I like the premise of the book, but I had a difficult time understanding the story. This is why I gave it a three star review.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately it’s not the book for me. DNF @ 10%.

Thank you so much to net galley for sending me a copy of this book. I wasn’t expecting to really enjoy this book but I ended up really enjoying it

Dream me by Kathryn Berla is an over all good part YA part sci-fi with a bit of romance thrown in that kept me reading.

The details in Dream Me is what sets it apart, the author really knows how to world build on a whole other level. Definitely recommend.

This book is a mix of scifi and contemporary and, sadly, it didn't work for me. Zat is a young man from the future who dreams of Babe, a red-haired young woman from Earth of the past. In their dreams they are able to connect and receive romantic fulfillment that they don't in their real lives, but a crippling side effect: Babe experiences migraines in her awake life that prevent her from living a fully functioning life.

The parts of the book that read as a contemporary were fantastic and I remember reading several passages over again because I wanted to savor them. But when it ventured into scifi territory it felt lacking, like the story itself suffered the more the author tried to work that genre into the mix.

Another reason this story suffered is that we were told a lot of information instead of shown, especially at the beginning, and I'm actually not surprised since the book is under 200 pages. There was a lot the author wanted to accomplish and info-dumped through telling--creative writing no-no #1: show, don't tell.

I believe I would have connected more if the author had better fleshed out showing us what was happening and made a better balance of the scifi elements alongside the story.

This was awful! I wish I had DNFed it, I almost did but I wanted answers to the world as it was for Zat. Do I get that. Not fully. I get some but not until the end. And the ending? Ugh Don't get me started! I was more mad at that then I was when I debated DNFing it. I did like Zat's character but really did not like Babe. She is one of those teens that make you want to do a fce plam at regular intervals for her stupid actions and comments. Best part of the book, oddly enough, where the blog entries. She annoyed me less there. Thank goodness this was a shorter book.

Good book. Good author. Loved the characters and the plot. Look forward to reading more of her work.

A gorgeous cover for a gorgeous book! Such a great read. Full review will be on my blog soon, so please check back for that.

This is a compelling mixture of teen romance, fantasy and time travel. Zat and Babe are in love, but they can only meet in Babe's dreams. Why? Zat is from the future and has time=travelled back to current day Earth. In Zat's time frame, the earth is dying. A charming dystopian novel that keeps you guessing? Is there any way to save this romance or are the lovers doomed?

The first thing that hit me about this book is that Ms. Berla can write. She definitely has a way with words. <i>Dream Me</i> was in no way lacking when it comes to the author's ability to tell a story.

When I requested to read this, I was certain it would be an amazing read. I mean, time travel, some science fiction...Love it! But, it ended up being a tad bit different than what I imagined.

At times, <i>Dream Me</i> is almost an epistolary novel; featuring blog entries from the story's protagonist, Babe. And, although, I respect this approach, I feel like it just didn't need to be used here. Her "blogging" voice, didn't seem much different than her "narration" voice. Babe's side of the story is told in first-person, so, in my opinion, there were times, the blogging just seemed unnecessary.

However, the love that grew between Babe and Zat really did help with any of my perceived deficiencies. Even though these two were from two different worlds, they were perfectly suited for each other. It was beyond endearing to "watch" these two get to know one another. And, the only thing that could have made it better was a tad bit more of an ending.

There were some surprises for me later on in the book, that just reinforced my respect for this author.

I tried reading this a few months ago since I got the copy of the arc from the author but I don't think I'm coming back to it. Something about it was not my cup of tea.

The thing that drew me to this book was it's interesting and intriguing blurb and thought why not but I was surprisingly disappointed by how weak the plot was in the general context of the novel. Let me just say that some people may like this kind of plot but for me, it opened in a confusing manner where you have no idea what is going on. The main characters were good but the dual perspectives were not explained or even hinted at making the two points of view seem like completely separate stories. The thing that bothered me the most though, was the huge info dump right at the end of the novel when the novel should have been concluding. So in the final pages we get all the information we should have been given at the beginning and laced throughout, then the story ends leaving us the readers even more confused and dazed than when we started the novel. While normally I would have given this book only one star I gave it a second purely on the fact it had tons of potential that the author just didn't act on.

Love love love this book! The characters were both looking for love or just a way to escape the reality of their lives. I loved how the innovative the characters were, made me feel for them. Honestly the ending happened too quickly for me, I would have loved to know more about Zat. I love the Science fiction theme, we don't have enough YA Science fiction novels . I loved how you were able to balance the different narrations throughout the book. My favorite kind of books are the ones I cannot out down, this is a must read!

