It is kind of ironic that a book called The Dreamers, felt like a dream to read . It was the perfect combination of my favorite kind of story mixed with beautiful, and perfect writing. It's funny to say that a book written about a virus is beautiful, but there is a way to write about something so tragic in a way that doesn't make the tragedy more important than the cast of characters. Karen Thompson Walker has perfected this art. I read a lot of stories in which a tragedy occurs, many times its a virus, or some other way the people in the novel are in danger of dying and losing loved ones. But books like The Dreamers truly make an impact because they are written in such a way that they build upon the story in a natural, flowing way. The Dreamers doesn't rely on storytelling that just starts with "this happened, then this happened, which caused this to happen, then they did this, then the end." It explores the inner thoughts of its characters and that is how we learn about the virus taking over the small town of Santa Lora, CA.
It begins in a college dorm where we meet Mei. An outcast among the other outgoing, typical, college freshmen exploring their new-found independence. One morning Mei's dorm-mate will not wake up. Oddly though, she is still breathing and her heart is still pumping, so she is rushed to the hospital. The kids in the dorm are understandably freaked out. They don't yet realize what they are in for until one by one more of them fall asleep. As more and more of them fall ill, their young minds struggle to grasp the idea that their lives are forever changed. News media floods the area, and it isn't long until the college dorm isn't the only place the virus is hitting. Soon, we meet Sara and Libby, two young girls whose father prepared for an event like this. Their basement is full of everything they could possibly need for any type of doomsday scenario. Their father works as a janitor at the college and returns home from work one night with the knowledge that all of his planning has been for this event. Nathaniel, a college professor at the college where the outbreak has begun, is caring for his dying husband who lives in a local nursing home. With all of his classes cancelled, he is taking a deeper look at his life and realizing that the time left with his husband may be cut even shorter. Next door to Sara and Libby live two professors who recently moved from New York with their newborn baby. Each time their baby falls asleep, they wait anxiously for her to wake up. Knowing how much newborn babies sleep, and facing an unknown virus which causes people to fall asleep and not wake up, I can only imagine the sheer terror these parents faced. Last, we follow a psychiatrist who is away from her young daughter while researching this sudden outbreak. Her job initially is to help determine if this virus is real, or possibly psychosomatic. While she is in Santa Lora, her medical duties multiply quickly as she sees her fellow doctors fall one by one, into this endless sleep.
For those of you who feel like this book is similar to Stephen King's novel Sleeping Beauties, the only commonality is the fact that the virus is a sleeping disease. SPOILER ALERT: In King's book; Only the women fall ill and are wrapped in cocoons, they go homicidal if you disturb them, there is a crazy magic witch and a huge tree in another world where the women now live. So, I would definitely say these two books are different. Both great though!
I loved this book. It restored my faith that more books can be written in my favorite genre that don't sound like every other book I've read. This is one of my favorite examples of a book that sounds too "out there" for people, yet people of all reading tastes will love it. Much like another favorite of mine, Station Eleven. Both of these books are the kinds that I get sad about when they end. I know that readers will devour this book, not matter what their favorite genre is, if given the chance. This book will be one of my favorites this year, and likely for years to come.

A stunning story that I can’t stop thinking about. I couldn’t put it down. Anyone who loves a good mystery or suspense should read this

About The Dreamers / Synopsis From the Publisher:

One night in an isolated college town in the hills of Southern California, a first-year student stumbles into her dorm room, falls asleep—and doesn’t wake up. She sleeps through the morning, into the evening. Her roommate, Mei, cannot rouse her. Neither can the paramedics, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital. When a second girl falls asleep, and then a third, Mei finds herself thrust together with an eccentric classmate as panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. A young couple tries to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. Two sisters turn to each other for comfort as their survivalist father prepares for disaster.

Those affected by the illness, doctors discover, are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, higher than has ever been recorded before. They are dreaming heightened dreams—but of what?

Written in luminous prose, The Dreamers is a breathtaking and beautiful novel, startling and provocative, about the possibilities contained within a human life—in our waking days and, perhaps even more, in our dreams.

Overall, I liked the premise of the book and the author's style of writing. There were some parts of the book that seemed to bog the story down, and I also felt there were a few things brought up - i.e., the historic happening of the disease - that just never seemed to developed as integral to the book.

