Whatever this is, it comes over them quietly: a sudden drowsiness, a closing of the eyes. Most of the victims are found in their beds.Friends, I was so incredibly excited for The Dreamers as I am a sucker for infection stories and the premise of this one sounded so interesting. There's a reader for every book, but unfortunately this one was not for me. While the writing is beautiful, I found the story had too many characters and suffered from a lack of a clear narrative voice that ultimately made it difficult for me to care about the characters.
When I say that there is not a main character of the book, I mean it. The narrative shifts between... a lot of different characters in the town as the sickness spreads to the point that I wonder if the main character is meant to be the town itself. In that way the reader is able to draw theories and watch the developments, but for me this had the side effect of being confused. This is a book that would benefit from having a character list at the front to help jog your memory while reading because the narrative shifts are not systematic: sometimes a lot happens before we revisit.
The Dreamers is told in third person omniscient with many characters to follow as the sickness makes its way through the small college town. While this narrative voice works a lot of times, for me it did a disservice on this book. I found the plot to being mostly telling, and unfortunately the downside of having a myriad of characters to follow in this narrative voice means you don't really learn much about their thoughts and motivations, and ultimately I didn't care for any of them and I feel like the perspectives lacked any sense of urgency.
As a result of my not connecting with the characters, this is a plot-driven but on more than one occasion I found myself confused with the storytelling. There seemed to be a couple of continuity errors, such as characters falling asleep and then not being asleep later, and I honestly spent much of my time reading this book intensely confused. I am trying to keep this spoiler free but it's been days an I am still mad: Why the hell was there all this hullaballoo about the kids that got out of town and then it was NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN!? It is worth noting that I read an uncorrected proof and it is possible that some of the continuity errors I noticed will be fixed prior to publication. Ultimately I think that what worked the least for me personally was it is unclear who is telling this story. Parts of it seem almost like a report after an outbreak but that did not seem to be consistent to me (and that scientific/noting it for history perspective would have SO WORKED HERE), and the ending in my opinion kind of made that less plausible for me. I was hoping that the book would be redeemed by an ending but I was very disappointed with how it ended and did not feel like any of my questions were answered.
Where this book shines is with the poetic writing. The book had such a strong start and I was instantly engaged, but unfortunately my engagement dwindled as more characters were introduced. The synopsis makes it seem like the book is about Mei, and while I felt for her the most out of the cast of characters she isn't the central character to the book - had she been it would have been much stronger in my opinion. My opinion is definitely in the minority as the average rating on Goodreads at the time of writing this review is 3.99, with only 22 of the 467 ratings a two- or one-star rating. Take my review with a grain of salt and if this sounds like something you would enjoy, pick it up. If you tend to agree with my reviews... I might recommend that you avoid this one.
Inadvertent buddy read with Rae, thank you for ensuring that I was not losing my mind with this read!
REPRESENTATION: Chinese American
TRIGGER WARNINGS: bullying, insensitivity to other cultures (making fun of Mai's traditional cuisine), grief and loss, animal death
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