Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire for sharing a copy in exchange for my honest review.
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. 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.
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The BaronessHey, I'm Shreya! I love to read, write, travel, and drink tea. Disclosure: I am an affiliate of bookshop.org and I will earn a small commission if you click the above link and make a purchase.
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