The story had a great premise, lots of great writing, and enough going on to keep it interesting.

Because I clearly don't have enough to read already, I often find myself aimlessly scrolling through the Recently Added section of NetGalley.

I don't have actual data to back me up, but I suspect that the less time a book has spent on NetGalley, the more likely I will be approved for the request. I find some pretty cool stuff this way. 

The Dreamers tickled my fancy because it is compared to Station Eleven, a book I absolutely adored, and because I had recently read Stephen King's Sleeping Beauties.

Aside from the stunning prose, my favorite thing about this novel is the masterful character work. The story is told from the point of view of many unique characters who are affected by the sleeping sickness in various ways. I enjoyed having so many different perspectives because it rings true to how calamities are experienced and processed.

The protagonist Mei, who may or may not be considered Patient Zero, resonated with me right away. She is young and struggling to navigate the world on her own, a struggle which is mirrored in how each person, and the community as a collective, tries to deal with this largely unknown phenomenon.

Throughout, there was an underlying tension as I tried to process what was happening and what the logical conclusion of the story might be. Because it was so unique, there wasn't an obvious end in sight, but the ending was satisfying when it came. 

This is a tender and emotionally wrought story that will stay with me for some time. I highly recommend it to empathetic readers who enjoy tender character work. 

I received an ARC from Random House via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Expected date of publication is January 15, 2019.

'It starts with a girl leaving a party. She feels sick, she tells her friends, like a fever, she says, like the flu. And tired, too, as tired as she has ever felt in her life.'

I don’t know what it is lately that I keep reading books about strange illness when I am going through something with my own health, but it made this book all the more peculiar and disturbing. Mei is a college student, one who ‘leaves only the lightest impression on this space’ who finds ‘comfort in not being seen.’ When she discovers that her roommate Kara cannot wake up. Rushed to St.Mary’s, the doctors cannot figure out what is causing this mysterious sleeping sickness. Shocked, the students grieve the loss of the vibrant popular student, slowly coming around to notice Mei, aware only that she shared the room with Kara, that she is maybe Chinese, Japanese… that she isn’t to be blamed, like them, she couldn’t have known anything was amiss. Soon, the dizziness begins, what if they themselves have all been exposed to whatever Kara had? What if now, the contagion is making its way through the dorms?

It isn’t long before more students are falling asleep, dreaming more erratically, powerfully than people known to dream before. The town is terrified, somewhere in another house, a father (doomsday prepper for just such a disaster, because one will come) begins to shut his own children in, sure that there is more than is being divulged about the college infection. His twelve-year-old daughter Sara is used to this fearful ‘simmering’ this ‘something’ that is bound to happen. How many times has her father been wrong though? She and her sister Libby are maturing, are growing exasperated, embarrassed by their father’s often irrational, outlandish behavior. This time feels different though, this time it’s not just her father, it’s the town! A couple with their newborn aren’t concerned at first. Visiting professors Ben and Annie haven’t been in Santa Lorna long. Their baby girl Grace is 17 days old, they haven’t been exposed to the ill students. Surely it doesn’t concern them, and in their case, ‘to close one’s eyes can be an act of survival’ until it isn’t. Professor Nathaniel is a bit shamed that he can’t quite bring to mind Kara, a student of his dead now. Sorry that more are ill, surprised that the school is making news, thinking about the state of things for the young today. Catherine tries to understand the psychiatry of it, maybe it’s not physical illness, but one of the mind and she is as baffled as the medical doctors. Curious of these dreams and what they mean, psychiatry isn’t much invested in such things anymore, not in these modern times.

As a southern California town is consumed by fear, panic and losing loved ones to the depths of a strange sleep, those in charge can’t figure it out, nor save them. In fact, many fall pray to the illness themselves. Family loses each other be it through quarantine or distance. The National Guard brings to mind bitter history and the horrible things done during other epidemics incite terror amongst the citizens. For many, they find themselves alone for the first time, in a fight for their lives, fearing the unknown. Mei finally relies on another, and discovers maybe she has been asleep in life far longer than the victims.

