Who is Dreaming?

Lucid by Adrienne Stoltz and Ron Bass
324 Pages (Hardcover)
Razorbill
October 2, 2012
Source: Publisher
Format: ARC

What if you could dream your way into a different life? What if you could choose to live that life forever?

Sloane and Maggie have never met. Sloane is a straight-A student with a big and loving family. Maggie lives a glamorously independent life as an up-and-coming actress in New York. The two girls couldn't be more different--except for one thing. They share a secret that they can't tell a soul. At night, they dream that they're each other.

The deeper they're pulled into the promise of their own lives, the more their worlds begin to blur dangerously together. Before long, Sloane and Maggie can no longer tell which life is real and which is just a dream. They realize that eventually they will have to choose one life to wake up to, or risk spiraling into insanity. But that means giving up one world, one love, and one self, forever.

This is a dazzling debut that will steal readers' hearts.

    This novel presents a very unique reading experience, as it felt like what it was supposed to be - a dream. Not just in the way of being a fictional story, but in a hazy way that is difficult to explain. The narration suspends the reader in some odd dimension because the characters themselves are present in different levels of reality (or of fiction?). Each night one of the girls goes to sleep, she dreams of the day that the other had. One is real, one is a dream - but which one is truly dreaming?

   The whole idea behind this story is very confusing and filled with distortion, but in a very intriguing way. I hypothesized that reading the story I would be sure who is real and who is fictional, however, once I made up my mind on who is real, I ended up being wrong. The authors are very good at making sure that one girl does not seem extremely real or extremely fake, but that it could really go either way.

    My favorite part of the novel is that about halfway through things start to get really trippy. For a good half on the novel, the switching POV's seem to be just switching stories, nothing much to it. However, eventually the stories start to overlap as the characters loose sense of reality, mixing their "real" lives with their "dream" lives. I was honestly creeped out at times, and one scene in particular still makes me cringe just thinking of it. It reminded me a lot of "Shutter Island", in that strange overlap of fiction and reality, with the possibility of the presented reality being made up.

   Overall, if you are looking for a creepy book to mess with your mind, Lucid is a good match for you. It is strangely beautifully disturbing. However, be aware that I would not consider this novel a "quick read" at all. Not because it is painful to get through, but because I found myself reading slower to match the dream-like feel of the narration.