THE DREAMERS by Karen Thompson Walker (Jan 15,2019) is a novel about a small California town struck down by a mysterious sleeping sickness. The story is as haunting as the dreams that the sick experience, and Walker's language is powerful as she explores individual characters' responses to the threat of falling asleep. This is both a harrowing view at a town in crisis, and an intimate look at how relationships fare through it all. This book kept me up far past my bedtime, and I finished it in two sittings--I just couldn't put it down! Highly recommend.

In Karen Thompson Walker's gripping and powerful new novel, students at a small college town in Southern California are struck down by an inexplicable illness wherein they fall asleep and cannot be awoken. The school attempts a quarantine, with little effect, and the number of those stricken rises. Soon it appears that locals are being affected as well. Told from multiple points of view, this haunting & atmospheric novel will entrance readers.

I loved The Age of Miracles so I was excited to read KTW's latest. Another Goodreads reviewer described this perfectly - as slow-pocalypse. The writing is absolutely beautiful...I could have underlined this whole book. The characters are vivid and fully formed and the story is compelling and inventive. Wonderful.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed this author’s first book, The Age of Miracles, which has a similar premise to this book. Both books address possible apocalyptic events. The first book dealt with what happens when the earth starts turning more slowly. This book deals with a terrifying, contagious virus that causes those afflicted to fall into a deep sleep, and in most cases, never wake up.

The premise was very interesting and I enjoyed this book. I am rating it 3 out of 5 stars because I didn’t feel like there was a main character. From what I recall about The Age of Miracles, there was a definite main character whose narrative drove the story. In this book, I felt like it was written in such a detached, impassive way that I felt I was being kept at arms length from the story. This prevented me from getting to know, or care about, any of the characters.

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my advanced copy in exchange for an honest review*

4.5*

College. A time when teens begin the transformation into adulthood... (In theory!) Truly, just teenagers experiencing life away from home for the first time. Wide-eyed excitement, anticipation and seemingly endless opportunities the world has to offer them.

But at an un-assuming, small college in Santa Lora California, that idyllic life is about to change forever.

When Kara comes home unusually early from a night of drinking, she slips quietly into her dorm, and climbs into her bunkbed. The next morning, her roommate Mei can’t wake her from what seems like a deep, drunken slumber. It’s not long before everyone realizes this is only the beginning, as others begin to drift away into the same deep, deep sleep.

Are these students playing a college prank? Copying each others’ behavior? Or does the town need to take this more seriously?

This book had me hooked from start to finish. It seemed to have, pardon the pun, a real dream-like quality to it. I couldn’t wait to see where this was headed and what was behind it all. If you’re ready for something a little different that’ll leave you mystified and yes, maybe just a little bit scared, this is one you must add to your list! I highly recommend.

A fabulous buddy read with Susanne!

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House - Publishing Group and Karen Thompson Walker for an ARC to read in exchange for an honest review

After reading The Dreamers, I can say I will definitely be picking up her previous work (The Age of Miracles) and anything else she might publish in the future. I flew through this read in a day, which rarely happens for me anymore as I often jump from book to book. Although the book follows a plot that seems like it would be worn out by now, and jumps around to multiple storylines in a way that could be exhausting, Thompson somehow writes a world with characters who are fresh and compelling, and as a result, this book flies by. It is a quick read, and one that is not at all tiresome, yet carries with it a lot of wisdom — it is rare that you find a book so enjoyable to read with this much reward upon coming to the end.


(full review to be published on 9thstreetmagazine.com in December)

I didn’t enjoy this one nearly as much as I expected to. After hearing a few rave reviews from friends, I had high hopes. It was just okay for me, evidenced by the fact that it took me ten days to finish it. It started out interesting enough, people succumbing to a mysterious sleeping sickness. It begins to spread, a quarantine is established, people die. I finished this one with a feeling of incompletion, not really knowing what just happened...

The Dreamers is a somewhat apocalyptic story, where a town is quarantined off after a mysterious sleeping sickness takes over the city. The writing has a dream-like quality to it, carrying you through different houses and stories as the sickness spreads. The idea of dreams versus reality is thread throughout the novel and gets you thinking- if we can’t truly know if we are dreaming, then we can’t know what is reality.

I had trouble feeling connected to any of the characters in this book, and at times the story felt too slow. The ending was also a bit rushed and left me feeling somewhat unresolved. I am a newbie to the apocalyptic genre, but if you are not this book may be more your style!

4.25 Stars.

In Santa Lora, California, a College Student, named Kara, falls into a deep dream filled sleep. No one can wake her. She is the first of many.

Mei was Kara’s roommate, she and several other survivors on Kara’s floor, including a teenager named Matthew, have been quarantined. Two sisters, Sara and Libby are left to fend for themselves after their father succumbs to sleep. Around town, there are armed guards, keeping the uninfected together in one place. Supermarkets are out of food and people are scared. The brain waves of the sick are highly unusual showing that the dreamers are in an active dream state and no one has any idea what it means.

