THE WAKING DREAMER - J.E. Alexander

There's a really fine line, when writing stories set in dream worlds with nightmarish denizens and frustrated teens, between well-crafted worlds that make a certain kind of necessary sense even if it's not obvious to the reader at first, and self-indulgent whimsy that may have made sense to the author upon writing, but doesn't hold up for a general audience read.

This book falls into the latter category.

I think it's fitting to share the author's description of the book from Goodreads here (in part, I admit, because I'm not sure I could sum this up):

Emmett’s dream is always the same. Tingling with half-forgotten memories, he stands in an unknown room surrounded by mirrors, curio cabinets, and nesting dolls. A painting, Belshazzar’s Feast, hangs on the wall, its disembodied hand numbering the King’s final days. Then comes the stranger, the serpent-wielding young woman with the glittering amber eyes. Her words are always the same. Emmett will soon save her. Then the supposed hero awakens to his unremarkable life, awaiting the next night and the same maddeningly familiar dream.

Seventeen-year-old orphan Emmett Brennan remembers nothing of his past—not the boiler room in which his needle-ravaged mother gave birth to him, nor the Druids who tenderly delivered him. He can’t remember the cabal-summoned Revenant that clawed itself from shadow to hunt him, or why his mystical midwives hid him from the necromantic creature. Approaching adulthood, he is unaware of the dark forces that still search for him or the mysterious sentinels who secretly protect him, but on the eve of his eighteenth birthday that will change. The Revenants will find him. Only the young woman from his dreams can help him confront all he was once made to forget. Together, they will brave the nightmarish landscape Emmett’s waking world will soon become.

It's been a decade since I received a copy of this book to read and review and there's a reason it's taken me so long to get to it. I've struggled and struggled and finally decided I just needed to do it.

Aside from the randomness of the dreams, our central character just isn't worth reading about. I happen to like horror and dreamworlds (when done well) - I still think about some of the early Tim Waggoner books I read. But there's got to be something, anything, to give us a reason to want to follow this story. Usually that's character, but Emmett is so unlikeable and so ... stupid (I saw some other reviews refer to him as TSTL and I had to look that up) ... that I really had hoped he was going to lead us to the real protagonist.  Alas, no.

There's a 'romance' - if you can call it that.  It's a boy and girl who fall immediately in love - which was so unnecessary and, I felt, simply trying to cling to a trope for extra readership.

Although listed as a Book #1, there's been no second volume so if you should happen to read and like it, don't be too eager for more.

Looking for a good book? This isn't it.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

1-1/2 stars

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The Waking Dreamer

author: J.E. Alexander

series: The Waking Dreamer #1

publisher: Mechanical Owl Media

ISBN: 9780615876511

paperback, 343 pages