"Brassmere Academy for the Extraordinary is a school for orphans with strange and wonderful gifts. Twelve-year-old Plum has lived there forever, and each night, she ventures into her dreams alongside her three best friends, Vien, Gwendle, and Artem, to fight monsters and journey on dangerous quests. But one night, Plum gets a mysterious warning that she and her friends are no longer safe. And the next morning, Artem is nowhere to be found."
When I read the blurb about this book, it seemed so very interesting, but alas when I read the book I was left wondering...hmph!

I wish the book was a few hundred pages more, we could have read more about the school and students.

This book was just not for me- I was not able to get into it. It seems to be geared more towards middle school than my library. Therefore I will not be purchasing this title. Thanks for the opportunity to read it. (I will not be posting a review on Goodreads so as not to skew its rating).

DeStefano's middle grade offerings continue to be excellent (in a surprising twist, I usually love YA and don't like middle grade, but I really like DeStefano's middle grade and not her YA - go figure).

Dreaming Dangerous takes place at a mysterious school for the gifted and largely takes place in the dreams of the main four students whose power is that they dream in tandem. Within the dreams, they come to suspect that all is not right in the state of Brassmere Academy.

The mood is on point, haunting and eerie, and I devoured the pages curious for the outcome. The plotting, however, runs to the simplistic, and the world building is pretty much nonexistent. Brassmere seems to exist outside of the actual world, unconnected to anything.

I enjoyed Dreaming Dangerous, but it's probably the weakest of her middle grade books so far. It's worth it for the horror and inventiveness of it, but I would have liked for there to be a bit more meat on these bones.

Lauren DeStefano has brought us another creepy and mysterious story for the middle grades. The students at Brassmere Academy all have special talents, and Plum and her friends are considered special even there. Plum, Artem, Vien, and Gwendle are able to dream together and even control those dreams. But when their dreams turn scary and the group gets separated both in dreams and real life, Plum and her friends must discover the truth about Brassmere Academy and each other.

I had the opportunity to read a digital ARC of this middle grade fantasy novel in exchange for a review. This book is a fun adventure that takes readers into the world of dreams. The main characters are friends that attend Brassmere, a school for extraordinary children with supernatural talents. Plum, Vien, Gwendle, and Artem have the ability to interact with each other while they’re asleep. They are able to engage in tandem dreaming, where they meet up with each other in a dream and work together to defeat whatever threatens them.
But their dreams become more unusual and they start to receive strange warnings in them. When one of the friends disappears, the others realize that things aren’t as they seem at this school, and they can’t be sure who to trust. There is lots of action and ideas about dream experiences for middle grade readers who like those sorts of stories. There’s a little bit of violent gore, but not anything that’s over the top for kids in grades five and up. The story can be a bit confusing at times as the action switches between real life and the dream world. Also, the ending is a bit abrupt without a clear understanding of the motives for the villain of the story.

Thank you to Bloomsbury Publishing and Netgalley for the advance Kindle copy of this 7/3 release. All opinions are my own.
•
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫/5 for this uniquely sophisticated story aimed at middle grades audiences. Plum has been raised at the Brassmere Academy for the Extraordinary. Each student has a gift (or gifts), and their dreams are monitored carefully by Brassmere’s staff. Each night, Plum and her three friends dream in tandem. As the dreams start to change, Plum discovers the truth about why they are there and where they really belong. Can they find a way out?
•
I really like how the story is just the right amount of scary for middle grades readers. This is a quick read as well; however, I would have liked to see the ending a little less rushed. Overall, a winner for teachers and librarians who work with readers in grades 5-8 (I would peg the ideal audience at grades 5-7).

I absolutely adored this book - at the start - and if i could, I'd leave five stars for the first 80% and then 2 stars for the last 20%. I have a middle-schooler and this is just the sort of book that would appeal - a mysterious school (including gargoyles that supposedly keep strangers out and people from leaving), students with amazing abilities, and strong characters that work together and are dedicated to each other. The students have been raised from birth at the school, so they haven't questioned anything until the dreams that Plum, Artem, Vien and Gwendle share start to change in ways that are scary and wrong.

The book hurtles along and builds tension.

And then comes to a sudden end, with far too many thing left undone, and unexplained. (I had to recheck the percentage left on my Kindle, and was rightly confused.)

The gargoyles, the creatures freed from the wallpaper, the children who escaped? HOW did this happen? What triggered it? What triggered Melinda's music? And for that matter, where did all these otherworldly things come from if Dr. Abarrane is responsible for the children?

It pains me to leave a low review for any book, particularly one that starts out and carries through so strongly, but this one feels someone edited out chapters for the sake of book length (or tore pages from a library book). There are too many gaps in the plot and the ending was so abrupt that I was left confused.

My initial reaction to Dreaming Dangerous was extremely positive. By the end of the first chapter, I was raving to my coworker about how matter-of-factly the creepiness of the atmosphere was handled (the sort of accepting attitude you can really only find in middle grade books), and I loved the protagonists and the concept and the writing style. As I read, though, I looked down at the bottom of the kindle page and realized how little of the book was left. I started to wonder if maybe I had gotten an extended chapter sampler instead of the full book, but then the book just -- ended. The whole thread of "Melinda knows something she isn't saying" was never explored, the whole reason WHY everyone kept telling Plum they were coming for her was never explored, Dr. Abarrane was outed as the villain and the friends left the school in a flurry of magical animals (despite the fact that we were being led heavily towards science fiction) and then it was five years later. I adored the style and the characters and got incredibly wrapped up in the story only for it to end without ever following through. I've loved DeStefano's books in the past and will keep reading more from her, but I was disappointed in this one.