Unfortunately, this book just really didn't work for me. The craziest part about it all is that I liked hearing about Babe's (mc) life, but the plot of the boy visiting her in her dreams led absolutely NOWHERE and the idea of having chapters from her blog, complete with comments by various other accounts, were interesting, but too cringey. I felt no attachment to the characters and friendships were formed far too quickly and conveniently; the mean girl wasn't mean, and the gay character was was only outed at 88% - possibly only to make the mc feel better about herself & her v strange relationship? However, I'm not part of that minority so can't comment on the representation.

Overall, this book had potential, and some bits worked - but some really, really didn't.

//Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing my with a copy of this in exchange for an honest review//

I read "Dream Me" by Kathryn Berla for the "read a book with a person on the cover" part of the booktubathon last week, and I loved it!

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me access to "Dream Me". It was a really cute story with an unexpected twist.

Teen drinking as well as drunk/abusive parents play a role in "Dream Me" so if you're sensitive to that I'd suggest maybe not reading it. The abuse is never shown, just alluded to.

"Dream Me" is a contemporary read with a slight sci-fi twist that tells the story of Babe, a teenage girl who experiences dreams of a boy, Zat. She doesn't understand these dreams until part way through the novel.

"Dream Me" is written in both first and third person. I like reading books told in first person cause I feel I can connect to the character and what's happening more. Also we see articles from Babe's blog. These are significant to the story because it helps her cope with what's happening to her, both in her dreams with Zat, and in reality with real people. Zat's parts are written in third person, which worked well as he is from the future and none of us have experienced that and we don't know what will happen. This is just the authors take on it for this story.

There's a strong friendship element to "Dream Me" as well the romance. Babe has never really had any friends before apart from her ex boyfriend, who's in California. She gets to know and befriends, Mai a girl that works in her parents Korean food store, a rich boy with secrets of his own, LeGrand, as well as well as other characters that hang out where she works. I do however feel that the romance is a little insta-lovey though, so if that's not your thing, I wouldn't recommend this! The friendship element is perhaps stronger than the romance, however.

4 Stars!

Spoilers Below...

The main character is Babe. She's just moved to Florida from California with her parents. The town Babe's family has moved to has a rich and a poor side. Babe lives on the poor side.

"I had to live on a street named after a fish?"

shows how Babe is shocked about the name of her street. This also shows that she's not afraid to think anything.

Babe experiences weird dreams when she's in Florida. These dreams feature a guy called Zat. He's from the future, when earth is deemed unliveable. He's just about to move to a new planet when he becomes a part of Babe's dreams.

The contemporary side of this story is that Babe is a lover of tennis. She meets new friends when she's playing at the court. As well as Legrand's drunken dad who openly flirts with her. This is where the drunken parent comes in. As I said above, he doesn't abuse Babe. She thinks he could possibly abuse her, though.

I immediately liked and felt a connection to Babe's character. She's a spunky, fun loving girl who just wants an easy life.

"My Mom calls me Baby. Waaah!"

shows that Babe has a personality. Some main characters don't, I feel, which ultimately lets the book down, but Babe's is established within the first chapter of the story.

In Zat's first chapter we understand that the earth, in his futuristic time, is coming to an end. The main reason Zat becomes a part of Babe's Dreams is so that he can live on as in his time the earths population is seriously dwindling.

"Others forged ahead with the hope of discovering a new world. A new Earth, the way it once was".

I feel that if any character was a little underdeveloped it was Zat's character. He's meant to be from far into the future but you wouldn't know.

"His hands grow thick and rough. They curl around mine like roots of an ancient tree. His skin turns the color of amber. His nails morph into talons"

Is literally the only thing that stood out to me and made Zat different to a regular human being living in the 21st century. Without that description, Zat could just be a regular male character. It would have been nice if he'd had some powers or something that made him stand out other than this little description.

I felt that these two different time lines of Babe and Zat were established well at the beginning and I never felt confused about who I was reading about.

