Wake

Imagine falling into a deep restful sleep when suddenly you wake in a nightmare. It's dark, and you can feel your body lying on your bed, but you realize that you forgot to shut the door or the window. Although you open your eyes, all you see is this nightmare. You feel your way to the window to make sure it's closed. The nightmare continues so you know you have to move on. You grasp for the wall, the desk, the chair. Maybe sit for a second to try to catch your breath as trembling you stand and continue to the door. Shutting the door, the nightmare fades away. It takes a minute, maybe two, and you can finally begin to breath normally again. In time, your vision clears, but you still are haunted by the nightmare you just witnessed. The nightmare that is still occurring. The nightmare that is being had by someone in the house. It's not your nightmare, you merely fell into it. This is your curse. It has been your curse since you were eight years old, riding on the train, and fell into the dream of a businessman worried about an upcoming presentation. No one can remember that you visited their dreams, but if they fall asleep nearby, and there are no closed doors to block it? Inevitably, you witness it all.

At 17, this is Janie Hannagan's life. Whether she is asleep or awake, if someone else has a dream, she watches it. Scary monsters, sex dreams, falling, drowning, being naked in a crowd. She's seen it all. It's normal. That is, until the nightmares become too strong and she can not hide her reactions. How can she keep her secret in high school when her classmates are falling asleep in class all the time? Who had the nightmare that scared her so badly, in which she seemed to be the the one the monster was after, and why weren't they in their own nightmare? Will Janie ever learn to control the dreams?

Just as Janie falls into everyone's dreams, I fell into Lisa McMann's debut novel and could not put it down until I had completed it. Truly, there are storylines that I hope to see expanded, or ideas that were not fully explained, but I believe that my questions will be answered in either Wake's followup (Fade - Feb 2009 - I can't wait!!!) or the third book (2010). One of the ideas that I wanted explained is hinted at in the short Fade excerpt that follows Wake. I admit that there were a few scenes in which I had to remind myself that the book was YA (I had begun to think of the novel as older because the teenagers are self-sufficient due to parental neglect) as I thought of things that could happen but were less likely to in this genre. This book was a New York Times Best-Seller. I definitely believe that it deserved it, and I think that it is good for my age group (20s), as well as teens.

A-Z Challenge completed - *Wake - Lisa McMann* <- I didn't need it for the challenge, but I wanted to finally read it since I have time and was awake all night... currently reading - *Alive and Well in Prague, New York - Daphne Grab*