Book Review: Dreamers Often Lie

About the Book:
Title: Dreamers Often Lie
Author: Jacqueline West
Pub. Date: April 5, 2016
Publisher: Dial Books
Pages: 304
Rating: 2/5 stars

Synopsis:

Jaye wakes up from a skiing accident with a fractured skull, a blinding headache, and her grip on reality sliding into delusion. Determined to get back to her starring role in the school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Jaye lies to her sister, her mom, her doctors. She's fine, she says. She's fine. If anyone knew the truth - that hallucinations of Shakespeare and his characters have followed her from her hospital bed to the high school halls - it would all be over. She’s almost managing to pull off the act when Romeo shows up in her anatomy class. And it turns out that he's 100% real. Suddenly Jaye has to choose between lying to everyone else and lying to herself.

Troubled by the magnetic new kid, a long-lost friend turned recent love interest, and the darkest parts of her family's past, Jaye’s life tangles with Shakespeare's most famous plays until she can't tell where truth ends and pretending begins. Soon, secret meetings and dizzying first kisses give way to more dangerous things. How much is real, how much is in Jaye's head, and how much does it matter as she flies toward a fate over which she seems to have no control?

Review:

Let me start off this review by saying that I was extremely excited to read this novel. From the beautiful cover to the intriguing blurb...I thought this book would be right up my alley. Unfortunately, it just wasn't for me. I think a lot of people will like this book, but it wasn't my cup of tea and there was too many things I couldn't get over to give this a higher rating. I honestly considered DNF'ing it about halfway through, but I felt obligated to finish it to the end to see what would happen and if Jaye would ever actually learn from her mistakes (which FYI...she didn't).

By a couple chapters into reading this novel, I was extremely bored. This is the reason why....a pattern repeated throughout the book: school, hallucination, rehearsal for play, hallucination, home, hallucination, get into trouble and make the same exact mistake, hallucination. Basically this sums up the entire book. The hallucinations were just thrown in mid-sentence, which for some might work, and might have the reader second guessing what was real vs what wasn't. But for me, it was just annoying and bothersome. If this wasn't how it was every single time, I probably wouldn't have minded it as much, but throughout the entire book, every hallucination felt the same and repetitive. And what I thought would play a major role in the book (aka the Shakespearean characters) was relegated to the background and was just an offset to the underlying "love story." Love story is in quotes for a reason, which I'll get to later on in my review, but can be summed up by this:

Jaye's character was someone I had multiple problems with. She constantly was apologizing for making mistakes and saying she learned her lesson, but did she? No, not once. I thought that her character would grow and become a character that I loved, but she never did. She repeatedly makes the same mistakes (something that annoyed me to no end), and very under-developed. I never felt a connection to her, and by the end of the book, I didn't really care one way or the other about what happened to her character. The love interests, Rob and Pierce, were two other characters that were just okay. I hated Pierce, and Rob was marginally better. I saw more potential with Rob's character, but again, he was never fully fleshed out to allow me to connect with his character in the end. Jaye's best friends were pushed to the side, and I actually did enjoy their scenes a great deal since they added some much needed humor to the book. I wish we were able to see more from them! 

Onto the "romance" part of the book. I thought this was actually the weakest aspect of the book. The "love triangle" was boring and lackluster, and I didn't really feel like Jaye actually liked either Rob or Pierce. Again, this could solely lie in the fact that I never felt connected to Jaye's character, but I never felt Jaye wanted a relationship with either character. To further my feelings on this, she kept going back and forth between Rob and Pierce and it drove me insane. At one point, I was literally screaming in my head, JUST CHOOSE ALREADY!!! 

The ending of the book is definitely confusing to say the least, and while I think I understand what happened, I'm still not entirely sure. It could be the fact that I simply didn't care that much at this point, but if I am correct in my thinking, I do applaud Ms. West for giving a major twist ending. However, I do think that the ending should have been a bit more clear and more resolved. 

Overall, this book just wasn't for me. Maybe I went in with too high of expectations, or maybe I just didn't like Ms. West's writing style. Regardless, I do think some people will greatly enjoy this book, I just wasn't one of these people. 

Happy reading :)

~Cassie