Babe doubted her ability to believe while Zat doubted his ability to be real. I don't want to spoil anything else but I really enjoyed "Dream Me". I think it's worth the read if you like love stories, strong friendships or characters with a goal to accomplish.

What did I like about "Dream Me"?
I liked the use of first person as I said above.

I liked how all of the real characters grew to accept each other, even though they were all different.

I liked how Mai and Babe supported each other throughout. There was never any backstabbing between them.

I liked how we got to see articles from Babe's blog, and how we got to see her responses to comments on it. It brought a different take on the story.

What didn't I like about "Dream Me"?

I didn't like how Zat didn't really seem different to any other character in the book. I felt he should have at least had something different.

I wish Zat had been focused on a little more. I get that the story is more about Babe but Zat plays an important role still. If he'd been from the 21st century the amount of detail we got would have been fine. I wanted more though, because he was from the future.

I didn't like how short the story was. I felt it wrapped up to soon and that more could have happened to the characters.

I didn't like the ending. I found it confusing.

I'm giving "Dream Me" 4 Stars because although I loved the story as a whole there were a couple of things that didn't quite make sense for me. One of those being the ending, which I don't want to spoil.

Stand by for my next review coming in a few minutes...

I loved the dual narrative of this book and how it providd insight into a future and past lives. It really fit into the time frame and I recommend this book to those you love romance and Young Adult stories!

Set in Florida! The best plan, if you can’t live where you’re from, is to read books that are about places you’re from. This is based in Florida, panhandle to be exact, but Florida is Florida and I loved reading about the smell of the beach, boiled peanuts (ACK! Now I’m craving boiled peanuts!), and of all things fire ants! They’re a bit of a shock if you’ve never met one before.

So the setting was obviously up my alley and a nice surprise but the entire story was fun. It is Science Fiction but compared to some other books I’ve read if sci fi turns you off I would say this is a really light sci fi. The premise is totally sci fi but it’s a love story. It reminds me of something like the movie The Lakehouse, but young adult. And if you haven’t seen The Lakehouse, go now, do it!

Many times when stories are written with multiple character point of views, I wind up wanting to read one over the other. This wasn’t the case with Dream Me. I felt that I wanted to know as much as I could about the characters, from every point of view. I loved when Zat was speaking, although he does not give much information about what is happening, there is enough to get a feeling for what he is going through but I also loved when Babe was speaking. The narration comes mostly from Babe, some through posts on her blog which adds another mixture to the story, but the perspectives are unique and fun.

I do think I liked the blog posts the most. And the comments! I want to know more about DreamMe too. Who is this person!? What threw me was that at 95% I was starting to seriously wonder if this was going to have a cliff hanger ending. It doesn’t but it didn’t feel completely tidied up. The ending was fabulous but I was left with a few more questions than answers.

I think with a book like this though, especially romance, the reader tends to be happy even with details left out. I am completely satisfied with the outcome that Kathryn Berla gave her readers. Questions, yes many but I closed this book with satisfaction! The world building would have been wonderful and I would have loved to know more about Zat’s world and what he was going through, but what the reader does know is good.

Also, there are some side characters and some differences that really made this stand out. First, I loved that this is a young adult but the parents are fully in the picture! And that the side characters are almost always around. Mai is spunky and seems like a great side kick and LeBrand wound up being a bit of a surprise. Sadly, the downside is that I wound up knowing more about these characters than we find out about Zat, even though a portion of the book was done through his pov.

What I absolutely did not like was that Babe fell in love instantly. I absolutely hate insta-love. I get insta infatuation and maybe that is how it started but Babe was saying some pretty heavy stuff for just having met this boy and in a dream no less. So, that was strange for me. I get her being curious but she started wanting to go to sleep just to see Zat pretty quickly. Again, like the sci fi underdevelopment, you just have to kind of go with it to see how it all works out. I enjoyed it. It’s not so poppy that you feel like you’re reading bubblegum, and it has a bit more premise than your average romance but I think a little bit more could have been done to develop their relationship.

