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Book Review of Wake (Wake, Bk 1)

Wake (Wake, Bk 1)
skywriter319 avatar reviewed on + 784 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3


Every time someone near her falls asleep, Janie Hannagan gets sucked into their dreams. This is hardly fun at all, as most people's dreams consist of falling, nudity, or sex, and, while Janie is technically awake through these experiences, she's blind to the real world. Talk about an uncomfortable lifestyle.

Janie's troubles only continue to escalate when she starts to fall into the once troubled, now sexy Cabel Strumheller's dreams...and finds that she appears in them as well, and that he, too, is aware of her presence in his dreams. There may be more to her ability to fall into people's dreams than Janie realizes, more power than she realizes she has. So begins a new chapter of Janie's life, one where she learns to control her abilities and use them for good.

What WAKE lacks in good writing and interesting characters, it makes up in a stunning story idea. McMann's writing style is straightforward and succinct in an almost ethereal manner. This, while effective in exposition, does not work as well when the plot really needs to get going, and I felt like I was missing what was going on between Janie and Cabel as their relationship developed.

WAKE works fairly well as a stand-alone novel, but thanks to its fascinating premise, I think I am going to pick up the next book in the series, FADE, and see if Janie, Cabel, and the situation they're in become clearer to me over time.