Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
|
Loading... The Dreamers: A Novel (edition 2019)by Karen Thompson Walker (Author)
Work InformationThe Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker
   No current Talk conversations about this book.  ardaiel | Mar 4, 2024 |   The residents of a small town are slowly overtaken by a mysterious contagion that causes them to fall asleep for extended periods of time. We see it unfolding from patient zero and how it spread and causes strife for old and young throughout the town. The fear, the heartbreak, the attempts to outsmart the virus - it’s all here. Lovely writing style and feel. (  ) hmonkeyreads | Jan 25, 2024 | "In parallel with today's pandemic, the characters in Walker's novel confront a shortage of face masks. There is a panicked run on supermarkets. Waves through a window to loved ones under quarantine. Talk of it all being a hoax. And, just as now, the impossibility of knowing what's to come." And truthfully, that's the most interesting part of this book. It started well, with interesting enough characters and storylines to lift it past my annoyance with the present-tense stylings and Cassandra Campbell's breathily droning narration, but really lost momentum in the second half. At that point, I couldn't ignore the sheer ridiculousness of the scientific/medical basis of this disease, diagnosis, and treatment anymore, and the last few chapters devolved into some navel-gazing about the nature of life and dreams and relationships that just didn't work for me. I was a little relieved when I got to The End. But the first half was good enough for an overall 3 star rating. Audiobook, borrowed from my public library via Overdrive. (  ) Doodlebug34 | Jan 1, 2024 |  ) feralcreature | Oct 31, 2023 | no reviews | add a review
Awards
One night in an isolated college town in the hills of Southern California, a first-year student stumbles into her dorm room, falls asleep, and doesn't wake up. She sleeps through the morning, into the evening. Her roommate, Mei, cannot rouse her. Neither can the paramedics, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital. When a second girl falls asleep, and then a third, Mei finds herself thrust together with an eccentric classmate as panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. A young couple tries to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. Two sisters turn to each other for comfort as their survivalist father prepares for disaster. Those affected by the illness, doctors discover, are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, higher than has ever been recorded before. They are dreaming heightened dreams, but of what? Written in luminous prose, The Dreamers is a breathtaking and beautiful novel, startling and provocative, about the possibilities contained within a human life, if only we are awakened to them. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.62)
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia in English
2
I found myself feeling like this book was very light on the action and heavy on the poetry and wandering descriptions. And if you like that - and lots of people do, nothing wrong with it - then you'll love this book. I personally just wanted more action. (