My nerves were on high alert from the very first, my detective skills working overtime trying to figure out every possible scenario. Can you blame me? I mean, even though it sounds somewhat innocuous, this is still an illness I have no interest in catching.

Karen Thompson Walker’s “The Dreamers” is slow to build, but it immediately transfixes you. It is intriguing, lovely, lyrical and yes, a bit terrifying. It makes you think about the idea of community v confinement and which situation would help or hurt you most in a situation like this. “The Dreamers” also makes you ponder your dreams and what they mean. If you’ve ever had crazy dreams, this novel gives you food for thought!

This is a character driven novel: my heart lurched and my chest pounded and I felt like I was on an emotional roller coaster. “The Dreamers” is quite different, it has a “sleepily” quality to it, if you will (ha ha), and it’s a highly satisfying, haunting read which I absolutely loved.

This was a buddy read with Ms. Kaceey! So so glad we read this one together!

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group - Random House and Karen Thompson Walker for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Published on NetGalley, Goodreads and Twitter on 11.21.18.

Walker tells such original stories. There’s really nothing like them and I loved both The Age of Miracles as well as this one. I just wish Walker were a bit more prolific as it was 5 or so years between them. In the previous, the days just start getting longer. In this one, people drop into sleep suddenly and can’t be awakened. I love that Walker really doesn’t seem to be interested in definitively explaining why these things are occurring, she just tells the story of how the characters are dealing with what is happening. All her characters are distinctly written and you get a lot of hints about them that make you want to know more. I loved this book and am counting the days until her next one.

Another great book by Karen Thompson Walker. I really loved The Age of Miracles and I enjoyed this book too, but not quite as much as her first. The writing is wonderful and I enjoyed the characters. I also enjoy the type of premise Walker is compelled to write. I would recommend this title to a friend who needed a solid story. I do worry that her work is all in the same vein, like John Green. But if that's the worst I can say about an author, comparing them to the successful Green, then she has nothing to worry about.

An engaging look into the a world in which a sleep sickness takes over a small, college town. Told through the perspective of various townspeople, you watch as more and more of the town falls asleep. Walker's development of characters at times fell a bit flat and the storyline became repetitive, but the concept and the outcome of the sleeping sickness kept me wanting to read more.

In her dreamy, introspective sophomore novel, Karen Thompson Walker takes us into Santa Lora, California, a small college town plagued by a mysterious illness that causes its sufferers to fall into a deep sleep from which they can’t be woken. The Sleepers, as they come to be known, are dreaming, although no one can figure out what it is they dream about. The city shuts down to those trying to come and go, and a once vibrant community filled with students and families falls into a panic. Some people hide inside, others join search and rescue efforts. Few families are left untouched by the illness.

The plot is interesting, but it’s not what drives the novel. It is Walker’s ethereal narration that will keep you reading this page-turning story. Her ability to write life into fictional characters and give them histories - and futures - that you care about is incredible, and this book, which often reads more like a character study than a disaster novel, showcases that talent.

Focusing on several key characters - two young college students, a newly married couple and their young child, and two sisters and their dad - The Dreamers explores the impact of illness on family relationships and friendships. Disease doesn’t discriminate, and its spread can be both obvious and deeply confusing. As they exchange their normal lives for ones of uncertainty and fear, Walker’s characters remain startlingly human. A young college girl cries over a boy who doesn’t reciprocate her feelings. A new father longs for the days when he had fewer responsibilities. A young girl fears more for her cats than herself.

The Dreamers reads like one long, lovely train of consciousness. My favourite pages are the first ones, where Walker describes the emotions of the early days of freshman year of college, when new students are forging friendships and trying things they’ve never been allowed to do before. The desire to belong and fit in runs so deep that, even as the illness starts to spread around the university, many of the students are concerned mostly with what they’re going to do and wear that night. It’s just so human.

Walker also does a miraculous job of describing the illness. Rather than shy away from the science and epidemiology of viruses, she explores the intricate passage of illness from one person to the next, describing in beautiful literary prose the spread of the Santa Lora Virus and the ways it ties complete strangers to one another.

The Dreamers, which comes out early next year, is a beautiful novel - literary fiction at its best. It’s dreamy, emotional, and beautiful. You won’t be able to put this book down.

You can read more of my reviews at www.olivialavery.com

The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker- five out of five stars for this read! it kept me on the edge of my seat. Many thanks to the publisher and net galley for giving me an e-copy of this great read in exchange for my honest review.

Mesmerizing sophomore novel by Karen Thompson Walker . A sleeping sickeness invades a college town in California . The novel follows each character that comes in contact with this sickness and it’s repercussions. One thing that struck me about this novel was the realistic feelings the characters had . Thriller with a touch of sci fi you won’t be able to put this down nor will you want to

I received a free ARC of The Dreamers from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

As a veteran school librarian, I have read my share of post-apocalyptic fiction. Causations vary: Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life as We Knew It has an asteroid striking the moon; Justin Cronin's The Passage has a government experiment gone awry; Stephen King's Under the Dome has an invisible force field, etc. Karen Thompson Walker's The Dreamers does not specify a specific cause for this contained disaster and that actually makes the plot more terrifying. Uncertainty is a powerful impetus for panic and a reason to keep me reading late into the night.

