Review for Dreamland by Alyson Noel

Dreamland (Riley Bloom #3)
By Alyson Noel
Published by Square Fish
Source: Won from Iceybooks
192 pages

Riley’s finding that the afterlife can be a lonely place when all you do is focus on work. So she goes to the place where dreams happen, hoping to find a way to contact her sister, Ever. She meets the director, who tells her about the two ways to send dreams. As a Dream Jumper, a person can jump into a dreamer’s dream, share a message, and participate. As a Dreamweaver, an entire dream can be created in a studio and sent to the dreamer. But Dreamweaving was outlawed decades ago, and the studio was boarded up. Thinking it’s her only way to reach out to her sister, Riley goes in search of the old studio. There she finds a ghost boy, who’s been creating and sending nightmares to people for years. In order to stop him and reach out to Ever, Riley is going to have to confront and overcome her own fears. -Goodreads

I wasn't sure what to expect, I haven't read the first two books and I've only read Evermore from the main series. I know that most of you are shaking your head thinking, "Sin! Sin! Book sin!" because yes I have commited a great sin and gone completely out of order and jumped in the middle. But alas here are my thoughts.

First of all, as the afore mentioned, I jumped in not knowing the characters or plot or well anything. I could easily follow, despite that fact, and could attach myself to the characters. Riley is a sassy character, and although her fiery drive gets her in trouble, I think that quality is what totally made this book enjoyable. She's twelve and I really liked how the author portrays her as that age - not older or younger! Her dog Buttercup is awesome (I know I'm such a sap for dogs!) and I'm sad to see this is the only book (!) that doesn't have Buttercup on the cover! Bodhi is Riley's guide and I wish we could've seen more of him in this book but since they are on 'vacation' they split and go seperate ways. Sigh. I've heard that the past two books centered on them together. Missed out on that eh? He was, what I thought, a pretty cool guide (Riley is crushing on him and she doesn't know it!) I also loved, loved the scene between Riley and Ever! It was so darn sweet.. and sad. The characters were great throughout!

The plot is pretty easy on the action, it kept me reading but not frantically. I didn't mind that though. I found this to have a certain light feeling to it and I couldn't help but smile at how the author described Here & Now. I thought it was a good-feeling setting and put the reader at ease.  The dream-jumping/weaving was really neat to read about! The quality of the writing was smooth and no 'reading between the lines' deal here.

Overall, I would recommend it to readers who have started this series, like sassy and fun characters and a light-quick read!

Excerpt:

Let's just say that it couldn't be missed.

After all, I'd seen it.

Bodhi had seen it.

Even Buttercup had looked right at me and barked a few times as he wagged his tail and spun around.

All of which I took as a pretty good sign that the Council would see it too—from what I knew of them, they didn't miss a thing.

I relaxed, pushed my hair off my face, and thought: How bad can it be when my glow is so clearly minty green?

More @ this website

Audiobook Clip!

Book Trailer: