DNF at 50%. I hate books that throw random twists at you and then spend the entire book trying to explain those twists. This had all the elements that should have made me love it, but it was just super mediocre. The execution was meh. And it was just so messy. 2.5/5 stars.

Reverie by Ryan La Sala is a hybrid of a book. We get to follow Kane one his journey to get his memory back but along the way, we are shown some pretty epic fantasy worlds and some killer powers. This book really tested my imagination and I loved that.

Kane was recently in a pretty bad accident. An accident that caused the burning of a pretty important historical building, caused him to end up in a coma and caused him to lose his memory. But what if the accident wasn't what caused him to lose his memory? What is Kane has the ability to do something... magical? What if the life Kane remembers is just a ruse?

After the accident and Kane has had time to heal, he goes back to school only to realize that his memories are jumbled. Why does it feel like he knows some people when his memory is telling him that he hates or steers clear of them? Ursula, a girl he remembers not being friends with, ends up helping him out and that just opened up a floodgate of even more confusion and doubt.

This book is Magical Realism, at least by my definition. But when I went to check Goodreads, Magical Realism wasn't even remotely one of the genres listed for this book so that confused me. But I am keeping this review short because I feel like this is a book that needs to be experienced personally.

What I first picked this book up, I could not get into it. I have no idea what the problem was, maybe the fact that it was contemporary and I might not have been in the mood at the time but once I got past 100 pages I flew through the story. It was a wild ride about people's dreams/fantasies turning into something called a reverie which means it kind of comes to life but if it's not stopped it could end up destroying the people in the reverie. You know what, just read the book.

In the end, I thought this book had a really solid storyline and plot but some things could have been written/portrayed better and there were some mistakes that transferred over to the finished copy of the book. I can't wait to see what the author writes next.

Overall, I gave the book 4/5 stars.

Unfortunately this was not for me. I constantly felt like I wanted more...more time with the characters, more explanation, more connection between the Reveries.

Reverie, by Ryan La Sala, laid down interesting bread crumbs to follow, but I felt confused for some of it. In my opinion, there were also some instances of language, etc. that may be considered YA, but the story was written more at a Middle Grade level that just didn’t make me feel like I was in the story. I definitely felt like I was on the outside looking in, which makes it very hard to finish reading. I started and stopped this book many times before finishing it. I also felt that there was really a spotlight on the LGBTQ aspect and I thought that could have been weaved in to the rest of the storyline and plot better rather than having it be so distracting.

At first read, this book was just ok for me. I do plan on rereading it, with friends. I want to get a better understanding of it.

Snarky, unique and utterly brilliant. I fell in love with this book, and I could not stop reading it. This is definitely a must read for any one, especially queer teens!

This book was an interesting take on its subject matter, but it's convoluted. It wasn't really for me.

Ryan La Sala is a debut author with the draw and personality of someone enchanted with and excited about the future of young adult literature. He has unapologetically weaved a story of inspiring, flawed characters seeking personal redemption, self awareness, and we can only assume, a restorative afternoon nap.

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for release of this review copy!

SO happy that I got this book and was approved. This book did not let me down and guys this cover is stunning. I will make sure I check out of other works by this author! I highly recommend picking this book up. I had so much fun reading it.

I had a really hard time connecting with this book. I wanted to love it so badly but the plot completely confused and felt extremely lost.

Unfortunately, I DNF'd REVERIE by Ryan LaSala. I cannot pin point why, but it just wasn't clicking with me. Maybe I'll try again another time. and give it a proper review.

While I enjoyed this, it wasn't something I fell in love with immediately. It took me a while of picking it up and putting it down before I finally sat down and just read it all the way through. I never fully grasped the whole "reverie" aspect and unraveling them, but I understood it enough to keep going through. Characters were fun, and I liked seeing how relationships built between each of them. Wasn't a fan of Ursula and Kane's friendship though -- it was a lot of push and pull. One moment he liked Ursula, and then the next he didn't...

Fun read, but not one I would pick up again.

This book was just not for me, but not because it was badly written . I really wanted to like it, and I loved the concept (Inception meets The Magicians sounds like the exact type of book I would love!) but I just couldn't connect to it and had a hard time wrapping my brain around the reveries.

Kane Montgomery is returning to the scene of the crime. He’s accused of taking his parents’ car and driving into a historical site, an old mill in his town in Connecticut. But he doesn’t remember a thing about it; he just knows he woke up in the hospital after being fished out of the nearby river. So he’s desperately trying to piece things together — it’s not just the police who want answers; he wants them most of all because it’s his memory that’s gone.

Thanks to being gay, which most people seemed to intuit before he even did, Kane has always been made fun of and left on the fringes. He’s used to being alone. So he’s pleased, though confused, to start figuring out he has had a group of friends the past few months, the period of time he can’t remember. And they are the only ones who are “lucid,” remembering who they are, when the cheerleaders, football team and other kids from their school all of a sudden are players in a very weird and scary dream made reality. They even have magical powers to fight inside this “reverie” and are the only ones who can bring it to an end, returning the whole dream/imagined world to the mind of the kid who thought it up.

