Book Review: Dreamwalker by C.S. Friedman

Dreamwalker by C.S. Friedman (DAW)

Genre: Young Adult Science Fiction Fantasy

Series: Book 1 of Dreamwalker

Publication Date: February 4, 2014

Author Information: Website

Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars

To my surprise, Dreamwalker turned out to be a pretty big departure from C.S. Friedman’s previous works. Still, I was no less charmed by the remarkable story and characters than I had been before I realized this was a book more geared towards the young adult audience. After all, YA fantasy has so much to offer these days, and as someone who enjoys reading this category quite a bit, I found Dreamwalker to be a promising start to what has the potential to become a great new series.

I was hooked right away with the introduction to the Drake siblings, Jessica (“Jesse” to her friends) and her little brother Tommy. The book starts off by throwing them into some pretty heavy situations, and I don’t doubt for a second that this had something to do with why I was so taken with these characters. Jesse and Tommy’s father, who doesn’t actually appear in this novel, still casts a dark shadow on the family even years after he walked away from them, by claiming that Jesse is another man’s child. To prove to him that this is not true, Jesse’s mom takes her to get a paternity test.

Yikes, what an awful situation for anyone let alone a teenager to find themselves in, but Jesse’s composure and steadfast support for her mother made me appreciate her more as a protagonist and narrator. But of course, these problems are just the beginning. When the DNA test results come back, that’s when Jesse’s true mettle will be tested. What would you do if you discovered that you weren’t the person you thought you were? What would you do if you found out you might not even be part of this world? A new term has gained significance with Jesse: Changeling. Desperate to make sense of her life, Jesse goes on the search for answers and instead finds many others who are in similar situations like hers.

The family’s problems have touched Jesse’s brother Tommy’s life as well, though they have affected him in different ways. I have to say his obsession with gaming in the wake of his father’s departure broke my heart a little; having spent years playing online games myself and in doing so meeting people who have used this hobby as an avenue of escape, I understand all too well how someone could turn to virtual worlds and internet friends in order to drown out painful feelings. It could happen to anyone, young or old. For me, it is another point to Jesse’s character that she doesn’t judge her brother, and instead tries to share in his interests by letting him use her weird and disturbing dreams as inspiration for his roleplaying campaigns.

When a stranger comes poking around the Drakes’ lives and Tommy is kidnapped however, Jesse begins to have the dreaded suspicion that it is all because of her and her dreams. Her mission to get her brother back is what leads her and her new friends on a journey to another world, one that the author has done a phenomenal job of creating. I really enjoyed the premise of this novel, which explores parallel universes and alternate realities. In doing so, Friedman also addresses important social issues like race, poverty and human rights. Overall this is a fun and adventurous novel, but there are definitely some weighty topics of discussion in here.

Perhaps my only issue with the book is how jumbled it feels at certain times, perhaps due to the frequent switching of first-person to third-person between some chapters. This doesn’t usually bother me in other books, but for some reason it is quite noticeable here. My guess is it has something to do with chapter length and how short some of these third-person intervals are. Some parts of the plot are also resolved too neatly, or too conveniently. For example, at one point in the novel Jesse and her friends meet a character who essentially hands them everything they need to succeed in their quest, though how that character managed to obtain the tools and information in the first place is not really addressed.

There are also lots of ideas in play, and how they all relate to each other does make itself apparent until much later in the book, so the first half of the story may feel a bit disjointed. Personally I don’t mind stories like this, which are like mysteries that I know will unravel in time. As such, this was a fast read for me because I found I couldn’t stop myself from turning the pages. Every person you encounter is a question, because you don’t know whose side they’re on. I just couldn’t wait to see how all the puzzle pieces would fall into place, and the ending was sadly over much too soon. I was actually a little surprised at how quickly it wrapped up.

Even so, the ending leaves things wide open for more of Jesse’s story (though it is not a cliffhanger, thank you!), and I know I will want to be there to see what happens next. I think as long as you go into this with the knowledge it is going to be different from the author’s other books, Dreamwalker may yet surprise you. This is C.S. Friedman tackling the young adult fantasy genre, and I feel she did an impressive job.