"What dreams may come..."

Karen Thompson Walker has crafted a unique and engaging plot with her newest book The Dreamers. It's not a violent sort of disease that takes over - but one that lulls its victims to sleep. The character development is the strongest part of the novel - leaving you wanting more.

Nothing special. I could nougat into this book and would not recommend. Good luck to the author and although I can see an ability to write, I did not see it in this book.

It starts with one college girl who falls asleep and cannot be woken up. Then one by one people within the town of Santa Lora just fall asleep. Best guess is it's a virus, and the military is called in to keep the whole town contained. There is no coming in and no going out. Anxious parents wait at the border to find out if their college student has fallen victim. One father and mother try to leave in hopes of saving their newborn from falling ill. Told from various characters and perspectives, I found myself on the edge of my seat hoping different characters I had grown so close to would not be the next to fall asleep.

Santa Lora College freshman Kara leaves a party early because she feels more tired than she’s ever felt before. Back in her dorm, she falls into bed with her clothes and shoes still on. Her roommate, Mei, finds her in the morning but isn’t alarmed since Kara’s fallen asleep that way before. But when Mei returns that night and Kara hasn’t moved, she calls for help. Soon, the “sleeping sickness” spreads throughout the dorm, the college, and the town until the government issues a cordon sanitaire, quarantining everyone inside.

The Dreamers tracks a handful of Santa Lora denizens: Mei, who had hoped to reinvent herself in college but instead found herself friendless, and her unlikely companion Matthew, whom the students in the dorm nicknamed “Weird Matthew,”; Ben, Annie, and their newborn daughter Gracie whom the new parents would do anything to protect; Sara and Libby, tween daughters of a survivalist and conspiracy theorist who have a soft spot for abandoned animals; Catherine, a psychiatrist from Los Angeles called to consult on the case; and Nathaniel, a biology professor whose partner, Henry, had to be put in a nursing home due to early-onset Alzheimer’s.

With any book shifting between multiple characters’ points of view, there is a risk that some characters are more interesting than others. That certainly happens in The Dreamers. Sisters Sara and Libby are intriguing, scrappy, and independent, and Mei has to push herself beyond her limits, and their stories are more fun to read. If I were a parent, I would probably empathize with Ben more, but instead, I found his reflections on parenting overly sentimental. Catherine is not fully developed, and while I found Nathaniel intriguing, his story was tangential. I applaud Walker for taking a risk in presenting so many viewpoints from diverse characters, but in this case, instead of adding to the tapestry of the story, it tends to dilute it. I think the novel would have been more effective if it offered fewer primary characters.

I love a good epidemic novel, and The Dreamers has interesting elements: a new and inexplicable sickness, people chafing against quarantine, and soldiers out of their element and uncomfortable policing an American town. Supplies run low raising tensions, and with anyone a potential carrier of the sickness, mistrust runs high. Although there are moments when I as a reader feared the worst, the book never indulges in the basest reactions to tragedy. I wonder if I am cynical and this is the point, that such an event doesn’t have to bring out the worst in people, or if in fact the novel is unrealistic about people’s worst impulses in a crisis. Though I’m sure this says more about me than the book, I expected and wanted a higher body count. But, what draws people together and what separates them, sometimes the same thing, is a background for the narrative. The book also highlights the challenges of separating fact from rumor in an the information vacuum that occurs during such tragedies.

The novel meditates on the difference between dream and living states and the nebulous barrier (if any) between past, present, and future. As interesting as these questions are, I’m not sure I feel any more elucidated after reading The Dreamers nor do I have a sense of Walker’s message in raising these questions.

On the surface, as a disaster novel of sorts, The Dreamers is a well-written entry in the genre, and, though flawed, has interesting characters overall. Drilling down into the deeper themes though leaves me feeling like I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be seeing. How much a reader likes the book will depend a lot on what they are seeking.

I loved this novel. I was totally hooked from the first chapter. The story was so different from any other I have read before. THE DREAMERS by Karen Thompson Walker is amazing. Well worth the read. You will not be able to put it down.