Overall it was a fun read that I really enjoyed. I just want to know more about Zat! I would love a story from his perspective and world. It’s so brilliant!

I would first like to thank the author and publisher for letting me get a copy off of netgalley.

Second, I just want to say this was beautifully written. I absolutely loved this book! Every word, every scene, every character was written with magic coursing through the pages. I honestly could not put this book down until the very last page. From the very first page to the last, I was drawn in and lost in the story.

10/10 recommend this to everyone!

Starting with the positive I have to say, I absolutely love the cover. It’s really eye catching ans beautiful. Now, what about the story? It’s some kind of love story and I had high hopes that I would love it just as much as the cover. Sadly, I did not. Don’t get me wrong. There was nothing wrong with the writing. But I just couldn’t connect with the characters. I wanted to know more about this dream world, but it wasn’t mentioned more than in her dreams and not especially colorful. Even though the novel couldn’t pull me in like I wanted to, I’m happy I read the book and I will try another book from the other. I think it was just me and the book not clicking. I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thanks to NetGalley and Amberjack Publishing!

Time travel and the end of the world. That is what some teenage boy named Zat lives with far into the future. With his world ending, he has three options, stay where he is and die, travel to a new planet to live on or travel back in time and live in the dreams of someone from them past, hoping to someday become corporeal. He decides to travel back in time. His unwitting host is Babe, an average teenage girl who loves tennis and is sick of moving around for her Dad's job. She has her own set of problems with creepy men at her work and trying to make friends in her new town, all the while have these crazy dreams of a very attractive boy.

Dream Me was severely all around underdeveloped. The plot, the characters, everything. It all was subpar and uninteresting. Lets start with the main characters... you just don't care about them. They are both fairly one dimensional and don't change much or develop throughout the book. Plot wise, this book did not do a good job. I could see the author was clearly undecided if the novel should be a sci-fi, a romance, a high school age drama, a summer vacation story or a story on money and the abuse of power. Because of this, the story had no solid direction or purpose. It was boring and literally almost nothing happened. Boring through and through. I give Dream Me the rating of TWO OUT OF FIVE STARS!

A really nice read, very simple and flowed well. I could have done with more hints of characterisation and maybe some more times to rest, but overall I did enjoy the story! I'm not always a sucker for romance, but this was charming in a nice way. Sometimes, yes, cheesy and a bit oh no, romance again, but the concept was well done.

Intriguing premise with beautiful prose and a confusing ending

The only way to describe this book is dream-like. The prose is evocative of that perfect summer’s day on the beach, where everything is so real and so surreal at the same time. It is easy to get swept away in this story, though the feeling doesn’t last past the end of the book.

The premise is interesting: at the end of the world, Earthlings are leaving in hope of finding a new planet but some choose to go back in time, not physically but mentally. Zat chooses to inhabit Babe’s dreams and they fall in love.

The characters were interesting and varied, especially the supporting cast. I really liked LeGrand and Alonso and felt they both deserved a little more page time – I want to know if this summer changed their lives or if it was an idyllic blip they would both leave behind.

For me, the main romantic plot was a bit of a letdown as it started with insta-love and ended in – well, I don’t really get how it ended. Dreams are confusing and by the end, I wasn’t exactly sure what was real and what wasn’t. I was left vaguely unsatisfied and still can’t work out why. I much preferred the subplot of Babe making friends at the Country Club.

The other issue I had with this book (and it’s a minor one but bear with me) is Babe's attitude to the rich kids, especially Mattie Lynn. She assumes they’re all spoiled and shallow, and though LeGrand dispels those stereotypes for himself, Mattie Lynn doesn’t get enough time on the page to do the same. I think we are supposed to infer there is more to her than meets the eye, but Babe’s disparaging point of view does not help matters at all. It comes off very ‘pretty + rich = mean’ which is a tired old path by now.

I wanted to love this book, but I only loved the writing, not the whole.

