I never, ever (ever, ever, ever) enter giveaways. As in never. I think in my whole life, I've entered maybe two. So I'm not sure what it was that drew me in so spectacularly, but I saw that there was a giveaway going on for this book on Twitter.
And I thought, you know what? It has a couple more days left to go. I'll enter.
And the end of the giveaway came around and lo and behold, I had a Twitter notification from the author telling me that I had won! Now, that day, I wasn't very well, and I spent the entirety of the day curled up in bed under a pile of blankets, and receiving that notification, and the following conversation I had with the author, brightened my day up exponentially.
So, enough chit chat, let me introduce the book, and then get into the review!
Thirty-one, funeral director, London. That’s pretty much all Julian Desmond remembers from his waking life.
He wakes in a dimension that can only be accessed via dreams (REM World).
A rock monster tells him dreams are real and they can kill him. The Resistance promises to protect him, but when he receives his Gift of premonition, he learns it’s at a price.
Laughing Man seems clueless, harmless, even doltish. But he’s evidently destined to join forces with an immortal tyrant.
Julian chooses to save his life. He intends to use him as leverage, but as the nights wear on and he grows more powerful, will he come to regret it?
A harrowing journey of self-destruction, addiction, grief, trauma, and healing.
REM sleep is the phase of sleep wherein you dream vividly. Reading this book is almost like dreaming vividly for hours upon hours. It's not that you can't wake up, or put the book down – it's possible, of course, but when people are asleep, in a dream that they are enjoying, waking up is the last thing they want to do.
Julian Desmond wakes up in a strange room, unable to remember where he was or how he got there. When a statue in the room starts to move, starts to speak to him, Julian freaks out. He tries to run, but to no avail. It seems there is no escape from this strange place.
The statue, who calls himself Jax, and Julian are joined by Rylann, an older woman with a head of rainbow hair. Julian slowly starts to understand the situation as it is explained – he is asleep, dreaming, and has woken up in REM.
The world that Julian finds himself in, is a world of seeming chaos, with a war raging outside of the Resistance bunker, and different worlds converging into one. Julian finds himself face to face with a hippodamus, dryads, and a vision of a laughing man, a premonition that showed the man leading a reign of terror alongside Lord Titus, REM's great tyrant.
Yet, when he comes face to face with the laughing man, he is not at all as expected.
This book is a whirlwind, to say the least! When we join Julian, he is as clueless as the reader, having lost his memory. As he gets flashbacks, and slowly regains snapshots of his life in the waking world, both he and the reader start to piece together the puzzle that is Julian Desmond.
One thing I liked about this book in particular was that many different things are represented, and that the characters react accordingly to certain situations. For Julian, knowing that he comes from 1720, trying to come to terms with the fact that he is attracted to, and feels a bond with, several of the male characters in this novel was interesting, and written exceptionally well. He doesn't want to accept who he is, because it is a crime, blasphemous. Yet, no one around him thinks so, the rest of the characters from the modern day. This book should not be viewed with discrimination, for it is all about acceptance, about learning who you really are and coming to terms with the fact that nothing's going to change who you are, so the sooner you find your friends in the world, the better.
There are several characters that I really enjoyed reading about. One of these is Julian, for obvious reasons! He is not only the main character, but a compelling protagonist, and I thoroughly enjoyed following him on the journey of trying to figure out who his friends are, and indeed, who he is. Despite everything stacked against him, I also really liked Miles. He is a fun, carefree type of person, and he was, for the most part, a very fun character to read about.
The world that has been created between the covers of this book is astounding, the kind that you can imagine vividly. It is one that you want to go to and never ever visit, both at the same time. There were a few moments when I found myself slightly lost in the story, mainly in action scenes, where things moved a little too quickly and I grew confused as to the events that were transpiring. However, this seems to generally be answered by the fact that Julian also does not know what is happening.
This book ends as a television series might end, on the brink of everything. Everything has built up to this one moment, and then the screen fades to black, the last page is turned. There's even a dramatic closing line. It is the kind of thing that makes fans so incredibly hyped for the next series (or book!) that they start theorising, guessing what will happen next, desperate for more. I looked up when this book came out and I was DISTRAUGHT to learn that it has only been out for two and a half months, which means I will likely have to wait for AGES for book 2!
And done!
It did take me several days to read this book, mainly because I had a busy week the week I decided to start reading this book. At one point, I was so engrossed in the story that I accidentally spilt water all over myself, and just continued sitting where I was, with wet legs, because I didn't want to put the book down.
Thank you so much to the author for sending me a copy of this book, I really enjoyed reading it and cannot WAIT for book 2!
Bye!
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