This is a heck of a story, just the right side of strange but not overwhelmingly so. It feels like something that could happen. What distance is further, more personal than dreams and illness? Dreams that can feel like a lifetime, haunt you when you wake up, illness that no one understands, that makes you a pariah? It has happened, we have certainly seen mass panic where illness is concerned, that’s what makes it scary. I like that it was character driven, that the story wasn’t so much about the illness but how it drew people together or apart. Illness is a bit like a slow dream, nightmare. It was a unique read for me, because the writing was beautiful and I cared about the characters but you don’t spend time with just one in particular. I hate to say one book is just like another book, so instead I will say of all the novels that blurbs claim are ‘like The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Euegnides‘ I felt the same disorientation and spacey, fuzzy emotions reading Walker’s latest offering. Again, I was coming off being sick, so it just fit my mood to perfection. It was like waking from some verwirrender Traum. Yes, read it but you’ll have to wait until the New Year. I think Karen Thompson Walker is an author to watch, I’ve had The Age of Miracles on my TBR list. Time to read it!

Publication Date: January 15, 2019

Random House Publishing

The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker was a wonderful book that I enjoyed reading. The characters were vivid and lively. I felt as if I knew these people myself. I also loved how this book was written. The way it was written was beautiful, not only poetic, but also in the person it is told in, "She feels better this way, still stunned by how quickly it happened, how the friendship formed without her, a thick and sudden ice." Walker tells a story among the details of each word she uses. And overall this book made me think, and that is always the best types of books.

I was so happy that I was given a digital copy of The Dreamers by Karen Walker Thompson. I am such a fan of her first book The Age of Miracles. I listened to it twice and also have read the Kindle version. I’m constantly recommending it to others.
I had such high hopes for The Dreamers. A mysterious highly contagious virus causes the victims to fall into a deep sleep, they are unable to wake and appear to be dreaming.
When you dream , do you dream about your life as it is, or your life if you had chosen a different path?
I expected to learn more about the dreams the characters had while they were sleeping so I feel a bit let down. I missed the intimacy of The Age of Miracles. I felt there were too many characters in the story and I didn’t get a chance to get personally involved with them. I would have been happy to spend more time with my favorite characters Henry and Nathaniel , Sara and Libby and Rebecca.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This book has been compared to Station Eleven and The Age of Miracles. I thought it was closer to the plot of Stephen King's Sleeping Beauties, though a lot shorter and less creepy. The story starts when Mei can't wake her college roommate after more than a whole day of sleep. At first seen as a strange isolated medical case, this new virus spreads throughout the campus and beyond into the town. The hospital is overrun with "dreamers" and emergency services are strained trying to control the panic and quarantine the exposed. Will the hundreds of victims ever wake up?
This book was pretty good, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I wasn't comparing it to Sleeping Beauties. The story lagged a bit in the middle as the characters worry that their loved ones have caught the virus then...nope just regular sleep. I liked the description of people's reactions to the virus, from the hypochondriac, the emergency workers, and the rest of the country.

I had absolutely loved The Age of Miracles so I had high hopes for this one. I liked the premise a lot, but the execution didn't work for me. (Though I did find enough interest in the situation to read until the end.) It was the problem this town found themselves in that intrigued me, but not the people themselves, and that was the problem.

Overall, I enjoyed this much more than her previous work. Parts of this were page-turning and the premise was unique and intriguing. The ending, however, was anticlimactic and disappointing.

This was a beautifully written novel with an intriguing story. In the college town of Santa Lora, California, people are suddenly stricken with a sleeping sickness - they suddenly fall into a deep sleep and cannot be awakened. It starts with students at the college and quickly spreads throughout the town and the town is put under a quarantine. The story focuses on a few different characters - college students Mei and Matthew, Ben and Annie and their newborn daughter, a father and his pre teen daughters, a biology professor and his partner and a psychiatrist there to observe the sick who gets stuck in the town after the quarantine. This is not a fast paced, suspense novel but rather a slow study of what happens to various people as this mysterious virus spreads.