I really don't know what to say about this one. The plot sounded interesting but the execution of it just didn't work out for me. The world building seemed under-developed and the characters were just kinda meh. I was so excited to get this one. The insta-love didn't help this issue at all. When the side-MC decided to travel back into the past to live in the dreams of the main-MC he was already in love with her. ugh. I just have no words for how much this one didn't work out for me.

This is a young adult sci-fi novel, but it reads more like a summery contemporary. The narrative is mostly from the point of view of the main female character named Babe. Her dad is a golf pro who moves around a lot as he gets jobs at various country clubs around the US. We meet Babe at the beginning of the summer before she starts her senior year in high school. The family just moved to Sugar Dunes, Florida and Babe is hoping she'll be able to finish high school without any more moving.

At the same time another point of view is introduced. This one is that of the main male lead Zat who lives in the distant future. In Zat's time, the sun is dying, the earth is a desolate place and humans (or what is left of them) are desperately searching for ways to escape the planet. Most people choose to seek shelter on distant planets. But Zat decides to go with a more unconventional and barely tested way to preserve his existence. He "re-locates" into the distant past (Babe's present) and exists only in her dreams.

I have to admit this premise is really interesting and not anything I've seen before. I was fascinated by the concept of a dream partner. I ended up really enjoying this book. Not so much for its sci-fi themes but rather I liked following Babe's real life drama of making friends and getting adjusted to her life in the new place. Her friendship with Mai and Alonso was very well crafted. However, her friendship with LeGrand was a bit unexpected, and almost accidental. I wish there was more of a story to their becoming friends. In addition, the character of Mattie Lynn was not developed at all. It felt as though the author was thinking of going in one direction but then completely abandoned the idea, so there was no real point of Mattie Lynn's presence in the narrative. Zat's character and the future he came from could also be a bit better fleshed out.

Notwithstanding these multiple weaknesses, the novel overall was entertaining. I had fun reading it and was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars purely for the enjoyment factor.

Babe is always the new girl in town. Always. So, when her family moves to Florida one summer, she doesn’t expect much, just a regular life working for the local country club and its upper-class members. But she makes friends and starts to imagine a life there. Then the headaches start, terrible, blinding ones that seem to be caused by the dreams she has every single night.

Zat is a dreamer from a far distant future where people no longer dream and Earth is dying. In his dreams, he sees red-haired Babe and longs to experience the life she embraces. Instead of leaving Earth with his family, he chooses to travel back in time and live in Babe’s dreams, but he never imagines those dreams will cause her so much pain. While Babe clings to their dream life together, Zat tries to pull away so he no longer hurts her. Soon they must make a choice between dreams and reality.

I’ve read some great books lately, and Dream Me is one of them. The whole premise is unique, since Zat only exists in Babe’s dreams, but the characters are so vivid they feel like I know them personally. Zat’s bleak existence made me feel sorry for him, and I could relate to Babe’s tough exterior, caused by her challenging life. These characters are deep and compelling, and the novel blends YA with fantasy seamlessly, with an added does of mystery—what is Zat hiding? Will they find a solution? Even the setting—the steamy Florida coast—lives and breathes on the page. If you love YA, fantasy, romance, or sci-fi, you should read this!

Constantly moving around, outsider, with exceptional dry wit, Babe, ends up in Florida. There she "meets" Zat from a future doomed Earth, where no one dreams, and has traveled back into her dreams. Great premise, since I love time travel & have always been intrigued by dreams.

We have 2 POVs and Babe's blog diary, which I think is quite interesting & the interchanging between them is a steady flow. Clever of the author to show us Zat's world, before the time traveling, as to emphasize the antithesis of the protagonists situations, making it more powerful.

Babe & Zat were both instantly lovable. Likeable supporting characters even though some attitudes were a bit too cliche & some personality traits came out of nowhere & weren't really necessary.

Bittersweet, compelling, full of the weird quirks you can only acquire from time travel, plus the mystery of our subconscious, this could of been a more than 5 star book. But what unfortunately lessened the book was the ending. The revelation & conclusion it brought was rushed, too abrupt & maybe needed a bit more of an explanation.

