I give The Book of Dreams by Nina George 4 stars. I found the concepts to be absolutely enthralling and fascinating. I took a long time to read the first 60% due to business, but read the last 40% in an afternoon and am so glad I did. I found some parts to be confusing at first, keeping track of everything, until I got into the groove of things. I found her writing to be beautiful but not cloyingly sweet. As for my trigger warning: So much sex, some bad language, discussion about death and dying.

This book really meant a lot to me, it is powerful and poetic, a science fiction, a literature dream of the afterlife, time dimensions, rips in space and time, grief, fathers and sons and their bond, of life and living it, and of the power of love.

If you've read Nina George's other two books, "The Little Paris Bookshop" and "Little French Bistro", you know that her books are of a romance language that's been lost to time. Her novels are explorations of the human emotion to love and this being her third in translation from German, she only gets better with each work.

The author's note at the back of the book explains how when her father died, she felt she had to go through those emotions in this book that she considers a close with the first three in a circle of books that are considered sad or with sad endings - though I'd consider this one more bittersweet.

I feel when I read Nina George's novels that there's something she knows that I don't: about death, about life, about love, about the other side of this life. She gets everything so perfectly: the longing of love, of wanting love back that was lost, of how much you miss someone. Her characters are people who struggle with expressing their affections and emotions but are not short on them. She's a literature dream.

This novel is about a lot of things, but it's an exploration of the spirit world, that veil between what lies on the other side and the world we're in now. Henri Skinner takes on travel through the afterlife to get back to his son, teenager Sam Valentiner (an empath who sees colors in language), whom he has never really met after a tragic accident puts Henri in a coma. His life with Sam's mother, his life later with his lover Edwina (Eddie) Tomlin blend in timelines in a subconscious, spiritual state and all the while there's a mysterious girl in the afterlife who Sam has a connection to.

Literally, on the other side of life Henri runs into the spirit of his own father and must travel back to life if he can. As he does, time and space bend so that he can see the paths he took and also the patha that could've been if he made different choices. It's all very mind-bending and defies genre.

I will tell you this, this book affected me in a huge way. Both George and I lost our fathers and I think in some way, we never really stop grieving and that's been difficult to process. So, to that end, I'm not sure if you'll love it as much as I do unless you're a romantic or are into this kind of exploration of life and its meaning in an almost science fiction way. But I will tell you this, that I posted earlier, that comes from my heart: This is a book about what we say to the loved ones who have passed, the prayer we say that only has two words that we could say over and over again until the stars in the sky shine back again, until the mistakes of our past can be corrected, until what we know now can be of use back then: "Come back."

Don't expect to not be heartbroken and cry at the end if you have any soul in you. Released April 9th from Crown.

The Book of Dreams is a tough read, y'all. The subject matter within it challenged me to the highest degree. I wasn't prepared. This type of book, full of speculation, is not what I enjoy reading; it's too much work. I still don't know if I fully "got it" but I feel like I got the gist. It deals with consciousness and whether we can communicate with each other in each other's dreams, in a kind of an alternate connection. By that I mean, communicating with someone while in a coma. I wasn't exactly comfortable with the idea but I have never denied the opportunity to learn about things that make me uncomfortable. I think some of the things that appeal to some readers, like flowery prose and metaphors, is what turns me off. It's just a personal preference.

Another interesting aspect of the book is that one of the main characters has a rare neurological condition called Synaesthesia. I had never heard of it before but apparently the author suffers from this condition so she is able to write from experience rather than from research. Synaesthesia is a condition where a person has a pathological ability to "read" a person's feelings. They can hardly cope with the world and the way they see it, so they are often diagnosed as schizophrenics later in life due to their oversensitive emotions and peculiar ways. One of the characters in the book, 12 year old Sam, has the condition and is able to "read" the coma patient and knows he is still there, even when an MRI and his medical team see no brain activity. These are the parts I just couldn't wrap my mind around.