I loved the age of miracles so I thought I would give this book a try. It was ok but not as good as her first book. I didn’t like the skipping around for different people
Made it hard to keep track of all the characters. I did like the concept but the author could have gone into more detail on why the sickness occurred. Thank you to nethalley for the advanced copy

A big thank you to NetGalley for the ARC I was given in exchange for a fair and honest review!
The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker is one of the most beautifully written books I’ve read in 2018. Centering on several different people who are experiencing different levels of interaction with a new virus that causes the infected to sleep without waking, this book was full of potential before I even cracked the spine. After all, it tackles a combination of things that most humans don’t completely understand, epidemics and sleep, both of which are fraught with anxiety. It then takes those seeds of anxiety and spins them to really delve into our psyches: what if I fall asleep and don’t wake up? Could I succumb to an illness even while relatively healthy? What dangers are lurking that I haven’t even accounted for?
While there were many characters who were central in this text—primarily the sleeping Rebecca and her unborn child, Henry and Nathaniel, Libby and Sara, Mei and Matthew, and Annie, Ben, and Grace, the stories of Libby and Sara and Mei and Matthew were the storylines that most spoke to me. It wasn’t that the others were bad—they definitely weren’t and contained some truly beautiful passages about time and love—it’s just that the two pairs I most enjoyed were the two pairs who most encompassed the double meaning of the name of the book. On the surface, the title refers to the rapid eye movement that the sleepers display when they have the illness and the heightened vividness of their dreams. I think, though, those that are awake are all the more dreamers as they demonstrate the way, even during times of crisis, people are servants to their dreams and desires. Mei and Matthew both dream of being more than they were born to be, of finding a deeper sense of meaning and purpose, and, in addition to all the things adolescent girls may typically dream of, Libby and Sara dream of a family life that they’ve never had.
As I continued reading The Dreamers, I was really impressed by the way Walker took what is kind of a played out questions--how do we know what's real and what's a dream--and put an authentic, human spin on it by showing her audience how little it matters which is which. Reality, after all, is just what we perceive as real in any given moment and sometimes, maybe even many times, "dream" can end up being much more real than our realities.
5/5: This is an absolute must read.

http://bibwithblog.blogspot.com/2018/10/review-of-my-favorite-book-of-year.html

Amazing. Every American needs to read this. Every non-American needs to read this. Just everyone in general needs to read this.

Thank you to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for gifting me with an ARC of Karen Thompson Walker’s brilliant new novel. In exchange I offer my unbiased review.

This book literally took my breath away. It was an eloquent first rate mind f*ck. I was captivated from page one and had the hardest time putting this book down. Stunning prose, rich luminous passages and a thrilling and original premise, kept my heart thumping and my hands flipping pages.
So many exciting possibilities are touched upon, and questions asked that I know this book would make for a fantastic bookclub discussion. I normally reserve my stars but this book deserves all the accolades. Highly recommend.

I had already heard of Karen Thompson Walker from her bestseller, The Age Of Miracles, so I was eager to read this new issuance from her. The story follows an illness, which comes upon people suddenly, whereupon they fall asleep and do not wake up. The difference being that they are not in a coma, merely sleeping and unable to wake up, and very clearly dreaming. The concept was very interesting to me as I enjoy post-apocalyptic novels and books such as Outbreak, about illnesses.
The characters were varied and interesting, and I think Ms. Thompson Walker did a deft job of creating a world where anything could happen. I greatly enjoyed the idea that this seemingly airborne illness could overtake an entire town.
I would recommend this book wholeheartedly if you need something for the fall-like weather outside, or if you enjoyed her first book!

Ok story.................not great. Not memorable, and too much like all the other "end of civilization as we know it" novels.

I would like to thank to Net Galley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A pandemic of sleeping sickness in a small college town certainly caught my interest. While the
prose was beautiful, I thought the story had a slow pace which may have been deliberate as the basic theme was the nature of dreams.
At about mid point it picked up and motivated me to plow through.
At the end, I honestly felt like I had been living in a surrealistic dream world with no relationship to any characters.
It was a totally new reading experience.
3.75

This book was a page-turner. At the same time, it was true to life, in that every disaster is made up of a number of smaller, individual stories over time. Its ending, with a whimper instead of a bang, also reads true...if a little disappointing in a novel. I enjoyed it, was frustrated by it, and look forward to reading more from this author.

4 stars. “The Dreamers” by Karen Thomson Walker, is beautifully written and elegant in its exploration of time and memory. As a fast reader, I forced myself to slow down and revel in the magic of Walker’s prose. It’s not a character study - rather, the characters are secondary to the philosophy of the dream, the nature of life and death, and the merging of the past, present, and future. Both subtle and complex, this book struck all of the right chords for me.