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Actual rating of 3.5

All Kane can remember is that the police pulled him from the river after he supposedly drove his car into an abandoned mill in the Cobalt Complex. They keep asking him, why? But he doesn't know. He can't remember anything. With the threat of jail time looming over his head, he tries desperately to unravel the reality of what happened that night. With people he didn't remember knowing helping him along the way, he finds that his world has completely changed, and he's not sure it's for the better. Imaginations turn dangerous, and the truth is almost as terrible. Will Kane be able to get to the bottom of this mystery with his relationships, morals and mind still intact?

I read a couple of reviews for this book and regretted not coming across it on Netgalley as it sounded so amazing. I, however, was in luck. The book had been made available to read now and I jumped straight on it. I don't know why I left it sitting in my Netgalley TBR pile for so long, but it is what it is, I guess.

This story was an incredibly fantastical young adult story, and I did enjoy it. In the beginning, certain situations gave me serious creep vibes which were backed up by the fact that Kane Montgomery can not remember a damn thing. Nothing. At all. He knows that something happened, and he knows that it's not what the Police think, but beyond that, he just has no idea. For some reason, that seemed so terrifying to me. As the story progresses things begin to make sense, and it's not so much scary anymore, which I'll admit, I was a little disappointed about. I was really hoping the slight horror vibe I got at the start was going to carry on through the rest of the novel. But it wasn't to be, and that's okay.

Now, I don't want to go into too much detail with certain things because I feel like going into the book mostly blind is a good way to read this one. But I'll try my best. There is a lot going on in this story, like, a massive hell of a lot. You have the mystery of what really happened that night, which is slowly unraveled through the story. You have the revelation of WHY what happened, happened. And you also have this group of seemingly superhero type characters who are fighting for the good of the world from these imagination worlds turned real which are referred to as Reveries. From my understanding, the Reveries are worlds that someone creates in their head, and for some reason, they have started to migrate into the real world in Kane's town, and it can be dangerous because people can actually die in them. I'm not going to go into the how and the why any deeper, because as said above. Going in mostly blind is a good idea.

The characters were well written and unlike a lot of other young adult novels that incorporate LGBTQ+ characters, I felt like this one was real. There's been a couple of stories that I've read where they've included these characters and I felt like they did it purely to have the token LGBTQ+ character and reach a broader audience. This story however, I felt did it beautifully. At no point is do the character's question who they really are or anything like that. They are comfortable in their sexuality and embrace it as much as they can. This I absolutely loved. I know not every person is as comfortable or has found themselves totally yet, and that's okay, I just feel like it was nice reading a story where the character's sexualities weren't the focal point. They were just people, going about their lives, trying to fight magical worlds and stop them from murdering people. Each character had their own distinct personalities and voices. Though I must admit, I only really cared about Kane, I didn't even really care about his sister that much, though I do wish he would have stopped avoiding her so hard as it became annoying after a while that he was all "Oh Sophia's angry at me again" when he caused it from doing the same damn thing again and again and again. I get why he was, but it became a bit annoying after a while.

As said earlier, there was a hell of a lot going on in this book and it was becoming quite convoluted, though I think I got the gist of how the worlds worked. It felt like the whole book was almost one giant info dump, but it made some kind of sense in the end. I also just didn't feel like I was super invested in the story. I enjoyed it and there was a couple of good quotes in there, and the message (I think) was good, but after I finished it it was just one of those "yeah it was alright" books. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it. It was alright.

The world. There is a lot happening. Because we have the normal world, and then we have the reveries. A lot of story time was taken up by the three...odd....reveries that we encounter, I think there was mainly three. And while it's good to have action, I just felt like no story or plot points were really being resolved in them. It almost felt like they were there to take up some word count and page space, but nothing really happened except the story in the reverie playing out. I dunno, it just sat funny with me, and I can't put my finger on exactly why.

All in all, this was an alright book, and I did enjoy it. I felt like the LGBTQ+ community was represented beautifully and I really liked Kane as a character. If you want a fantastical young adult read, give it a go, you might love it.

I have been struggling with YA/Fantasy books during this pandemic reading slump and will not be reviewing at this time. It sounds amazing, I've heard wonderful things, but I just don't see myself getting engaged right now

Wow. Okay, where to start? I had to DNF around 47% because I just . . . couldn't anymore. I wanted to love Reverie so much. I really did.