As you can see, the themes in this book are pretty depressing. I will say that you need to go into this with an open mind and recognize the courage Nina George must have to create such a complex novel, knowing it is only going to appeal to a small amount of readers. I know there is someone out there who needs this book, I just don't think it's for me.

One day Sam meets Eddy, another visitor and former lover to Henri. She had been in love with him and he broke her heart. It's taking her years to move on and is finally in a happy relationship. But at some point Henri listed her as his emergency contact and now she has to decide how much she wants to be involved.

The story is told from these three characters alternating point of views. Both Sam and Eddy have been essentially abandoned by Henri and yet both visit him daily. For this reader, It;s Henry's story that fascinates. While in the coma, Henri finds himself in a boat in the ocean, navigating his way back to consciousness. During this journey we learn about the death of Henry's father and revisit that moment. Henri also revisits significant decision points in his life and sees different possible outcomes based on making different decisions these key points. The imagery of Henry's journey through the water moving between life and death is mesmerising. It;s these passages that reverberate in the readers mind long past the end of the book.

Love, loss and redemption sing through this book. It's a beautiful meditation on the impact people snd their choices have on each other.

Nina George's third novel dealing with death can be, for some, a difficult book to read. The story is about loved ones who are comatose, somewhere between living and dying. The ill are Henri Skinner, a former war reporter, and Madelyn, a pre-teen dancer.

Reading about the thoughts of both patients and the background story of both is impressive and produced in me a strong need for them to wake up from their comas. They each have people who are there for them, trying to help them surface back to life. Sam is Henri's son whom he has never met. Sam also becomes an ardent admirer of Maddie. Henri's former lover, Eddie comes back into his life and expresses her love and commits herself to him and his son, Sam.

The novel is amazingly magical and tragic at the same time. I eagerly wait for Nina George's next book as she says she is leaving death behind and moving on to stories of life.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book.

Henri Skinner is a hardened ex-war reporter on the run from his past. On his way to see his son, Sam, for the first time in years, Henri steps into the road without looking and collides with oncoming traffic. He is rushed to a nearby hospital where he floats, comatose, between dreams, reliving the fairytales of his childhood and the secrets that made him run away in the first place.

This was an excellent story of love and loss. It has an "Almost Heaven" feel to it and I totally dug that. Great author, I will be reading more of her work!

Probably a 4.5 but I'll round up because it's so unique. What a captivating and bewitching tale, a meditation on life and death and the in between, a meandering glimpse of parallel universes that tell us what happens if we made a different decision, chose a different path. An immersion into the senses and beyond our senses, an emotional journey of emotions, love and friendship. I'm still thinking about it and finding it hard to put into words the power of this book. I'm guessing this book won't be for everyone what with the touch of mysticism/magical realism but I am astonished.

OMG! I absolutely LOVED this book! The Book of Dreams is a story to be savored and for me, to read again and again. It is charming, endearing, fascinating, thought-provoking, and ingenious. I felt a range of emotions while reading this book including happy, hopeful, surprised and sad. The Book of Dreams is a compelling story that I could not put down. An added bonus for me is that the writing is beautiful the imagery is divine. George is a master at the effective use of metaphors and similes.

One of the book’s basic premises is that there are different levels of consciousness between life and death. Nurse Marion describes her comatose patients as “Wanderers” and says they live “on the bottom rung of heaven.” I think the primary reason that I found Book of Dreams so compelling was because of all the questions it raises about consciousness, life and death and “living in a coma.” I found it fascinating to ponder all the different theories and ideas that George presents in this book.

“Dr. Saul nods. ‘Yes, Sam. But he is alive, only differently. Do you understand that? In a coma you’re still alive. You’re merely in a particular state. It’s a borderline condition—a crisis, of course, but that doesn’t make that life any less important than the one you or I or Mrs. Tomlin leads. That’s why here we say that someone is living in a coma rather than lying in a coma.’”

“There are a variety of forms of life on the margins of death…”

The book’s sections alternate among three different narrators - Henri (a man who saved a young girl from drowning only to be almost fatally hit by a car), Sam (Henri’s 13 year old estranged son who is a synesthete) and Eddie (Henri’s ex-girlfriend who he designated in his living will). Henri is in a coma, visited everyday by Sam and Eddie who refuse to give up hope. They learn about the different states of consciousness that Henri may be passing through though they cannot know for certain which place he is in at any given moment.

