Review: Dreamfever by Kit Alloway

Title: Dreamfever
Author: Kit Alloway
Series: The Dream Walker Trilogy, #2
Format: eARC, kindly provided by
the publishers via NetGalley for
review. (Thank you!!)
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: 23rd February 2016
My rating: 4.5 / 5

Add to Goodreads

Finding out that she is the True Dream Walker hasn't gone at all the Joshlyn Weaver would have expected it to. The only special gift she seems to have is an ability to create archways, which really isn't that special. In addition to her inability to connect with the Dream, she has also started having nightmares that are so terrible she can't tell anyone about them. Not even Will.

Just when Josh thought her life couldn't get any more complicated, the lost dream walker princess returns to claim her parents' right to the throne, right as the Lodestone party threatens to take control of the government during the upcoming Accordance Conclave.

With the clock running down, Josh must rely on not only her friends, but also her enemies, to stop the radicals from taking power and controlling the Dream. But how can she expect to save everyone else when she's struggling to pick up the pieces of her own shattered life?

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

*I received an eARC from the publishers via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This didn't influence my opinion in any way.*

Dreamfever was everything I hoped the sequel to Dreamfire would be, and oh so much more! After the events that occurred at the end of the last book, the characters are struggling to come to terms with how their lives have changed, and are apprehensive of what the future holds. The book begins four months after Dreamfire, with Josh and Will exploring the Dream. They stumble across a girl, who they assume to be a fellow Dream Walker, lost in the Dream. First impressions are deceiving, and they soon find out she will have a bigger role to play as the story moves forward than they first realised.

The pacing was perfect throughout, and I loved the tension that was steadily created. There was a constant ebb and flow, and I was expecting something huge to be revealed around every corner. All the little hints and hooks that were littered throughout the story were so addictive to find, and they kept me wanting to come back and continue reading the minute I had to walk away. The focus has slightly shifted away from the intricate world-building in Dreamfire, and concentrates on developing the characters and their bonds with each other. I got to say, I thought the amount of character development right across the board was brilliant! This time, we have three points of view: Will and Josh, who we already know, but we also get to follow a new character, Mirren.

Josh has easily become one of my favourite characters in the series (my other favourites being Haley and Deloise). She’s been through some really crazy things in the last book, and she’s still suffering their affects here. I just wanted to reach out and hug her so badly! She’s always been the person people look to for Dream Walker advice, and as a result, she has very few people she can turn to when she needs help herself. Yes, Josh can be a bit power hungry, but in a way, she’s even more human and relatable because of this. She has weaknesses and flaws, and she’s very easy to empathise with. Also, I absolutely love how upfront she can be. She says things as she sees it, and it can be so entertaining to see how the other characters react to her blunt and tactless honestly.

As for Will, well, I certainly wasn’t expecting what happened to happen! There is a noticeable coolness between Will and Josh right from the beginning, and it didn’t fully fade at any stage. I absolutely LOVE how complex both characters are. They’ve developed so much since the first book, and it’s awesome that I feel completely different about each of them now, compared to my feelings before reading Dreamfever. THIS is how you get your audience to change their opinions on characters! It was perfectly done. What happened was within character, felt completely believable, and I don’t feel like I was being forced into changing my opinion just for the hell of it. I can’t class this as anything other than pure skill, and oh my goodness, it was fabulous! I really wish I could go into more specific details, but I really want to avoid hinting at anything too specific. I’m sorry!

I’m not too sure how I feel about Mirren, in honesty. I really liked how her perspective was written, and it was nice to see the dynamics of the existing characters from an ‘outsiders’ perspective, so to speak. But, I don’t know, I just didn’t take to her! Sometimes she seemed a bit too nice and a bit too perfect to be believable as trustworthy, and also with her connecting to a certain favourite character of mine (I’m not naming names), she got filed into the suspicious section of my bad book very early on! I think it was the way she swept into the story and almost took over that made me instantly distrustful of her, and I couldn’t shake off that suspicion even as the story wore on. I have a feeling we haven’t seen the real Mirren yet, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how her character develops in the next book.

I do have one little complaint, though: With three perspectives battling for dominance, I felt Josh was pushed aside a bit too much, particularly in the first half of the book. Josh is the narrator I’ve bonded with the most, so naturally I was hoping to see much more from her perspective. Both Mirren and Will’s perspectives are really well done and entertaining… but they just weren’t Josh!