I loved this book. While I currently teach 7th grade, I think this would be a great book for HS students. Fantastic story line that pulled me in from the start. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves underdogs and bizarre medical cases.

The Dreamers is an astonishing novel, one that requires the reader to suspend disbelief and let the story, which seems almost unbelievable, carry you on as it flows and ebbs.

Suddenly, college students in a small town just fall asleep; first one, then four, then more, including some townspeople. And then they don’t wake up. They don’t have bacterial infections. They are not comatose. They just sleep and sleep and sleep. The eventual verdict is that the sleepers have succumbed to a virus, one that has never been seen before.

As time passes, the caregivers and family members notice that these sleepers are actively dreaming and we are allowed inside the dreams. The dreams reveal inner thoughts, feelings, and distorted versions of past experiences. Eventually, most, but not all, of the people who succumbed awaken. But while they resemble who they were before their long dreams, they are not quite who they were.

This is a magnificent book. While initially it seems like a medical mystery novel, it’s far beyond that - it’s a meditation on dreaming, love, language, and the depths of altruism AND personal gain.

Highly recommended.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley.

I really really loved this book. I kept thinking while reading that the tone or story seemed familiar but it wasn't that. I had read the authors previous book which I also loved! Her writing style seems unique to her and they fit well together. Different stories yes, but her mood almost remains the same. I think this one is even better honestly! I will highly recommend this book to others. The story was unique, interesting with characters you ached to learn more about but were given just enough (omg please tell me more about Rebecca's baby).

I have been waiting since 2012 to read another spectacular book by Karen Thompson Walker, whose first book, The Age of Miracles, is one of my top five favorite books of all time. I was ecstatic when I was fortunate enough to be approved to read an early copy of The Dreamers on Kindle. At first I was concerned that the story would be similar to Stephen King's and Owen King's Sleeping Beauties - both being books about a sleeping illness that sweeps over large portions of a city or the entire U.S. The Dreamers is not at all similar to Sleeping Beauties. Instead, The Dreamers is proof that Karen Thompson Walker is shaping up to be one of the most prolific female writers of her generation, with stories so engaging and engrossing, they are difficult for the reader to put down.
The Dreamers is the story of a small town, Santa Lora, a college town in which a sleeping virus strikes first at the local university. Students are hospitalized and quarantined, but to no avail, as the sickness spreads quickly over the town. Ms. Walker's characters are believable and likeable enough that the reader cares about their outcomes and their stories. Her style is melancholy, both in The Age of Miracles and The Dreamers, giving the reader a sense of impending doom with the possibility of at least a somewhat happy outcome for the characters. No one is immune to the sleeping sickness, it is just a matter of who will get it first, who can keep him or herself safe, while attempting to protect family or friends. Ben and Anne and their newborn, Mei and Max, two college students who seem safe at first, and the first victim, college student Rebecca are all characters that make the reader concerned for their well-being, as well as Ben and Henry, two older men in a late life relationship and preteen sisters, Libby and Sara, who try to keep themselves safe and alive after their single father falls victim to the virus. The dreams of The Dreamers are dreams of the past or a possible future. I can't recommend this book enough and appreciate Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this early copy. I also recommend that readers pick up The Age of Miracles to get a glimpse of what a spectacular author Karen Thompson Walker is.

A mysterious sleeping sickness begins in a college dorm in southern California, where we meet a bunch of drunk and hyper-social kids, quiet Asian Mei and Weird Matthew; then it spreads off-campus where deans and other campus staff live, including a romantic Biology professor, newborn Grace and her assistant professor parents Ben and Annie, and elementary school sisters Libby and Sara whose Unabomber-ish janitor dad stockpiles supplies in their basement.

Karen Thompson Walker is such an alluring writer that from the opening sentence, "At first, they blame the air" I was smitten. So credible were all these many characters and their motivations, their details and those of Santa Lora the setting, and the plausibility of the sleep virus itself, I have to refer to this as Literary Sci-fi. I loved the interwoven bits of dream psychology, especially those attributing Freud Jung and Adler; and although I have never in my life been able to stomach quantum mechanics somehow as presented here I ate it up.