“If waking and sleeping and coma aren’t states but places, then my father is currently on a journey between those places. Or worlds. Or zones that get darker and darker, the closer they are to death.”

“Hoping that just once he will approach the waking zone, through all the different levels and zones and degrees of darkness, via the staircases and corridors that appear abruptly through the fog of medication and dreams, allowing him for a few short moments to navigate a path through all the intermediate zones between waking and death, and surface.”

“My father was somewhere beyond dreams.”

We are privy to Henri’s inner world — his recollections, thoughts, feelings, and what he is currently experiencing/hearing. We learn about the different paths his life could have taken and their respective outcomes. Is Henri traveling through his memories? Is he lost without a way to return to consciousness?

“‘Henri! It’s not so easy to get back. You’ll get lost in the middle. In the middle of everything, do you understand?’”

“‘Oh, Henri. You’re still caught in between everything, between different times and different paths.’”

Eddie and Sam wonder if there is a way they can help to bring Henri back? They are desperate and willing to try anything.

“I learn to call Henri by his name, repeatedly, because a person’s name is the ‘longest fishing line,’ as Nurse Marion puts it, to reel them back from whichever depths they’re swimming in.”

“An aroma is the most effective voice in the wilderness of wandering souls. Fragrances can apparently reach the level where the comatose reside.”

Does Henri want to come back? Is he aware of where he is and what is happening to hijm?

“Being in a coma is like being buried alive, and nobody knows that I’m here. Here! What happens if they never hear me? If they think I’ve died? If they bury me alive? I can’t go on, I don’t want to go on.”

The Book of Dreams raises all sorts of intriguing questions, such as do comatose people perceive everything around them? Do they struggle to “stay afloat”? Can they communicate through Dreams? Can they communicate with other comatose people? Can there be multiple realities at the same moment? Are there parallel universes?

“There is a tear in reality. Through the tear I spot women and men in blue smocks, bending over me, and beyond them I see a boy staring at me. I had it before. I had it but it was too big for me to cling on to. The ‘in-between’ zone.”

“This world is dying. I’m falling into the silence beyond the void. I’m falling and . . .”

Thank you to Crown Publishing and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

"The Book of Dreams" by Nina George, translated by Simon Pare, Crown Publishing, 400 pages, April 9, 2019.

Henri Skinner is a former war correspondent. He has never seen his son, Sam Valentiner, because he wasn't married to Sam's mother and she has refused to allow contact.

Sam is 13. He gets an email address for Henri and invites him to a father and son day at his school. Sam has an IQ of 144 and is a synesthete, meaning he sees sounds as colors.

Henri is on his way to the school. As he walks across a bridge, he sees a little girl fall off a tour boat into the River Thames and jumps in. Henri saves the child, but staggers into traffic and is hit by a car. He is in a coma.

Sam reads about it in the news. He believes his mother won't let him go to the hospital, so he has a friend forge excuses and sneaks out of school.

Eddie Tomlin used to date Henri, but they broke up years ago. He had a paper in his wallet designating her as having his medical power of attorney.

Sam accidentally goes into room of Madelyn Zeidler, 11, who was sole survivor of a traffic accident that killed her family. He becomes obsessed with her. Chapters are told from viewpoints of Henri, Eddie and Sam.

The story moves slowly, like repetitive visits to a loved one in the hospital. Some aspects are not believable, like Sam's repeated absences from school and his mother's mild reaction when she finds out. But this is a poignant story about missed opportunities.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

This was a unique story about two people in a coma and two people not in a coma and how dreams can help you connect to one another.  This books started about great but slowed down a lot in the middle to the point that I skimmed through about 100 pages. The last 100 pages were fantastic and so wonderfully written that I was sad the rest of the book wasn’t as good.  If you want a heartwarming story told in a unusual way, definitely read this one.