Dream Me combines time travel, teen angst, and romance in Kathryn Berla's new YA novel where a young man from a dying Earth's future time travels to our present-day, visiting a teen in her dreams.

Time travel and dream projection, with a heavy addition of romance, Dream Me sounded like my kind of YA read.

Dream Me really ended up being an equal mix of positives and negatives for me. I'm going to get the negatives out first so we can end on a positive note.

Normally, I would love this fun genre blend in one of my YA reads but the concept and delivery of the sci-fi element was really sparse and the romance too instantaneous for my taste.

The dying Earth, time travel, and Zack's determination to visit Babe were all vaguely explained and it wasn't until the end when an unforeseen twist (one that I really liked) made me change my mind on many points, unfortunately, though it gave it a satisfactory conclusion, it was too late premise-wise.

I had a hard time connecting to Zat's character, our young and handsome time traveler, throughout the entire story. I loved the idea of a slow burn romance developing within a dream world between Zat and Babe but the execution felt lacking to me. I needed more chemistry or banter between the two - the buildup just wasn't there for me.

What I did enjoy was Babe's spunky personality and the positive portrayal of family and friendships. The fun setting which took place at Sugar Dunes, a sleepy town in the Florida Panhandle, also added to the appeal, in fact, the contemporary setting outshone the dream realm surprisingly.

Summer vacations, a new town, and friendships would have made Dream Me a great start to a YA contemporary. Also, I would like to mention that this is a very sweet and clean read which would be suitable for younger readers wondering into teen reads.

In the End

A clean and positive (light) sci-fi read that feels more like a YA contemporary romance with little build-up. A great twist at the end and positive family and friendships relations are an added bonus.

2,5 STARS

I remember getting this book a long while ago and was really looking forward to it. The blurb sounded exciting and intriguing, so I thought why not give it a go. So now I finally read it and I hate to say it but I'm actually quite disappointed by the weak plot.

The way this story started left me totally confused since the author doesn't tell us exactly what's happening. You get a teenager in the present time that moved to a new town because of her father's job. And then you have a boy that still lives on Earth but not really, since the Earth that we know is dying and the people have mutated to some sort of lizard like creatures. Which btw. I loved, a great spin on the main character. But what bothered me is that we get this information almost near the end of the story. So all this time I was practically wondering what Zat is and what the actual plot is. And, yes, the plot is super weak. It's starts of fine but then you read and read, nothing really happens. She lives her normal life, makes friends, gets a job and only meets up with Zet in her dreams and that only for a short period of time. So we actually almost don't get to see him in the real world. (view spoiler) And then all of a sudden, the story comes to it's end. And you're left even more confused, like that was it? Huh? I expected more.

So Dream Me is someone's really interesting, yet bizarre idea. Unfortunately this idea appears to have been put in the hands of an amateur writer who decided to use every teen book cliche ever.
We have:
- insta-love
- one setting is dystopian
- girl whose been moved away from her friends/boyfriend
- awkward teenage moments
- the beautiful boy everyone loves
- the popular girl
- a small town high school

This results in lines like:
"We were inseparable, until we were separated last week, just two days after my seventeenth birthday."

" "I'll always be right here." He reaches out and places the palm of his hand lightly against the contour of my cheek. My face flushes hot at his touch."

The first line above is about her back home boyfriend. The line below it is from her insta-love dream boy that has invaded her mind. Sadly that's not even the worst of it.

The worst of it is the writing format.
It's very cheap. It doesn't endear readers to your writing when you use an excuse for your weird/poor writing style. Dream Me is broken into two styles of storytelling. First is the generic, this is what is happening narrative (all well and good). Second is our lead gals blog posts (including comments). Except that the blog posts are written EXACTLY like the regular narrative. Including dialogue and third person perspective. And while Kathryn Bella has the lead gal explain away her weird writing it's just not good enough. No one actually writes blog posts like this!!!
Now I know why she chose blog posts and comments as it was apparent to me from the first time a comment shows up from "Dream me" what was likely going on. It was at this point I knew I was done with the book. While I read another 20 pages or so there was just no saving this book.

I'm willing to bet (and I did not skim ahead) I could spoil this ending without ever reading it; it's that obvious. At the end of the day however I don't even care enough to skim forward and find out.

