Reverie is an excellent book to fill the younger YA gap that exists. It’s highly imaginative with vivid writing and a captivating storyline. Young readers will be sucked into this fantasy from the first page due to La Sala’s ability to give the reader just enough information but also keep them guessing. I highly recommend this book for all students who enjoy fantasy, vivid worlds, and unique characters.

had to sit and stare into space to think about Reverie for probably at least a full minute once I closed the book. Like, I still am not sure how I feel about.
The world building was interested and intriguing. [ Being able to create whole new universes full of your deepest wishes and desires, how fucking awesome is that! Not that you really remember after. (hide spoiler)] The mystery part kind of fell flat for me. After a strong first chapter, I was expecting more thriller. We got more of an episode of Buffy, which is cool too; again, just not what I expected. 
Definitely a great Fall read! The gay was in abundance. The romance(s?) was cute and not nearly long enough. The cover is absolutely gorgeous! The author is lovely! And I hope everyone who picks this book up enjoys it. Pick it up if you get a chance.
It's still ages before the official release and I don't want to spoil anything.

I could not put down this book. It was so interesting and the writing was great. I will definitely be recommending this to customers at my work!

this is my new favourite book!

the fantasy element and the mystery of kane's memory loss were so eerie and intense i couldn't stop reading.

the fact that queer characters were so intrinsically woven into the story made my heart swell with love.

i'm just so stunned by how amazing this book is!! 💖

There is nothing that stands out about this as not particularly good, except, of course, the sum of it's parts.

Kane is a young gay man who was outed at an early age and struggles to find his place. The first few chapters as a reader, you share in the main character's confusion and insecurities while struggling with amnesia. Then, the author slowly begins to draw you in with each juicy detail revealed. Who can Kane trust? What happened to him? Magic is real? He begins to see people's daydreams or unconscious desires manifest themselves in the real world. These dream states (reveries) suck everyone in; putting the dreamer, as well as everyone around them, in danger. Only Kane knows how to unravel the reveries and save them. When his friends and family get sucked in, can he save those he loves before it's too late? Is the world who rejected him one worth saving?

Reverie is the book the YA genre needed. It was nearly perfection beginning to end. The story is rich and complex. The details leap off the page to form a full multifaceted picture in your mind. The characters have depth and personality. The concept is brilliant and I couldn't put it down. It's nice to see the LGBTQ audience getting the protagonists they deserve and the representation they required. There is nothing cliche in the delivery of the sweet teen romance or the drag queen villan. It could have so easily become tired and camp, but instead transcended the easy stereotypical YA and LGBTQ narrative to become the most beautiful story of magic, love and friendship.

When I first read the summery for Reverie, I was intrigued but I wasn't all sure how this book would be but I thought Evil drag queen sorceress?, why not give it a go and i'm so glad I did! Reverie is an Escapist's dream book! I couldn't help love every character (even the bad ones). The storyline was original and so full of description that I was sucked in and taken along for the ride. It was Brilliant!

REVERIE’s cover tagline promises “INCEPTION meets THE MAGICIANS” but I would counter that in the latter, the students had the advantage of formal instruction in the magical arts, while Kane Montgomery is a young man forced to wing it, along with his clandestine coterie of supernaturally charmed chums, as they unravel the mysterious happenings that have laid siege to their hometown while simultaneously discovering and honing their own extraordinary powers in this spellbinding coming-of-age fantasy adventure.

While amnesia may initially strike a reader as a convention to be avoided, it’s the test of a good writer to transform such a well-worn device into something compelling and interesting, and La Sala works his own magic to justify Kane’s erased memory as he slowly eases out of his self-induced isolation following a recent calamity and tremulously tiptoes towards the source of his missing memories.

As a reader, the first chapter or two felt slow for my taste, as so many questions were introduced for which I hungered for answers, but as Kane trades timidity for temerity, I followed his headlong dive into the fractured dreamscapes that popped up at an ever alarming rate, riveted by the hallucinogenic exploits of his and his mettlesome friends.

Their meddling in the megalomaniacal machinations of a malevolent mistress of both the dark arts and the art of drag sets this freshman novel apart from other young adult fiction. While the hero’s quest is set in a world of imagination, his core is rooted deeply in the reality that many LGBTQ youth face as they grow into their identities - how to embrace their innate difference in a world that often casts THEM as the villains, and would rather erase them entirely.

As Kane muses in the book, he longs for a place where he can realize his full potential and feel like he BELONGS. "It wasn’t just about finding a world that would tolerate him. It was about imagining a world that loved him back.” Readers like me will find themselves falling in love with THIS protagonist, and will appreciate a hero whose feet are firmly planted in a welcoming world of supportive friends and family, while his flights of fancy take us to the other side of the rainbow and back.

This was a fast past adventure book that did a fantastic job at describing the journey that Kane was going through. one of the things that I really enjoyed about this book was the writing. I think La Sala did an amazing job bring thins world and characters to life. He really does know how to get emotions across and grip the ready from the very first page. Another great thing about this book was the diversity in it as well. It feels inclusive to the reader and I'm sure plenty of people will really enjoy this book.