My heart is both broken and completely filled at the same time. I loved Sam. I loved Eddie. I loved how they all got their happy endings even if they weren't the conventional happy endings we expect. Beautiful story.

*Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in return for an honest review.*

I loved and hated this book. Ms. George’s writing is lovely. Her prose is beautifully descriptive, and she has an incredibly enticing way of setting a scene that incorporates all of the reader’s senses. The author pours her love and grief for her late father into every page of her novel.

The opening scene is gripping, but it then took me awhile to get into the rhythm of the story and figure out the intersecting players. Once I read the author’s postscript, everything clicked and I easily fell into the story’s cadence. As the story progressed, I found myself embroiled in the wants, wishes and regrets of each of the primary characters.

Henri Malo Skinner is a man filled with regret and remorse. At most junctures in his life, his fear and self-loathing lead him to decisions that leave him alone and lonely. In his coma state, Henri relives some of these scenes on a continuous loop, but each time he makes different decisions which leads to different outcomes (to me, this had a repetitive feel that reminded me of the movie Groundhog Day). As he revisits these critical moments, his ex-lover, Edwina, and his son’s bedside presence permeate these dreams.

I loved the organic development of Edwina and Henri’s son’s, Sam, friendship. Both are interesting characters. Edwina is one of those female characters that you wish you knew in person. Sam is a synesthete; he feels everything deeply, he sees numbers as colors, he sees auras, and he can sense the space between living and death when he opens his mind to it. This makes for some interesting and eye-opening scenes in the story.

<i>“How could I fritter away my life in such fear and on so many refusals, saying “no” at the wrong forks in the road and “I don’t know” at important ones?” </i>

The Book of Dreams is a sad story of hope in the face of regrets and loss. At times I felt hopeful, and at other times I felt exhausted by the characters seemingly futile efforts. Ms. George embeds messages of the fragility of life and choosing happiness into this story of love and family. This beautifully written book was hard to read at times, and it has left me thinking of the many forks in the road of my own journey. The Book of Dreams is a thought-provoking, literary gem.

4.5 stars

Henri is on his way to meet his 13 year old son Sam for the first time when he stops to rescue a child and then is hit by a truck. He's in a coma, as is young Maddy, whose whole family perished in a car accident. Sam begins to visit Henri, even skipping the entrance exams for school, as does Eddie, Henri's former lover who is suprised to find that she is his health care proxy. Told in the voice of Henri, Eddie, and Sam, its a tale of people who become a family despite some obvious issues. Sam finds himself entranced by Maddie; one of the strongest sections of the novel is his interaction with her and his trip with Eddie to Oxford. The dreams are perhaps the weakest. I found them a bit confusing at times- what was reality and what was wishful dreaming was not always clear. Several threads which were strong in the beginning were dropped, such as Sam's synthesia. Nonetheless, it's a good read by George, and similar in tone to Little Paris Bookshop and Little Paris Bistro. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Nina George has outdone herself with this multilayered tale of interconnected lives, past choices, and coma. Narrated by Henri, Eddie, and Sam, you will journey with them as they relive the past and hope for the future. Be prepared to struggle with them as they learn about taking chances, love, and family. You will never again think of the effects of a coma in the same way.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy. I can’t wait to recommend this book far and wide.

I feel like I'm not going to be able to do this book justice with my humble review. It was a slow start for me, but once I was hooked, I read it slowly. I felt like it was such a beautiful story that it should be savored, and although it hit a lot of buttons for me -- as a sister who lost her brother after a brain injury, and as a mother of a 13 year old boy -- I really loved it. I really connected with the characters, their hopes, their grief and their dreams. Side note: I don't normally remember my own dreams, but I sure had a lot of crazy dreams while reading this book!

I don't want to give out any spoilers, and you can get the summary from the book jacket, but I do highly recommend this book. I think it would be great for book clubs, and I'd love to see it published with a discussion guide.

It's my first time reading Nina George, and she mentions in the book end notes that she is taking her writing in a different direction with her next book, so I really look forward to seeing what comes next.

