I didn't expect this book to really like me so much, I loved it!

This book has everything you expect from a fantasy / ya book: A well-built fantasy world, a well-defined magical system and real characters.

Can't wait to read the sequel!

BOOK REVIEW⠀
BOOK: Reverie
AUTHOR: Ryan La Sala
@ry_la_sa

This book to me was a jumbled of feelings all rolled into one. It’s definitely one of the first queer fantasy books I have ever read. The writing is descriptive and fantastical. But as action is not really my thing, I found myself skimming through those. That being said, the premise is wild and at times confusing. That doesn’t mean I enjoyed it any less. But I will say that I came away from it wondering if there would be a sequel because…. I still have questions.

Short Synopsis (from Goodreads):

All Kane Montgomery knows for certain is that the police found him half-dead in the river. He can’t remember how he got there, what happened after, and why his life seems so different now. And it’s not just Kane who’s different, the world feels off, reality itself seems different.

As Kane pieces together clues, three almost-strangers claim to be his friends and the only people who can truly tell him what’s going on. But as he and the others are dragged into unimaginable worlds that materialize out of nowhere—the gym warps into a subterranean temple, a historical home nearby blooms into a Victorian romance rife with scandal and sorcery—Kane realizes that nothing in his life is an accident. And when a sinister force threatens to alter reality for good, they will have to do everything they can to stop it before it unravels everything they know.

This wildly imaginative debut explores what happens when the secret worlds that people hide within themselves come to light.


I received this book for review purposes from NetGalley. ⠀

Definite parallels to the movie Inception, though with more of a magical bent. I kept expecting the characters to question their reality, to wonder if the life they were living was, itself, a complex Reverie. BUt that never happened. Actually, that would have answered a lot of questions for me. Their abilities, the lack of explanation for certain events. The whole plot had a rather dreamlike sense to me. Character development is a bit lacking. It might have worked better in a visual medium.

I loved the description for this book but unfortunately the story and writing didn’t live up to my expectation.

I received an advanced e-galley from the publisher through netgalley.

Interesting story line. The reader is as in the dark as the main character. I enjoy LGBT teen books, and it was nice that it wasn't overpowering in this title. It just was.

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year and it somehow fell flat. The pace felt off throughout. Kane’s confusion over what was happening to him made me confused about what was happening in the story at large. And just when I grasped where the story was going, Kane’s lack of curiosity and the way he kept running away from his problems drove me bonkers. On the one hand, he was a dumb teenage boy. On the other hand, if I were to suddenly lose all my memories and also learn magic exists, I would not immediately trust everyone who crossed my path and filled me in on what was happening. He was so easily manipulated. It made it hard for me to get lost in the story.

What the story does have going for it is how refreshingly queer it is. A number of characters are LGBTQ besides Kane. However, I have questions about Poesy’s representation as a drag queen and whether that plays into problematic stereotypes and tropes.

I’ve heard mostly good things about Reverie so I feel this is a case of me and not the book. It asks interesting questions about the nature of dreams and the kind of world we want to live in. I just wish I would have enjoyed it more.

CW: car accident, injuries, memory loss, violence

I've tried to sit down and properly start reading this book several times, and I just keep sliding off it. It reads a bit like stream of consciousness, which from the description and several reviews I've seen I'm guessing is intentional, but it just isn't working for me at the moment. I will say that I enjoyed the descriptions and the relationship between the siblings, but I just can't get fully into it right now.

Reverie is a beautifully inventive fantasy novel that brings together pain and joy within the magic of dreams. I’ve always been on the magical realism bandwagon, and Reverie does not disappoint in this regard. The mix of Kane’s real world versus the world of Reveries plays out in multiple conflicts throughout the novel, and the reader tugs at the fabric of reality right along with the gang. It’s not exactly breaking the fourth wall, but has a similar effect where readers question the limits of the separation between the material world and the magical world within the novel. I loved this aspect.

The characters did not disappoint either! Kane, our main character, is deeply sympathetic. His separation from his classmates due to years of their avoidance (homophobia, an unfortunately classic feature of American schoolchildren), and the wall he placed around himself, comes across clearly to readers and makes it ever more joyful as we watch him bond with friends and tackle new adventures.

Sophia, Kane’s younger sister, is sardonic and brave, and the whole Montgomery clan just owns my heart now. I don’t want to tell you too much about the Others, for fear of spoiling the novel, but Ursula, Elliot, and Adeline are great allies for Kane as he explores a changing world and fights against a powerful evil. Great banter, great powers, great motives. A fantastic squad!

Poesy is easily one of 2019’s best YA villains. She is so incredibly powerful, and La Sala’s choice to represent this power through drag is well-executed. “it was useless to expect a drag queen to do anything other than exactly what she wanted,” so Kane would “just have to let her perform her way, or no way at all...” reads one line. Poesy’s power is immense, and threatening to Kane and readers because she also appears unstoppable. I was fascinated every time she appeared on-page.