Reverie is a fast-paced adventure that follows protagonist Kane as he tries to unravel the mystery of just how he lost his memories and apparently destroyed a beloved historical site. Gripping right from the start, readers will quickly become engrossed with a quickly accelerating plot and well-designed characters. Kane's story isn't just one of solving a mystery, it's one of self-discovery and acceptance -- lessons that young readers will feel inspired and supported by!

I feel as though I just played through an indie rpg and now the end credits are rolling and I'm happy, sad, and thoroughly perplexed at what the HELL just happened.

Am I...is this world I'm in right now, even real?
*news notifications roll in* Yup, unfortunately way too real.
Reverie, beautiful title with a beautiful cover is the debut book by author Ryan La Sala and it packs a punch and I'm still figuring things out. I'm still trapped in all of these worlds. I'm still in love with all of these amazing characters I was introduced to. I just want to say that I am so happy this book exists, it blew me away.

Reverie means to be lost in one's thoughts; to daydream. Bitch, can I relate more than ever. I wasn't even halfway into this book when I realized what it reminded me of in a great way. The synopsis states that Reverie is Inception meets The Magicians but what is really reminded me of was Persona 5, a fantastic jrpg. Teens traveling to worlds to save people from their dreams and kick ass. You just have to love it.

Characters:
The main cast are called...The Others which is very mysterious.
Kane is our lead and he's gay, recently has lost all of his memories, and has no idea what the hell is going on or why he ended up half drowned in the river by the old mill.
Ursula is a literal badass who loves baking and is as sweet as can be.
Adeline is a cold black beauty who takes no shit.
Elliot is a handsome, nerd who will not shut up.
Dean is Mr. Mysterious and gorgeous, you know he has a dark past.
And the best, my favorite, the absolute most amazing character is Dr. Poesy, a stunning drag queen who exudes beauty and class and has a love for tea. As soon as her character was introduced I fell in love.

My Thoughts:

I am not a fantasy reader. I think I've mentioned this before but I'm just not and I think this was one of my first fantasy reads in a long long time. Some of it confused me and I had to re-read it again but that was okay. I enjoyed the ride. I laughed a lot during it and the little pop references such as Sailor Moon and Avatar Korra. I loved the diversity in this. As a bi black woman it feels so good to read things with so much diversity. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author. I'm looking forward to more stories like this altogether from the book world!

Thank you very much to SOURCEBOOKS Fire and Netgalley for this Arc. All opinions are my own. Please follow my blog for more reviews:
https://aelilyreads.home.blog/

Reverie is a tale about a young man named Kane who is struggling with his identity at the same time he uncovers a sorceress. At its core Reverie felt like a fantasy novel that covered tough topics such as identity and acceptance of oneself and dreams. I wasn't sure to be fair if I would enjoy this book but I actually came out of it pleasantly surprised and refreshed. Definitely be on the lookout for this author he is incredible at vivid description writing and world building.

**thanks to netgalley and the publishers for providing an e-arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**
I received a print and a digital copy of this work.
I read most of this book on a plane while traveling-when my kindle stopped working I was so glad I had a print version at home because I was more than 2/3's into this YA LGBTQ fantasy novel and I needed to find out WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
The novel starts slowly, we meet Kane, a gay teenage boy who was arrested due to him ramming his car into an old historic mill, that then burned down-something he has absolutely no memory of-it is just a huge hole. Rumors and whispers abound about him around town. When he goes back to be interviewed by the police, instead he is greeted by a drag queen named Posey, who offers to help him with a unique treatment. Kane soon sees shadows and realizes that more is going on than he knows.

This was a fun fantasy book set in a realistic world. Memory loss has been done a million times, but overall this one makes sense and fits with the later plot points (no spoilers). The characters and teens that Kane re-meets without his memory are fun and have good backstories. I liked the pacing, I liked the ending. My only real critique is that there could have been even more Posey (who was featured well).
Great read for my teens, and especially my rabid LGBTQ readers.

“That’s the thing about a big imagination. It’s hard to belong anywhere when you can always imagine something better.”

I received an e-ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Reverie is a book about many things – but primarily, it’s about magic, dreams, friendship, family, and evil drag queen and a huge sprinkling of glitter to top it all off. It’s a very busy book, and a wild ride from beginning to end with very few dull moments. That being said, I found it hard to connect with the story and I felt like I never truly became immersed in this world – after a stellar first chapter, I found myself beginning to struggle as the book went on and I never really regained my footing.

Firstly, I want to say that the writing in this book is gorgeous. It’s atmospheric and manages to weave an incredible, visceral picture of all the settings and dreamscapes we encounter in the story, and there were a lot of excellent descriptors. There were lots of glimmering moments where things really came to life and it was all down to the prose.