The premise of the story was very interesting. It took me awhile to get into it. I think once the reveries were explained, it picked up some pace. It just wasn't enough to grab my attention. I found myself falling asleep reading. Just absolutely nothing was standing out for me to really want to keep reading.

I love the idea of the reveries. The way The Others interacted with them, had their own powers to really "defeat" them, etc. was highly interesting. However, I think where the problem lay is the characters themselves. Especially Kane, who is the MC. I just couldn't connect with them. I felt more for Dr. Poesy than I did Kane. There was just no development, no personality, nothing there.

I just think in the half that I read, the author spent more time describing things around the universe and everything than truly fleshing out the story line. The reveries were explained in such detail, that it felt like I was right along for the ride. Everything else was just built around the world building that it felt like it wasn't thought out.

If you're picking this up because there's a gay main character, magic, and drag queens . . . it'll fit the bill. However, it just fell flat for me.

Wow! Just wow!
Reverie was a breathtaking experience filled with magic, love and heartbreak. I loved every moment of it and I am resisting the urge to read it all over again.
Ryan La Sala has a beautiful, intoxicating writing style somewhere between Maggie Steivater and Erin Morgenstern. The prose is lovely and lyrical and creates detailed fantastical worlds you can picture vividly in your minds eye but like Steivater La Sala can pin point and evoke emotions in a beautiful watercolour of metaphor.
I loved the characters who were unique and detailed and real. Each with their own flaws, talents, hobbies, histories and dreams. Each moment, each word of Reverie was spectacular! La Sala didn't create one vivid magical world but dozens.
The story and the characters were unmistakably human and queer. Yet it had a poignant quality, the characters experience real sadness and real conflict in their own ways. It was bittersweet and wonderful how despite everything the characters got their happy ending.
The story however was filled with tropes and was a bit predictable which I loved. Reading it was like a hug and gave me the warm fuzzies that real good, indulgent fanfiction gives (I say that in the most loving way)
I absolutely loved Reverie and look forward to read whatever La Sala writes next

This book is so fast paced and mind bending that I devoured it with relish I loved all the characters, even the most evil one! The LGBT nature of some of the characters reads as genuine and the real world teen issues that are woven into the magical happenings are true to life. I greatly enjoyed this novel.

Absolutely adored this book! What an incredible concept with well constructed plot, themes and characters.

This was such a wonderfully magic read. I fell inlove with it from page one. I cant wait to read more from this Author. A must read for 2020

I wanted to like this book, I really did, but it felt disjointed and I had a hard time caring about any of the characters.

This was an enjoyable book. It was fast-faced with a great character representation. Some aspects of the story did not seem to fit, or make sense to the actual plot. However, I do think this was an original storyline, that incorporated a surrealism and fantasy aspect to widen the YA fantasy genre.

The police found Kane Montgomery in the river, having crashed a stolen car and burned down a building in the process. The problem is that Kane has no memory of how it happened or how he survived. In fact, he has no memory for months of his past and everyone, including Kane, wants answers. Kane is disoriented and scared and not sure quite what is going on or who to trust.

As Kane is trying to piece his life back together, he meets three kids from school who claim that they and Kane make up a group that calls themselves The Others. It seems that there is magic that is going awry in their town and creating what they call Reveries, a fantasy world built in someone’s mind that comes to life. As these fantasies become realities, it is up to Kane and his friends to help unravel the Reveries and bring them to a natural resolution, or the fabric of reality could be twisted into disaster.

The Reveries have always had the potential to go wrong, but it seems that things are getting increasingly dangerous. The power to create and shape reality is alluring and someone is out there trying to use that power for their own gain. Now Kane and his allies must fight to bring the Reveries to a resolution or their very reality could be destroyed.

I am not much of a fantasy reader, nor do a read a lot of young adult, but something about the description of this book just grabbed me and I decided to give Reverie a shot. I absolutely loved this debut novel from Ryan La Sala and it kept me captivated and enthusiastically turning pages for the entire story.

First off, let me say that I am being deliberately vague in my description of the book because so much of the fun of the story for me was discovering what is happening along with Kane. A big part of that is learning who is an ally and who is on the wrong side of things, and so I don’t want to get into a lot of detail. (I will note that an earlier summary of the book I saw had MUCH more detail, including specifics on the good vs bad guy, but the current blurb is much more vague so I am trying to mirror that here.) As I said, part of the fun is learning along with Kane what happened to him and who he can trust, and I think La Sala does a great job of having that unfold throughout the story. Information is given at just the right time to lead the reader through the journey and I enjoyed the slight mystery element here as we uncover what happened in the past and what is being planned for the future.

