Dream Life

Dream Life by Lauren Mechling was an enjoyable YA mystery. Claire Voyant, the book's teen sleuth, has an uncanny ability she inherited from her grandmother Kiki. Claire has the ability to see glimpses of clues in her dreams. While these dream hints and symbols are often difficult for Claire to decipher she is determined to use her powers to help her friends.Dream Life is the second Claire Voyant mystery. These books stand well on their own but I recommend reading Dream Girl first since Dream Life contains spoilers to the first novel. ( )

Dream Life was a terrific follow-up to Dream Girl. We were introduced to a new adventure, an onslaught of new characters and even more of Kiki’s crazy attitude.

I enjoyed this one a lot more. Unlike the first one, it became quite clear what the story was in Dream Life right away. While I don’t think the dreams were as intense as they were in Dream Girl, they made a lot more sense and fit in more with the chain of events written in this one. The dreams foreshadowed- oddly albeit amusingly- the clues that Claire eventually cracks, and it makes for perfect ‘aha!’ moments.

I really enjoyed the new characters as well. None of them replaced the extreme favoritism that I hold for Claire, Becca & Andy. But as small as they were, they were crucial to the story and made things ten times more entertaining. Especially Alex- Kiki’s birthday party was probably my favorite scene of the entire book.

Overall, I thought it was much better than Dream Girl. More action, more adventure, more romance and more of Claire’s sarcastic mindset. The perfect easy, entertaining read! If you haven’t picked up Dream Girl & pre-ordered Dream Life today, I definitely suggest it! ( )

Dream Life is the sequel to Lauren Mechling’s cute teenage supernatural mystery saga of Claire Voyante.

http://thenovelworld.com/2010/02/08/dream-life-review/ ( )

15-year-old psychic detective Claire Voyante’s new semester is not getting off to so great a start. Her best friend Becca is too busy with some old friends of hers to spend much time with Claire. And now Andy, Becca’s older brother and Claire’s crush-slash-somewhat-boyfriend, also seems too busy for her.

Then it turns out that Becca’s actually in a secret society responsible for improvement projects all over NYC, and their latest project is about to go downhill with a mysterious enemy attempting to sabotage their plans. It may be all up to Claire and her psychic dreams to help save the day once again.

This companion novel/sequel to DREAM GIRL does not disappoint at all: Claire and her eclectic group of friends and family are all here again, helping us enjoy the heck out of reading contemporary chick lit mystery with a twist of magic. Lauren Mechling proves once again that fluff reading can also be smart, and that smart girls can read fluff.

The most outstanding thing about this series is its gold medal-worthy characters. Claire is not your average teen chick lit heroine: she’s smart, she’s snarky, and she has a way of narrating that will leave us chuckling and wondering why we didn’t think of it ourselves. Likewise, I’m flabbergasted at the way Lauren writes atypical supporting characters, ones whose existence lies beyond being merely a plot device, or the MC’s loyal, opinion-less sidekick.

In fact, even though DREAM LIFE is at its core a gentle mystery novel, I loved the way everything didn’t revolve around the mystery. As in real life, there is more than one issue in a person’s life, and so it is with Claire. Lauren blends the mystery element with family eccentricities, friends’ troubles, choppy romantic waters, and more, to create a well-rounded, enjoyable, yet utterly relatable tale.

Similar to DREAM GIRL, the mystery aspect of this novel requires a bit of suspension of disbelief in order to believe. Secret society novels are rather overdone, and the creed of the one in DREAM LIFE is, well, a little silly and ridiculous. Still, one cannot deny Lauren’s skill at writing these novels. If you haven’t yet read this series, I highly recommend you pick it up. As far as lighthearted yet intelligent fluffy mysteries go, you can’t get much better than this. ( )