended up saying the same thing. But that changes when Shane gets taken off the meth, the thing that is actually allowing Shane to dream of Chloe. It turns into a story of trying to pull Shane out of the Dreamtime and get him into reality.

The plotline I prefer is Chloe finding her place in the Dreamtime though. She meets her mother and various gods, and together they teach Chloe all about Dreamwalking and songs.

I like the double narration: two clearly different voices, but without going over the same point in the story twice, as you sometimes get. 

At some points this was a little hard to follow. I tended to find myself thinking "are they in the dreamtime, or in reality, and where in time are they?”.  That was a bit annoying and I still don’t really get some parts of it.

I also found Shane a little bit of a Gary-Sue (the male equivalent of a Mary sue). He was a little bit of a stereotypical tortured, talented love interest.

and I think I would have connected a bit more with the characters and the story if it was in the present tense’s just see dream walk as the kind of book that could be going on as you read it.

I absolutely love the idea of dreamtime, where time has no meaning and pretty much anything can happen. The descriptions, while beautiful throughout, were the best especially in the parts describing the Dreamtime.

 Overall: I give this strength 3 tea because it was cleverly crafted and original, but at some points it was a little hard to follow.

NOTE: Big thanks to author Sarah MacManus who sent me a copy of this book so I could review this.There will be an interview with her at some point! Check back another day!