That being said, although the writing was lovely I personally found it to be quite confusing. This is by nature a very visual story, and for me I felt as though it would have worked a lot better as a screenplay. I could imagine a lot of the clarity issues I encountered in some scenes being resolved if they played out on-screen, and the dialogue, which at times felt a bit clunky on the page, would have worked fine in a movie. This isn’t the writer’s fault at all, some things are just naturally easier to convey through a visual medium.

Unfortunately, I also that the plot kind of went over my head. Granted, I read this book in fits and starts over a period of several weeks so it’s possible that pieces just escaped me and it would have all fallen into place if I’d read it in a less choppy fashion, but having finished it I’m just not at all clear on the details.
That being said, the characters were interesting and I enjoyed getting to explore their dynamics. Poesy was a great, chilling villain, definitely unlike any other antagonist I’ve ever read about. The worldbuilding – or more accurately, worldSbuilding, plural – was great, each little reality had its own quirk that made it come to life. I think there were some flashes of brilliance in Reverie, and there were moments that I really became immersed in it, but ultimately there were too many moments of confusion for me to really get swept up in the story.

"The reverie was not just dreams and whimsy, like Kane had thought. It was a person's psychology, rendered in vivid fantasy."

A unique story about a world in people's dream worlds become real. Only a few people, a group of teens who call themselves th ed Others, remain livid and know they aren't real. How do they form, why are these teens able to unravel them and what can they do to stop them and protect themselves and the people creating them without knowing? I enjoyed the story and characters. We learn what is going on as Kane does.

What if all of those hours you spend daydreaming could destroy your world as you know it? Kane wakes up from an accident of which he remembers absolutely nothing and finds himself bombarded with a new reality - a world in which reveries exist. Reveries, defined as “worlds born from a person’s private fantasies,” may sound like fun and games, but they can become so all-consuming that they destroy the person’s life.
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I’m going to be very upfront with you. One of the main reasons I requested this title from @netgalley is because of the fact that it contains a drag queen sorceress, and you’ll find that as the main consensus in the Goodreads community as well. Does that not sound badass?! I was so hyped to read it!
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Alas, I have found myself rather disappointed. I thought I was walking into a YA Fantasy, but I felt more like I was reading a middle-grade fantasy. Though the drag queen sorceress is pretty awesome, I felt that the overall LGBTQ themes in this book held a lot of potential that went undeveloped; the surface was grazed, but nothing more. The characters themselves lacked depth, and I am walking away from this book not having resonated with a single one of them. On another note, the world building of the reveries is quite amazing. It’s vivid, beautifully horrifying, and very imaginative.
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At the end of the day, I’m glad I read Reverie, but it didn’t do too much for my tastes.

I’d like to start by saying that preteen-me would’ve LOVED this book. Present day me found it a lot harder to understand why the protagonist insisted on acting/reacting without thinking 70% of the time, but that’s a very personal problem haha! The way that the main group of teens (aka The Others) in this book are able to stay lucid within people's ‘Reveries’—ie dream states that become real for the people trapped inside them until they’ve played out or can be ‘unravelled’ by the MC—is a very cool element, and a great jumping off point for discussions about the book. It’s been a couple days now and all I’ve been thinking about is what kind of Reverie my own mind might create! Another element of this book that I really enjoyed is the villain, Dr. Posey, who is an incredibly powerful and ethereal drag queen who can manipulate realities with her charm bracelet. I loved the way that the main character understood Posey’s actions to an extent, and it really brought depth to the character as well as the overall conflict/climax of the story. Definitely a book I’ll recommend to others!

As much as I tried I simply could not finish this book. Cover was beautiful. Wished for more and had a hard time making it through.

Disclaimer: I received an eARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

All Kane knows is that he was in an accident at an old mill in town. He disappeared for a couple days, crashed his dad’s car which burst into flames, and woke up in a hospital days later with several burns.

Problem is, he doesn’t remember the accident. Nor does he remember the summer. In fact, much of his life is a mystery.

He discovers pictures in his room that suggest that he is friends with a girl named Ursula who he doesn’t remember being friends with. He remembers being really cruel to her in third grade but doesn’t remember ever being her friend.

As he begins to unravel his life from his lost memories, he discovers that he is a part of a group called The Others who remain lucid when something called a Reverie becomes real. The Others help to protect those within the reverie before making sure it unravels safely.

But the reveries are becoming more dangerous. And Kane must rebuild his life, trust people he doesn’t remember, and become more than who he was before to save the world from a drag queen sorceress who may just be behind all of this madness.

I come into this review as someone who has genuine brain-processing issues with fantasy. This particular fantasy, however, will work well for people like me whose brains cannot process most on-page fantasies. Ryan La Sala created a grounded fantasy with solid world-building that allows for even someone like me to understand what’s happening throughout the story.

The idea is intriguing, and it’s done extremely well. This will appeal to all YA readers even those like me who normally cannot process fantasy.

Reverie releases January 7, 2020.