Babe is always moving. The story starts when she’s 17 and is moving to Florida. Her father is a pro golfer and got a job in a country club. She also works there in the Tennis shop.
Everything is going ok despite being far from her boyfriend until she starts having vivid dreams that leaves her with terrible headaches.

The writing style was ok, but the plot was super messy. It was like the two storylines had no relation to each other even though they concerned the same character. There was the dream plot and the reality plot…

We had no depth in the dream world… We only knew about it from her blog updates and it was always brushed over. We didn’t get to see how they fell for each other, how they connected and it made me not care. At all. I was mostly bored through it all and the only storyline I was interested in was resolved in a way that infuriated me…...

h my goodness! I am not sure what to say about this book. How about the positives? Eye catching cover, I requested this YA sci-fi/new age book without really paying attention to the synopsis. I had absolutely no preconceived notions. The writing was beautiful, there were even some lovely sentences that I could see myself using to teach figurative language in the classroom. The two main protagonists Zat and Babe held names that I have never come across in fiction before. Although I do know a woman from my parents church that is named Babe (nickname for Bea).

But the storyline was all over the place for me and I didn't really "get" what it was all about. The world building wasn't really executed that well and I just couldn't care about the teen romance angst and the dream sequences began to get really boring.

Kathryn Berla's "Dream Me" held my interest throughout. I loved the idea of the novel--falling in love with someone in a dream and having that dream continue on from the last point every night. Although I liked the ending, I felt that it ended too quickly and too easily for my taste. Fans of Sci-Fi and Distopian genres will find something to love in this quick read. Thank you, Netgalley and Amberjack Publishing, for providing me with an advanced copy of "Dream Me" in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this book sounded intriguing, a future earth where people no longer dreamed, and a boy who found himself with the ability to do so. Sadly the book failed to live up to its promise for me.
The world building for the future earth was pretty poor, with vague explanations of why the earth was dying and why or how people could travel back in time through dreams. The book also has a character living in current day earth, Babe, a teenager who works a summer job in the local country club. While the author at least makes some attempt at giving Babe some depth as a character, it is just an attempt, she still feels pretty flat and one dimensional, though not quite as much as Zat, the boy from the future who becomes infatuated with her.
There were a lot of things I didn't like about this book, but one of the worst was the decision the author made to have Babe endure a sexual assault and then keep quiet about it to save her parent's job, it's not a great message to give to the young girls this book is presumably aimed at. I also felt the end of the book was rushed, and a cop out, there was no explanation of how the resolution the author chose could really be possible, and it was just one more disappointment for me as a reader.

I just finished this book... and I am a little in shock. I think that it ended too soon, with too little explanation. I feel like I have experienced literary whiplash.

The book takes us through the life and dream life of Babe (named from a professional golfer) as she transitions into her new life in Sugar Dunes, Florida where her father has just become the new gold Pro for the Crystal Pines country club. This transition is much like the many others that she and her family have had to make while she has grown up--new town, new school and new jobs.

This time, though, along with the new friends and job her dreams take a shift with the reoccurring addition of Zat--a human from a future where Earth is left uninhabitable and time traveling into the dreams of those living in the past is possible. As a relationship of sorts is developed between Babe and Zat the reality of their situation becomes more of a hindrance to their lives and happiness. Living in another person's dreams is only a good idea... and the painful headaches that come from having another being present in your dreams is more harmful than anything.

There is one small hope that Zat doesn't completely explain, he might be able to take human form again. Does he?

I wish that life for Zat was explained more, that the choosing process that went into Zat finding Babe was explained more. The book had a lot of holes that I wish were filled. I wanted to know more. How did what happened at the end of the book even happen?

I was able to get into this story, was not able to finish.

Going into this book with an open mind I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, I want to know more!!!! This book is well written, encapturing beautiful characters and an intriguing plot! I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone that enjoys the young adult genre or sci fi!