I am a middle school librarian, so this is not a book that I would have on my shelves, but I would certainly recommend it. The concept of what defines life, and how we choose to live or not live, is thought-provoking, especially when the choice is not always one we make when death is the other option.

As the author explains in the afterword, this is the final volume of a cycle of novels about mortality. It introduces us to Henri, a traveling correspondent who was struck by a car after rescuing a child from drowning, and Maddie, a young dancer who,had been injured in an accident. Both are in the same hospital, deep in comas, and for each there is an individual who has committed to staying by their bedside. Alternate chapters jump back and forth between Henri and Maddie and multiple life paths on which they might journey through life. It also includes chapters from the perspective of Eddie and Sam who crave connection with the two in deep sleep.
I was drawn to this book by my interest in stories about multiple lives, such as in Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. This was not that book. I had an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia throughout as Henri tries unsuccessfully to communicate with Sam and Eddie. I felt an unpleasant urge to rush through the chapters to keep from passing out due to lack of oxygen.
The book was clearly therapy for the author. I, however, was not looking for a course of treatment, and it did not provide much entertainment either. Despite an ending that drew all elements of the story together, I did not care enough for the characters to be invested in their ultimate end.

I have read and loved Nina George's other books. I started this book and I love her writing but, as I continued reading, the subject matter became very weird. I loved the story of each of the individuals. Henri, the comatose dad; Eddie who is an ex-girlfriend of Henri; Madelyn, a comatose girl down the hall from Henri; and Sam, Henri's son. As we enter into the world of Henri's coma, I was not sure where the story was heading. I wasn't sure if there was a religious undertone or if it was the hints about an afterlife. Either way, I love fantasy but this book did not fit into that category. It fit into the category of fantastic- like in the book but, I just couldn't get behind it.
I will not spoil anything but, the ending of the book is where I finally turned the corner and not in a good way, unfortunately. I was lost completely and unsatisfied. I wish I felt the same way about this book as I did "The Little Paris Bookshop" and "The Little French Bistro". Both of those books were charming and delightful reads that are very high on my list. Thank you for my review copy of this book. It was a 2.5 star for me.

Originally penned in Nina George's native German in 2016, it will hit US shelves in English this April. 

Sam was born to Henri and Marie-France, war reporters who met among turmoil and sadness, and whom conceived Sam one night in moments of desperation for longing of normalcy and a need to fill a loneliness. Sam is 13, and a synesthete. He has  more sensory receptors than other people, he sees sounds, voices, and music as colors. When he enters a room, he can tell which emotions have been felt in it most frequently.

He is part of the elite high IQ society, Mensa, and his parents are no longer together. That is why he secretly invited his dad to come to his school event that day. Sam could not tell Marie-France he had invited Henri. She is a wounded woman, hell-bent on keeping out of harm's way after working as a photographer in war zones for years. Sam cannot  bring himself to hurt her. In fact, he wants to protect her from everything and tell her how much he loves her, but does not know how to go about it. He feels like all she sees when she looks at him is the kid who never looks anyone in the eye, reads too much science fiction, and is a permanent reminder of a man she can't stand. 

When Sam witnesses Henri risk his life to save a little girl's, Maddie, and winds up in a coma, the story becomes one of missed opportunities, and life's haunting questions. Will Henri and Maddie survive their comas? Will Sam be able to reach them with his gift through their coma hazes? Henri's ex, Edwina (Eddie), plays a big role here too, as his emergency contact, the doctor's and Sam are looking to her for decisions to be made. She cannot believe Henri has a son he never told her about, after all their years together. At times unbelievably sad, at times uproariously hopeful, Nina George has penned a great novel full of all the emotions that keep great novels with us years after we put them down.

I loved The Book of Dreams! It is the final book in Nina George's (loosely defined) trilogy on mortality. It is best to approach this book as if one would a dream, as there are a few different perspectives and dimensions for the reader to navigate. That being said, it is a lovely story about family, connections, loving, learning, holding on & letting go. Perhaps one of my favourite books of the year.