Reverie by Ryan La Sala

My rating: four stars

Genre: YA, contemporary fantasy

Edition: Hardback

Goodreads Summary: All Kane Montgomery knows for certain is that the police found him half-dead in the river. He can’t remember how he got there, what happened after, and why his life seems so different now. And it’s not just Kane who’s different, the world feels off, reality itself seems different.

As Kane pieces together clues, three almost-strangers claim to be his friends and the only people who can truly tell him what’s going on. But as he and the others are dragged into unimaginable worlds that materialize out of nowhere—the gym warps into a subterranean temple, a historical home nearby blooms into a Victorian romance rife with scandal and sorcery—Kane realizes that nothing in his life is an accident. And when a sinister force threatens to alter reality for good, they will have to do everything they can to stop it before it unravels everything they know.

This wildly imaginative debut explores what happens when the secret worlds that people hide within themselves come to light.

This was the January Barnes and Noble book club pick and to be honest I had never heard of it before I saw that it was picked. However, after it came out I started to see it everywhere, and for good reason! I loved the cover, was intrigued by the vague synopsis, and found out that I really like it.

Likes: I went into this book not knowing what it was going to be about at all. My friend and I had a great time trying to guess but none of them were even close to the actual plot of the book. This kept the story interesting and seemed unique to me. It reminded me of inception to be honest but there were so many differences I wouldn’t say that they were too alike. I also enjoyed the characters. Their personalities are so diverse, and I love that. To be honest, in a lot of books I get characters mixed up if their names are too complicated because so many stories have similar-personality characters. In this book however, I had no problem remembering which character was which because of how different they are. If you have read or watched the Magicians, it reminded me of that and how the characters were complex and different. I also liked the different dreams that the characters went into. They were so crazy! Some of them were so insane, it was awesome to read about! I loved the author’s writing too because I could picture the different reveries and imagine that I was there.

Dislikes: I won’t say with who, but there is a love story between two characters in this book. The love story honestly seemed awkward and strange to me. This is because of how suddenly it happened. Also, because one of the characters was acting in such a way that didn’t make sense if they loved the other person. Yes, I understand some things happened in the past, but it just seemed like there wasn’t enough communication. It seemed like the only reason that this communication wasn’t put into the book was for suspense. I don’t like when authors keep something a secret when it isn’t realistic just for the sake of keeping it a secret. It was just strange to me. Which is sad because I really love them together! Another thing that I didn’t like was the miscommunication and secrets between the friends. Again, it seems like it was just there to build suspense, but it did not work well for me. It was unnecessary and unrealistic. Their reasons for keeping secrets were unbelievable and I did not like it.

Overall, I gave this book four out of five stars. I did love the book, and I had a wonderful time reading it. However, there were just so many things that seemed unbelievable and out of character to me that I couldn’t get past. It just took away the credibility of the characters. I did enjoy the story, the character’s personalities, and the writing though. I would love to read more books by Ryan! I just couldn’t get past the character relations and actions. I would still recommend this, it was a great read.