Triple Review: Wake, Fade & Gone

Wake by Lisa McMann
(Amazon / Goodreads)

Fade by Lisa McMann
(Amazon / Goodreads)

Gone by Lisa McMann
(Amazon / Goodreads)

Goodreads description for Wake:

For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime. She can't tell anybody about what she does they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can’t control. Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I’m not that big a fan of paranormal stories, but I really enjoyed this one. The paranormal aspect was completely unique, unlike just using the stereotype of a vampire, witch, etc. I loved the whole dream-thing – I found out lots about the concept of dreaming. To me, dreaming (and psychology in general) are fascinating, even though I don’t know that much about it, so that was really interesting.

This was so much more than just any paranormal read, as the rest of the plot was completely realistic – all of the characters were believable. I understood Janie’s conflict perfectly, especially in Gone. Cabel was a great character with depth, too, and I thought it was adorable how he took care of Jamie. Their relationship was cute, but still realistic – the ups and downs were always believable.

The secondary characters were well-developed as well. Carrie was a perfect dysfunctional friend. Janie’s mom, her effect on Jamie and their whole situation were heartbreaking, especially in the beginning of Wake, when all of this is described from 8-year-old Jamie’s perspective, and she states her mother’s condition as a fact, with such innocence…it made feel for her that much more.

I’m still not sure whether I liked the writing in this series. The style was minimalistic, to say the least, and the sentences were short and fragmented. Normally, I like more fleshed-out descriptions, but I got used to it after a while. It somehow worked for this story, for the most part, but it was too extreme for me at some points. Lisa McMann used a third-person, present-tense narrative, which I thought was a somewhat strange combination. The writing seemed almost like out of a journal, which didn’t fit to the third-person narrative. Maybe I’m biased, though – in general, I prefer past-tense and first-person narratives.

My favorite of the series was probably Fade, just because that one had the most action, which fit the fast-paced style best.

All in all, this is a book I definitely recommend to both fans of paranormal and of contemporary stories. The plot was unique, and the novel was fast-paced, a real page-turner. The characters and their relationships were completely realistic and relatable. The style and writing takes some getting-used-to, but I think it works as a whole.