All the comparisons to Claire Lombardo and Ann Napolitano are apt. This is a fabulous sweeping drama but less familial and more friendship-based. It is often described as generational but I think that’s a misnomer. It’s more about 3 people over the course of their overlapping, interchangeable lives. It might sound insular but boy does it hold your attention. Great writing and with achingly accurate witticisms about who we are at our core.

4.5 stars rounded down.
The blurb for ‘Dream State’ intrigued me – it reminded me a lot of the TV series ‘The Affair’ which, in a somewhat similar vein followed the fortunes of a tight group of characters across the present and future generations.
Cece and Charlie are due to be married at Charlie’s old homeplace in Montana. Going up early to get everything sorted for the wedding, Cece meets Charlie’s best friend and their celebrant, Garrett and almost immediately takes a dislike to him when she learns that he doesn’t believe in marriage.
But, over the span of what seems like a few weeks before Charlie arrives, things happen that change their relationship and, as it happens, the course of everyone’s lives.
I loved the atmosphere that the book conveyed – the golden, halcyon days of summer and the depictions of hijinks at the lake, the rickety old house and its vagaries, right down to the descriptions of nature and wildlife later on when Garrett is following his research passions.
There is very much an air of ‘one moment can change everything’ to this book and, like the characters, you find yourself wondering at times how different things would have been if X had happened instead of Y.
The way the novel weaves the kids, Lana and Jasper, into the story is partly what reminds me so much of ‘The Affair’ as the focus shifts throughout the seasons to how choices can ripple through time and generations. The full spectrum of human emotion is on display here: heartbreak, nihilism, confusion, sadness, loss, grief, joy, resilience, everything that makes up life. In all honesty, it made me stop and think about aspects of my own life just as the characters on the pages did.
I also loved the way the author weaved bigger issues into the story – I have seen some reviews where people didn’t like the theme around the climate crisis but, for me, I thought it was remarkably well done. Obviously, as things worsened, it became more of a focal point but the journey to disaster was outlined subtly and gradually, with nothing overdramatic to try hit the reader of the head with.
It was, quite frankly, a terrifyingly realistic outcome, particularly the way the characters simply adjusted to it.
A very enjoyable read that showcased characters who, like any of us, are just trundling along in life, trying to make the right decisions and living with whichever ones we do make. For me, it was human and it was real, and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time after closing the book.

My thanks to Hachette ANZ, via NetGalley, for an eARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

A real comfort read, warm and humane, with a good dose of drama but also a great sense of humour. I enjoyed it, the Montana setting is very evocative and the characters quite realistic. It's very character-driven.

Charlie and Garrett are best friends. At the centre of the novel is Charlie's wedding to Cece. Gareth is the best man, but when he sees Cece.... I won't spoil, but the events impact the characters' lives well into the future, against a background of environmental degradation.

It may not be highbrow literature but it's a very good novel all the same. It works well on audio too.

I know so many of you LOVE a family drama! I mean don’t we all. I love drama full stop! So when I heard about this debut novel - Dream State by Eric Puchner - I was excited to try it because it seemed like a book that would scratch that particular itch in my summer reading.

And it was really good guys! It felt very much in the vein of someone like Claire Lombardo, but perhaps with higher stakes in some instances.

To set the scene, the book is set in Montana, a state I don’t know much about aside from its national parks and frontier legacy - but it’s a setting that’s clearly important here, and I enjoyed how alive the place felt.

It starts with our three protagonists: Cece is marrying Charlie, who’s parents own a lake house in the fictional town of Salish. Charlie has asked Garrett, his close friend from college, to officiate the wedding. When Cece meets him, she’s unimpressed. But the wedding is derailed in a way that has consequences for years to come. We travel back and forth in time, getting to know not just these original characters but also their children and friends over the course of some 50 years.

I raced through the first half of this one, and really enjoyed it. The outcomes of decisions that got made were SO interesting to me, and although the first section takes place over a short period of time, the rest then flips across time barriers so quickly that I didn’t feel bored.

BUT I will say, my investment mostly stayed with these original characters. Any book that has multiple narrative strands takes a risk - you end up with favourites. I have to admit I was less interested in the bits later in the book that dealt with the drama of the kids as they grew up and made their own life choices. I DID really appreciate the idea that everything reverberates down through generations in unforeseen ways, no matter how much you don’t want it to. But the kids felt less complex and maybe even a little cliche.

Later in the book, climate change becomes a bigger theme, with its own set of repercussions. I’m still mulling over whether this worked for me or not - objectively I think it’s a really important topic but in the book it felt suddenly enormous, the balance off-kilter compared to the first two thirds.

At its heart those original, central three relationships kept did keep me invested though! Love and friendship, marriage and parenthood - these felt realistically explored as being sometimes good and sometimes bad and sometimes surprising and sometimes boring. That’s life. And I keenly wanted to know where these guys were going to end up, through it all.

Huge thanks to netgalley and Hachette for my copy!