The reveries keep happening, and Kane encounters two other people in and near them who may or may not be on his side: Poesy, a drag queen who is able to explain exactly what is going on to a confused Kane, including the source of his magic and that of their group the “Others,” and Dean, a good-looking guy who’s new to their school and who seems to have a history with Kane as well.

Despite their powers, Kane and the Others may be outmatched by an entity who wants to use the reveries to create a whole new reality. They must decide whom to trust and how to use their gifts to keep their world from being swallowed up in a ghastly new one.

Reverie has a clever and promising premise and follows some good plot lines, but it fell flat for me. Despite it being marketed as a young adult book and with some elements being most appropriate for an older, YA audience, three-quarters of it read like a middle-grade book, with the phrasing and style I would expect from stories aimed at that younger age group. So it was jarring when there were some instances of strong language and more mature content. I also felt that the author was trying too hard at times to use some “impressive” vocabulary (and it was a bit annoying when I noted he had used “desiccated” three times within a chapter or two). It didn’t feel organic.

All in all, some good bones, but the flesh needed more work and maybe defter hands crafting it. The author is a member of the LGBTQIA community himself and says in the acknowledgments that he appreciates the opportunity to be able to live in a time when he can publish this book and have it be there for youths like he was. But it still seemed too often like a statement piece rather than just a book where these LGBTQ characters live and grow naturally within the story.

Reverie by Ryan La Sala

Note: I received an ebook ARC but I discovered to my peril I’m rubbish at reading books on my phone. So I purchased a paperback copy.

Focusing on Kane Montgomery a teenage boy who wakes up on the side of a river by Police. Kane who has significant gaps in his memory slowly discovers he has abilities to travel into Dreams that manifest into a sort of reality.
Except someone is using Kane, and is it his once friends or something more sinister.

This book was such an atmospheric read. I had visions of a Riverdale like town, a Drag Queen that frankly Billy Porter would frankly slay playing. Kane was engaging flawed protagonist, who’s missing memories slowly begin to piece together. His mysterious love interest Dean, who’s place in the world was intriguing mystery.

It’s a little like inception, a lot of fun, with powers and vivid realities. I’m always a sucker for YA fantasy, particularly with a queer protagonist as it’s lead.
It’s a Define recommendation!

One of the BEST books I’ve read in a while. Such an intriguing magic system involving dreams and reveries. Plus the LGBTQ+ rep in the book. Ugh amazing!

I could not get into this story and had to DNF at about 30%. I'm hoping that this is a case of "right story, wrong time" and will be better when I return to it at a later date. There was nothing overwhelming bad about this story, I just struggled to stay invested.

Although I loved the concept of the book - the reveries, the Others, I was not impressed with the execution.

Reverie is a queer contemporary portal fantasy that kept surprising me as I read it, mostly in good ways.


Reverie CoverAll 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. (Goodreads)
Goodreads

I received an eARC of Reverie via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Reverie is one of the most unusual novels I’ve read in a long time. It’a book where portal fantasy meets inception, which is a really great combination. It was like La Sala had a lot of alternate universe ideas and found a way to work them all together into a cohesive plot that kept me rooted to it.

It needs trigger warnings for memory loss, false memories, police involvement, queerphobic and homophobic microaggressions against the main characters, and the disappearance of minor characters.

Our main character, Kane, is kind of a dick for the entire novel. He has many reasons to be because pretty much everyone around him is hiding things from him and he has no memories of most of them. I’d be a dick, too, if that was my reality.

Poesy was a hell of an antagonist, and I can’t get into why without spoiling just about everything. However, if you want a great villain, you are in for a treat here. I also loved that there were background characters that were queer women.

Personally, I would have loved to have seen a little bit more delving into the background of the loom and the existence of the reveries, but in such a fast-paced novel, I can see why La Sala chose not to. I also wish there was a queer man in Kane’s life that he could have turned to other than Poesy because he desperately needs an adult he feels comfortable talking to. I hope Kane finds one soon.

While there were a few things I didn’t love about this, it’s still a great book and one that I think a lot of people are going to love. You can pick it up on Amazon, Indiebound, or Book Depository through our affiliate links!

this has a lot of good ideas, such as the concept of a "reverie", a dream-like state that can pull people into it and have devastating consequences. unfortunately, i think the book failed to deliver on its promise.

kane made some stupid, illogical decisions such as trusting/not trusting certain people that made absolutely no sense and were clearly there only for the furthering of the plot. the plot itself was veryslow-going at first, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but even when it picked up it felt oddly disjointed, like an inexperienced knitter dropping stitches all the time.

the romance was same gender (m/m) which was nice, but the trajectory was very predictable. the characters were also not particularly interesting.

basically, a solid 3 star book: interesting premise, failed execution.