I love the direction the story has taken, overall, and the ending was shocking, explosive and completely unexpected! I LOVED it! But, oh whoa, that epilogue, though!? But particularly that last sentence in the epilogue, oh my lordy lord, HOLD ME! *Sobs* What the heck is going to happen?! I can’t handle not knowing! *Sobs even harder* I’m usually not a fan of epilogues, but this one was kinda painful, yet kinda perfect in a stressful sort of way!

I loved Dreamfire, and I was wondering how the sequel would match up to it, but personally, I thought Dreamfever was so much better overall. The character development was phenomenal, and I can’t wait to see what direction the story will take. I’m not even going to begin guessing how everything will be rectified, but I’m dying to find out what’ll happen next!

Review: Dreamfire by Kit Alloway

Title: Dreamfire
Author: Kit Alloway
Format: Hardback, kindly
provided by St Martin's Griffin
for review. (Thank you!!)
My rating: 4 / 5
Publisher: St Martin's Griffin

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Joshlyn Weaver has always lived with a big secret. Ordinary kids spend their free time going to the movies, hanging out with friends, and searching on the internet.

But for her, an evening at home usually means entering people's dreams. For many generations, her family has been part of a very powerful and very secretive society of dream walkers. Tasked with the responsibility of lowering the world's general anxiety — which only leads to war and strife in the waking world — their job has always been to stop nightmares before they go too far. By stopping nightmares while sleeping, they help to stop nightmares in real life.

But when an ancient feud within the dream walker society resurfaces right when a seemingly unconnected series of very strange and very scary events start occurring during her dream walks, Josh finds herself in a race against time. The one true dream walker has never been known. Could she be the one?

-- As seen on Goodreads

My Thoughts

I really enjoyed Dreamfire! It was hard to get wrapped up in the story initially, but by the end, I was completely hooked. I finished reading it last week, and since then I’ve been trying to put into words what I thought about it, and I can’t pinpoint one emotion that fully justifies how I feel. The more I think about it, I realise it’s one of those books that I really liked, but there were a couple of things that bothered me a little.

The world building and the entire concept of dream walking was my favourite part of the book – it was fabulous! I’ve personally never read anything quite like it, and I thoroughly enjoyed finding out how the dream walkers world works. They visit nightmares, and they do their best to help the dreamer avoid being overcome by their dreamfire. Dreamfire is caused by the dreamers greatest fears coming true in their nightmares, and the dream walkers try to help the dreamer overcome this fear and end the nightmare quickly in order to keep balance between the dream world and our world. Everything is so fabulously thought out and so intricate and detailed, it takes a good chunk of the book to get all the information needed to fully appreciate just how complex it actually is. I LOVED the way the dream world and nightmares were described! I feel like we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg, and I can’t wait to find out more!

I liked both of our main characters. Josh is our main female character, and born into a prominent dream walker family. She excels at dream walking, and on her 17th birthday, she’s assigned an apprentice. It turns out to be Will Kansas, a boy she’s gone to school with forever, but never had much to do with. The story is told in the third person, and we get to see over both Josh and Will’s shoulders. I really liked this, as we get to see the story develop from both their perspectives. I was so happy that their relationship slowly grew over the course of the book! It felt believable, and I loved that they didn’t rush straight from being unwilling acquaintances to best mates and lovers. The slight downside: I usually find it hard to fully ‘click’ with characters when a story is told in the third person, and I had this problem with Dreamfire, too. I liked both Josh and Will, and I loved how distinct their personalities were, but something was holding me back from fully connecting and ultimately loving them.

During the first few chapters, we’re introduced to A LOT of characters, really quickly. I found it a bit overwhelming at one stage, particularly during Josh’s birthday party. I was barely familiar with Josh herself at that stage, and new character names were popping up left and right, and I had no idea how important they were to the story, or who was connected to each other. Thankfully, things did settle down a good bit after the initial onslaught!

I think Dreamfire could be one of those books that gets better and better with a couple of rereads… now that I’m familiar with the concept and characters, I know I’d pick up on so much more details during a second reading. Despite a couple of little things, I thought Dreamfire was a fabulous debut, and a really awesome action packed start to a new series. I hope there will be a sequel in the works soon, as I can’t wait to see how the world develops!

*I received a copy of this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review. This didn't influence my opinion in any way.*