Santa Lora is a small community that is home to college filled with students trying to make their own way in the world. The first cases of the dreamers - people with sudden, prolonged, unwakeable sleep - occur among students living on a single floor in a single dorm. Those who do not fall asleep are soon quarantined; they are a disparate group who are frightened and without traditional support systems. Despite the best efforts, this unknown sleep spreads rapidly throughout the town causing the entire community to be quarantined. No one in, no one out. Soldiers patrol to keep the community isolated.

There is a wide cast of characters here, some college students, some faculty, some local townspeople. Their reactions to the terror and the dreams some have are as widespread as their backgrounds. Are the dreams real events? The past? The future? Readers never know why one character is a victim while another is not.
#NetGalley #TheDreamers

The Dreamers is a wonderfully eerie and speculative novel about an epidemic that takes hold of a college town, in the form of a gentle disease which causes people to fall into a deep sleep that they cannot be woken from. As long as these individuals can receive medical care and be fed intravenously they are in no immediate danger, but the more people who fall prey to the highly contagious sickness, the more difficult it becomes to look after the sick.

This is a mesmerizing character-driven novel. Station Eleven is going to be brought up frequently in conversation with The Dreamers, and I know that comparing books to other books can get tedious but in this case it’s with good reason. Emily St. John Mandel’s influence can clearly be seen on the construction of The Dreamers, with its omniscient narration flitting between a panoply of characters who are all affected by the sickness all in different ways, their narratives occasionally intersecting but each with its own distinct arc. But Karen Thompson Walker’s novel is not without its own unique spin – the disease is much more contained than the one that devastates civilization in Station Eleven, and consequently this isn’t so much a survival novel as it is a novel interested in examining its central concept – sleeping, dreaming – through lenses of disparate psychologies and philosophies and sciences, which all come together to tell a story that’s as thought-provoking as it is readable.

The only reason I’m dropping this to 4 stars is that there was a bit too much ‘isn’t childbirth miraculous aren’t babies astonishing‘ in a few of the characters’ narratives and it got to be a bit much for me, but that’s strictly a personal preference. Everything else I adored. Karen Thompson Walker’s writing is both assured and understated in the best possible way, and the way she builds tension is just spectacular. I could not put this book down.

Thank you to Netgalley, Random House, and Karen Thompson Walker for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

The Dreamers begins with several students, all from the same dormitory floor at a college in California, who all fall victim to mysterious and sudden illness that puts them into a dreaming state from which they cannot be awoken. Despite best efforts for containment, this extremely communicable virus infects many people in the small college community. This book was well researched. One criticism for The Dreamers is that I would have preferred to have seen more focus on the dreams than the panic-state of the town. I found the stories of the people who recovered from the illness much more compelling.

Beautifully written, but emotions and storytelling are at arm's length.

This book is like photography: A specific time, place, and people captured to tell a descriptive story. You can see the rain, see the pain in someone's eyes, the loving touch of a child. But the smells, tastes, emotions, thoughts, and everything else that comprises the human existence is missing. The characters feel cold and distant. Clinical, almost. It's something I noticed in Karen Thompson Walker's first book [book:The Age of Miracles|12401556]: the moment is captured, and done beautifully, but there's no resolution or reason why this story matters. I was hoping Walker would grow as a story teller. But this book feels more like a writing exercise for someone who can write very well, but doesn't have anything to say.

You will be disappointed if you go into this book hoping for any of the following:
1) Any scientific (or sci-fi) description of the illness. I would accept technobabble, but none is given.
2) Expecting an explanation for the illness.
3) An emotional resolution for any of the characters.
4) For there to be a revelation at the end; a theory on life or family.

It's a beautifully written story for the sake of beautiful writing.

Story: 2 stars
Character Development: 1 star
Writing/Prose: 4 stars

I loved The Age of Miracles and was very excited to see a new book coming out from the author. When I looked at the description and saw references to Station Eleven - I got even more excited since that's one of my all time favorite books.

In a small college town, a student returns to her dorm room, falls asleep and doesn't wake up. She sleeps through the whole day and eventually her friends and roommate call the paramedics. Soon another girl in her dorm falls asleep - and then we watch the sleeping sickness spread.

This was a quiet story - very atmospheric and beautifully written. We see glimpses into many lives - those who fall asleep and those who love them, the ways that the virus is contained, the way the information is spread in the news to the rest of the country.

In describing a bride who fell sick:
"But whoever shares her lipstick that day, whoever borrows her eyeliner, whoever kisses her cheek that night or dances too close or clinks her flute of champagne, whoever touches her hand to admire the ring, whoever catches the bouquet at the end of the night - all of them, every one, is exposed. This is how the sickness travels best: through all the same channels as do fondness and friendship and love."

To me - this quote is a great example of the feel of this book. It is beautiful and thought provoking and scary all at the same time. I enjoyed this very much and look forward to reading whatever Karen Thompson Walker writes next.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance reading copy in exchange for my honest review.