A fine read, and a unique take on an apocalyptic story. Instead of instant and widespread panic, there are large sections of the country who refuse to believe what they're seeing on the news. In places it read almost like a non-fiction account of something that actually happened. Things do pick up when it narrows focus to specific characters, but I still never felt like any of them were actual protagonists. They were just the people we happened to be seeing certain events through.

I did enjoy it, and I think people who like their apocalypse stories to feel more realistic would enjoy it even more than I did. That said, people who are turned off by reading "this is something that could really happen" type stories might want to steer clear. It might not be a sleeping sickness, but the government/public response felt very true to life.

Advance copy provided by Netgalley for an honest review.

The town of Santa Lora is infected with a virus. It started with the college students and now it has spread through the community. I was intrigued and slightly scared by this book. I could see this happening in my town.

The Dreamers is a true page turner. Exploring the consequences of choices people make during a period of uncertainty, where the conditions of life change dramatically, Karen Thompson Walker channels Camus into the modern day. Highly enjoyable and recommendable.

On a fall day at the beginning of a new semester in a small California college town, a young coed leaves a party early to go bed in her dorm room because she is not feeling well. The next day, her roommate cannot wake her from the deep sleep that envelops her. This girl becomes the first victim of an epidemic that will eventually claim thousands of others and lead to a complete quarantine of the city of Santa Lora. No one ever learns the source of the virus, which rages for several months and claims its victims in a seemingly random manner. The one common trait that all who catch “the sickness” share is a sleep state so profound that it induces dream activity of unusually high proportions. Of course, only those asleep know what those dreams are and it will be quite a while before some of them start to wake up again.

So goes the essential plot of The Dreamers, Karen Thompson Walker’s follow-up to her wonderfully affecting The Age of Miracles. Mentioning this connection is important because the two novels are quite similar in the way the author explores the human dimensions of people caught unexpectedly in remarkable circumstances that are largely out of their control. Indeed, the first book can be read as a coming-of-age tale of one young woman facing dramatic changes to her world and the best parts of this new work develop some closely related themes. Unfortunately, though, The Dreamers suffers a bit from that comparison, if only because its entire premise seems incomplete and less well motivated.

Thompson Walker builds the story at a very leisurely pace while introducing a wide variety of characters whose lives will soon be impacted by the sickness. This pacing was very effective in creating for the reader the same sleepy, dreamlike state that some of the protagonists will experience. As compelling as that build-up is, however, the tale never really delivers at the back-end, which felt rushed and unsatisfying in that it left the fates of some of the main characters either unexplained or disposed of in a cursory manner. Also, the author’s writing style was frequently choppy; she is clearly enamored with the use of colons to segment her sentences and this technique very quickly became a distraction in a work of literary fiction. So, while I can still recommend this book, that endorsement comes with significant qualifications.

I had not heard of this author before, but reading the description intrigued me. What starts out as a normal college experience in the dorm quickly takes a turn when Mei's roommate comes home late at night. She thinks she is passed out so she quietely leaves her, little did she know what was really happening. Once her roommate Rebecca is taken away, chaos begins in the dorms and eventually the small town.

I enjoyed how the author had each chapter focusing on different people experiencing the dreaming and at the end you able to piece together the importance of each persons dream. I would have liked to learn more about the dreaming at the end, I think explaining what had happened would have been beneficial. I enjoyed reading this book, thank you #Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. #thedreamers

