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Reviewed by:
  • Dream Fall by Amy Plum
  • April Spisak
Plum, Amy Dream Fall. HarperTeen/HarperCollins, 2017 [288p]
Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-242987-2 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-06-242989-6 $9.99
Reviewed from galleys         Ad Gr. 8-10

Insomnia has led seven teens to sign up for a highly experimental procedure that could cure their sleeplessness. They don't know one another, but when a malfunction throws them all into some sort of shared nightmare, they must quickly become a team. None of the teens knows the rules for what's happening in this world, but they figure out that they're all dreaming, that they were all part of the same experiment, and that they will be facing terrifying nightmares in a cyclical pattern. On the outside, researchers and a premed student are frantically trying to revive the comatose bodies, unsure what went wrong and how to fix it. Entries from the premed student are compelling, describing the panic, slow realization of what might be going on inside the teens' brains, and horrifying secrets revealed in the experiment notes about one of the teens. Unfortunately, the dream side is far less successful, with too much telling and not enough showing, and the cast gets unbalanced and muddy characterization depending on what is needed in a given moment. The ambiguous ending is more frustrating than tantalizing, with too many threads left dangling. Even with the concerns, horror fans who are just in it for the series of truly terrifying nightmares may come away satisfied.

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