This cast of characters make up for a few of Reverie’s faults, in my opinion. One of the problems with incorporating imagination and dreams in a story is that it’s hard to set limits. Reverie struggled with this—I didn’t understand the magic system, because each reverie (think a dream come to life) differed based on the dreamer. Weaponizing this for Kane and Poesy became difficult because I could always question whether or not the written solution was realistic in the world. If all things are possible, there are infinite chances for plot holes. Beautiful descriptions of each new setting distracted from the essence of the world, and I found myself wondering about the substantive properties of each rather than immersing myself in the prose.

Overall, Reverie is a wonderfully written novel and an important addition to the too-small canon of queer YA fantasy. 4/5 stars.

If you've played Persona 5 (one of the best games of all time, get on it if you haven't), then you won't find this plot confusing. It's basically the same concept, just 10 times gayer. It was super fun and imaginative and I had a blast reading it.

I will say that while Kane's amnesia helped frame this story as a mystery, as we're learning who we can trust and cannot right alongside him, I now hope La Sala writes a prequel or a short story that shows the gang getting together from the beginning. I want to see them discovering reveries for the first time! I want to see the romance blossom!

My main quibble has to do with Poesy. If you're going to make the drag queen/trans woman the villain and don't want to come across problematic while doing so, I need to learn more of her backstory and motivations. It's hinted at with her occasionally saying something along the lines of "this reality is bad for people like me," but it doesn't really expand on that thought. She deserved a little more.

I liked Inception, I liked The Magicians. I was not a fan of Ryan La Sala’s Reverie. The description was intriguing enough, the police found Kane half-dead in a river and he has no memory of what happened. There are promises of dragging and danger and wildly imaginative plot elements.

But I didn’t see it. I stopped at a quarter of the way through Reverie and had to push myself to get there through the mundanity. La Sala’s writing is strong but the plot was weak and the characters could not hold my interest long enough for me to wait for monsters.

In that 25%, a single monster showed up. I never saw a subterranean temple or a Victorian home rife with scandal and sorcery. I did see a lot of sass.

Kane’s sass is really the only thing that kept me reading. He’s got an answer for everything whether or not he says it out loud.

Ultimately, I think the writing is enough to carry fans through the rest of the story where it wasn’t enough for me.

I could not finish this book. I ended up quitting at 31%. The story was ridiculous. Now, I enjoy fantasy and different worlds, and new ideas. But this book had a plot that was completely confusing and at 30% I was still not sure what was happening.

It was way too movie-ish for me with the Reveries (I get that that's the idea). Also, I couldn't connect with the main character. His whole pushing of his gayness was weird. Even though the whole world seemed to know who he was, he didn't know himself? But then his fingers shoot rainbows? There was some kind of connection I missed, and it made me dread picking the book back up.

Thanks to Netgalley and publisher for advancing me a copy. My apologies to have only read it in the last two days (the one time my list-making let me down).

Ryan La Sala is a talented and imaginative writer. His creative plot is full of fresh ideas and interesting takes on what has become a trope in YA: MC loses his memories, and readers follow along while he figures out what's he's lost and what he needs to do to save the world (or the situation, or himself), and in this case, it's all three.

Kane himself is a flawed character. He is a worrier, and doesn't feel very brave. His memories of his life as a picked-on loner means it takes him ages to work out who to trust, and he acknowledges his inconsistent treatment of his loyal sister, Sophia.

If you are prepared to stick through Kane's continual bad decisions that have repercussions way beyond him, you will be rewarded with a triumphant conclusion, which sees Kane overcome his fears and insecurities to become the person he really wants to be.

Bonus side note - this is unashamedly and gloriously queer. It's wonderful.

Reverie came out earlier this month, and is recommended for fans of original fantasy.

⭐️⭐️ ⭐️⭐️ - 3 & 1/2 stars!

This book, man. It's so much fun. I mean, what's not to like about an evil drag queen sorceress It's very different than anything I've read before. The descriptions are so vivid and detailed, to the point where I wished so badly to jump into the story and visit the different Reverie's. Also, the plot is such an interesting and novel take on the whole trope of 'moody outcast escapes into a fantasy world of his own design.' The representation is also wonderful, with LGBTQIA+ characters and characters of different races. At first, I was unsure about a drag queen being the villain. I feel like a lot of diverse characters often end up taking on the role of the one-dimensional bag guy, and that reinforces harmful stereotypes. However, I don't feel like that's the case with this particular character. Finally, I really loved all of the side characters. They're all so different, but equally lovable. I guess my biggest gripe was with the main character, Kane. I don't feel like I ever really 'connected' with him. Worse, I found him incredibly annoying. I honestly think this would have been a killer 5/5 star novel had it been third-person. It's still good, and I would certainly recommend it to people. I just wish Kane was more fleshed out or less irritating or... something.

* Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. *

Mystery, intrigue and suspense! I liked this book but not as much as I expected to.like it. I liked it but didn't loved it.

I was enthralled by the strong voice personified in Ryan La Sala's book Reverie from the very first page! The main character and his attitudes made a huge impression on me which made this book an enjoyable fast read and I couldn't put it down.

Summary
Kane can't remember what happened the night of the crash. All he remembers is being found in the river while a town landmark burned.
Then Kane finds himself dragged into a magical dream world with 3 strangers who claim to be his best friends. They also claim it's their job to unravel this worlds. Kane must unravel the truth about what happened the night of the accident while the dream worlds threaten to become a new reality.

Overview
➸ POV - 3rd person from Kane's POV

➸ Kane Montgomery: High School Junior, Brother, Gay, Recently involved in a car accident that he can't remember

➸ Content Warnings: Talk of suicide, Homophobia, Bullying

My Thoughts
This was one of the most unique concepts and worlds I've ever read. But because of that, I was confused AF for a solid 70% of this book. And I think by the last 30% I didn't necessarily have a better grasp on the world so much as I'd come to terms with the confusion.

There were so many things this book did right - amazing representation and inclusion, an ambitious plot, unique world and magic. And I loved all of those things. But my favorite part of this was the villain! They was so layered and multidimensional to the point where I actually questioned if they were actually evil. As their motives were revealed, I began to sympathize and understand how and why they got to this point. Which is always the mark of an amazingly developed villain!

However, I don't think this ambitious story was perfectly executed. So much was left un- or under- explained. How do Reveries come into existence? Why? How does Kane unravel them? And more often than not, the explanation for these was simply - and it happened! Which was frustrating and underwhelming as a reader.

But I think the awkward pacing of this story was it's biggest downfall. Not only did this have way too many unexplained plot lines, but the character arcs were clumsy. Since this is told from Kane's POV and for most of the story he doesn't remember or like anyone, the side characters are significantly underdeveloped. And any relationships that bloomed felt out of no where. I didn't become attached to anyone because I didn't know who they were.

Overall I thought this book tackled some really important themes and had one of the most unique plots I've read. But it fell a little short in the execution for me.

This is currently live on Goodreads and will be posted to my blog on 12/22/19

A fantasy YA that dives into he idea of if our dreams became their own worlds/dimensions. LGBTQ representation up the whahoo, which was neat. 🙂 It didn’t flow very well, so it made it hard to keep track of what was going on. Still a neat concept

Reverie by Ryan La Sala is a magical story where daydreams can be a reality. The story starts when Kane is trying to recover his lost memories after in awful accident that should have killed him. As he unravels the truth, he learns that he has people who love him and look to him for answers. Kane and his friend work together to bring down the Evil threating their world.

I did enjoy this story, but I wish I could have spent more time in the reveries. The structure of the story made it difficult for me to fall completely in love. I would love to read the second novel of these worlds because I am intrigued by the concept of Reveries.

Where do I start?? This book was absolutely amazing! There were several twists and turns I did not see coming! Kane is so dynamic and I'm in love his wit and sarcasm. And Poesy??!!?!!!! She's so over the top, I love it!!! She's also an incredibly vicious character. I love the way dreams came alive and how so many parts of the person were ingrained into that dream. Kane's friends each had a unique touch to them. I especially love Ursula and Elliot! Ursula had such strength and compassion, that made her character so real. Elliot was the just an adorable darling! And I can't write a review without mentioning Adeline! She's a very intense character! Because of her Kane was able to bring back his missing memories and try no to make the same mistakes from the past. All in all this was a very amazing book!

3.5*

When I say authors are my rockstars, I really mean it-especially when it comes to books like this. I'm in awe of someone who can create a world like the one found inside the pages of Reverie. While at times I found it a bit slow going, and even a little confusing at first, I ended up really enjoying it. Reverie is imaginative, unique, and quite compelling. It's mysterious, with such incredible world building. I could definitely see the story being brought to life on the big screen.

I really liked Kane's character, but he was a bit of a contradiction. Although losing your memory would probably do that to a person. He had to learn who he was, how he thought, what he knew, all over again. And we got to learn right along with him. He fumbled along for awhile, unsure of what was expected of him- is it wrong to say I found his struggles endearing? Kane has a lot to live up to and I enjoyed being there as he rediscovered who he was.

I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention the villain in this story- probably one of the most unique and entertaining ones you'll ever come across! They're one of those characters you love to hate and hate to love.

I'm having a hard enough time trying to put my feelings down, that I'm not even going to try to go into detail about the story itself- because honestly, how can you really explain something like this? You just need to experience it. And this book is definitely an experience.

Considering this is Mr. La Sala's debut novel, color me impressed! I look forward to seeing what he comes up with in the future.