So I have mixed feelings about this book, at first I didn't like the blog sections as I felt it disrupted the flow of the story, but then when I got into it more I found those sections were the ones I was looking forward to the most.

I thought the end was weird, great ending, but weird as I would have liked an explanation...??!!! I was just getting into it when it finished, I really wanted more!!!

I would have liked to read more on the dreams, I feel too much was focused on her day to day life, (not that it wasn't interesting) I enjoyed getting to know Mai and LeGrand, they were both great friends for Babe. I just would have liked more on Zat, I felt like it only skimmed the surface of his character, as he seemed the most fascinating to me.

I loved the concept for this story, it's so original and is one of the reasons I kept reading.

I actually found this book really tough to rate. On the one hand there's so much about it that I loved but on the other hand there's so much that I wished had been executed differently.

<b>It is an interesting dynamic of a YA Contemporary Sci-Fi but for me it fell more into a fantasy category since there was no explanation of the science.</b>

The basic premise was interesting, and yet problematic for me: in the distant future humans (or whatever our race evolved into) have developed a means of time travel where you can send someone's consciousness back into the past to a host. The catch is that they are only able to interact with their host while the host is dreaming and in the REM state. I'm not sure what happens to that consciousness during other times - it just wasn't explained. Nor was it explained how they separated the body from the consciousness.

The main characters are Babe, the girl of our time, and Zat, the boy from the future. Babe has never lived in one place for very long - with her father being a golf pro they travel around the country and live wherever her father can find work. At the beginning of the book they are moving to Sugar Dunes, Florida and we follow Babe and her blog through the summer.

<b>I did like the different narratives in the story - the medium of Babe's blog and it's comments were fun to read and it was nice to have a POV from both Babe and Zat.</b>

I enjoyed the flow of the writing and the juxtaposition of the descriptiveness and then the very teenage narration when it came to Babe.

<blockquote><b>
It’s that special peaceful time just before sunset, when day and night reach equilibrium and the world stops to exhale. I’m never up early enough to know if the world inhales before sunrise.
</b></blockquote>

<b>I also really liked the diversity in this book. There was a lot of good representation here with regards to culture, wealth, sexuality and even hobbies and sports.</b> It was great to see.

However there were also some pretty glaring issues that kept me from giving this book a higher rating.

I felt like all the characters other than Babe were underdeveloped and too stereotypical. The plot meandered and seemed to frequently become a bit lost - in short it's a very light plot and I'm not sure that the cookie cutter characters and the light plot worked for me but I did like the relationships that developed and the underlying themes.

Unfortunately I did have a HUGE issue with the way sexual harassment was presented in this book.

Babe is working at the tennis shop and is harassed by the 'big shot' of the country club - the richest king of the hill with the biggest yacht sailing in to their Summer port. It begins with this guy giving Babe '<i>the eye</i>' upon his first meeting her, then progresses to him starting to touch her - seemingly innocuously at first but then rubbing her back and finally culminating in him accusing her of being a seductress, a temptress and kissing her.

In the beginning Babe is worried about herself and her job:

<blockquote><b>
No way was I going to let Mr. Buell come between me and my job, as much as I’m sure he would have enjoyed a me-against-him scenario. It was nothing more than a game to him, but for me it wrecked my entire day.
</b></blockquote>

But it soon progresses to her becoming worried about her parents:

<blockquote><b>
“Your daddy’s the new golf pro, isn’t he? Pat Fremont?”

“Yes, he is.” I heard the threatening subtext of his question and my stomach sunk like a diving sub.

“I ran into him the other day. He’s a real nice fella, by golly. Your mama too, pretty lady. I can see where you get your good looks.”

Here was the threat. He didn’t have to say it—put up or shut up.
</b></blockquote>

Babe tries to justify 'putting up' with the harassment to herself - she only has to avoid the man for one summer and then she would be done with him forever and she refuses to put her parent' future in jeopardy.

But this is a YA book, and while it may be commendable that Babe wanted to protect her parents and later her friend, I just think that a bigger deal should have been made of this and she should have at least TOLD people (like her parents) that it was happening or that more could have been done about it in the book. He's threatened her hoping that it will keep her quiet, and it did! It's sending the wrong message to young readers. It is never Okay to be harassed and I just didn't like how this played out in this book.

Even with these issues there was something about the book that stayed with me - something that kept me wondering and kept prompting me to pick up the book to finish it to try to find the answers to my questions.

<b>The writing is really good and Babe's narrative and her Blog were especially engaging and had the science been more defined and the world building been a little better this could have been a great book.</b>