I found the book slow-moving and depressing. Too many characters juggled, leaving none of them sufficiently develooed. I liked Mei but even she wasn't fully fleshed out. Author tried too hard to push this to book-length. May have worked better as a lengthened short story.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for giving me an E-Advanced Reader copy in exchange for a fair review. The expected publication date for this novel is January 15, 2019.
The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker explores the idea of dreams, mass hysteria and sudden illness. Santa Lora is a college town located on the edge of a lake. So small that there’s only one way in...and out. College has started as normal but suddenly Mei’s roommate, Rebecca, falls into a deep slumber, one that no one can wake her from no matter how hard they try. This mysterious illness soon takes over the dorm room floor that Mei and Rebecca call home and soon after that it spreads through Santa Lora. No one know what causes this illness or if anyone will ever wake from it.
This novel suffers considerably by Thompson Walker trying to extend the story from a short one to a whole novel. Many of the characters were unnecessary in the plot development, enough so that it took away from giving the other characters, well, more character. Removing some of them, namely, Rebecca, Sara, Libby, Annie, Ben and Grace would have shortened the novel but would have allowed the others to be explored more. I liked Mei, Nathaniel, and Catherine but I didn't find much reason to care about what happened to them. I just found what little there was about them more compelling than the others.
The plot was a fun concept, but it wasn't explored to the extent that it could have been. There was no rush to find a cure or to research it, beyond finding out that they are using more of their brains than ever recorded in a human and are experiencing REM sleep. There’s a few people from a pharmaceutical company who appear briefly, but they were there before everything happened. Catherine is also from out of town but she is a psychologist and not there to study the pathogen itself. I feel like this could have added something to the actual nature of the novel.
Thompson Walker makes it seem like It was just like half the town fell asleep and there wasn't anything in the writing style that made it feel like it was an urgent problem. Yes the author talks about people being quarantined, people trying to get out of town and eventually the usage of medical hazmat suits. These are urgent things but the characters don't reflect on being scared or in a hurry to do anything. When Annie, Ben and Grace try to leave and are turned back at a makeshift border they do so without any fight. They don't panic or try and fight their way out which is common in situations of mass hysteria. It is not just Annie and Ben that act like this, it is a common theme throughout the novel.
I did not like this book at all. Which is unfortunate because it had a lot going for it. It would have been better suited as a short story than a full-length novel unless the concepts and characters were developed more. These things would have made me enjoy it more, but as it stands I did not find it to be enjoyable.

Normally my reviews are obnoxious screeds because I’m a picky reader and incapable of editing myself. And I rarely give out five stars.

This time, however, I cannot think of anything to say. I hesitate to call this book flawless, because no book is, but pressed to find any criticism, I come up short. Maybe in a few weeks I’ll recall a typo.

The Dreamers is gripping. Devastating. Hopeful. It’s beautiful and I’ll probably never be happy again.

The characters are pure works of art. Within paragraphs I connected with each one and never wanted to let them go. They all absolutely broke my heart (though Mei, of course, will forever be my number one). The story was so engaging, I read this on the bus and through lunch and when I came home from work, I didn’t do anything until I finished reading. I read with one hand holding my Kindle, the other hand covering my mouth to stop my heart from escaping. The writing was lovely, the descriptions vivid and bright. The way Walker creates rooms and the people and objects that inhabit those spaces made it feel so tangible, like a dream you mistake for reality.

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. –Edgar Allan Poe

A mysterious sleeping sickness strikes a small college town, spreading like wild fire until the town is shut down in an attempt to stop it from spreading.

Like Station Eleven, there are many characters that we follow throughout the telling of the tale, getting to know some better than others. Following the many different story lines makes this a fast read that leaves the reader frantically trying to figure out if the story line they are following is real or part of the dream sickness.
Karen Thompson Walker has a way with words, saying some of the most touching and though provoking things in incredibly short sentences. “I’m sorry. It may as well be I love you.”
This novel touches on the philosophical, medical, and psychological issues associated with the sleeping sickness as well as the ethical question: whose life is worth saving, whose life would you save.

While less dystopian novel and more thought provoking medical sci-fi, it was a good read.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Wow, this book was one of the most depressing I have read. I know it was intended to show more--the compassion of humans facing suffering--in this case a mysterious "sickness" that invades a small town as random citizens fall asleep and never awaken--but I had trouble getting past all the death and destruction. Could have been a result of the mood I was in when I read it as I like to think I can set aside my own brain to embrace a story. However, this time I just felt despair and I was so looking forward to this as I loved Walker's Age of Miracles. Yes, it's beautifully written so I do think it's just me; there are many stellar reviews touting this book. So disregard this and you may love it!