The world building here is also very nicely done. This story takes place in our current world, with the overlay of these fantasy worlds on top. A Reverie is created from someone’s mind, a world they build in their heads and a fantasy they create. It is like an elaborate day dream, only this dream comes to life, bringing in real people and having real consequences. Part of Kane’s role is to help see these Reveries through to their natural end and make sure nothing goes wrong, so everyone can go back to their normal reality when it is over. It sounds complicated, and I’ll admit, it is a little bit. But La Sala does a great job explaining what is happening and showing us what is going on in a way that had me able to follow the premise pretty easily as I was reading. I was a little unclear about the real world consequences, however. Specifically, if injuries (or worse) sustained in a Reverie carry over to the real world. But other than that, I found the world building really nicely detailed, incredibly creative, and quite interesting.

What I think this book really does so well is take this wonderful fantasy story and give it some really interesting layers. Here we have a story where people create worlds with their minds, often people who have realities that sadly don’t give them what they need or want out of life. We see some of the characters exploring worlds where they can be whatever they want and live the lives they desire. But at the same time, it can be a trap, living within yourself and your own mind. One of the messages here is that it is important to connect your inner self with others, not to hide away, but to find those connections with the world. We see that most in the way that Kane slowly finds his people and reconnects with those who support him and care about him. There is also a really nice exploration of people being more than meets the eye, and the struggle to overcome false impressions others might have of you, particularly as Kane gets to know people again who he doesn’t remember. I am not touching on nearly everything, but there are some really great themes here that nicely hit on issues that face teens in particular that add some nice weight to the story.

I would call this book a contemporary fantasy with a romantic subplot, more than a true romance. Kane does have a love interest and there is a happy ending for them, but that is not the focus of the story by any means. I’d say the book is more centered on an internal journey, as well as the bonds of friendship and family, than a romance. Still, we get a nice, sweet YA love element here that adds some romantic fun to the book. The story also features a really great, diverse cast, including some charming elderly lesbians who made me swoon a bit. Kane, himself, is gay and out (partly because he didn’t realize he was gay in time to ever be “in”). The book has some great, fun, campy moments (drag queen sorceress, Kane shooting rainbow magic out his fingers) that add a nice light touch.

So I really enjoyed Reverie and found myself quite captivated by the story. I was completely engrossed in discovering this world right along with Kane and found this one exciting and really engaging. I can definitely recommend it.

P.S. I would say this book is suitable for younger readers (though some elements are a bit thrilling), but also really enjoyable as an adult reader.

Ryan LaSala's Reverie is an interesting book. I found some of the world building slightly confusing, but all in all, it was well written and I really loved the concept and the characters.

I enjoyed reading several aspects of this book! The pacing was wonderful, characters were well drawn, and the reading experience on the whole was delightful.

I thought the book was a little slow to start off with. Once it really got into the story the pace picked up and kept my interest. I enjoyed the fantasy aspects and the premise of the world you dream about becoming real.

The world building, characters, and representation in this book were fantastic. I loved that the story was so original, and I fell in love with this book.

Well, I hate to say this but Reverie is a bit of a mess. It's sad because Ryan La Sala seems great online and is adorable in general. However none of that can make up for this poorly put together teen novel. All the right elements exist here, and then some, including: a clueless and unreliable lead boy, a strong villain, a cast of supporting characters, a unique concept, lots of action, sibling in peril, magic, etc. And yet it's put together in such a haphazard way that there's no coherency, consistency, or clear goal even as we approach the end.

Amnesia as a Plot Device
The most convenient way to create mystery, allure, and fool your reader is by giving your main character amnesia. It can work, but it's rare for it to be done in a really clever way. Most often the use of amnesia indicates weak plot or writing. Reverie seems to have lots of plot, and sort of does; but it's so hard to follow at times. I felt like I might as well have had amnesia about what I'd read before each time I sat down to give Reverie reading time.
Even more disappointing is that our MC learns aspects to his life, prior to the amnesia, by overhearing a conversation that he 'conveniently' trips over between his friends. La Sala uses a weak plot device and then pairs it up with my least favourite aspect to most stories, convenience. If you had to put your character in just the right place, for no real reason (ie: they literally stumble into a hallway and hear a conversation), then you've likely not given conceivable motive for them to be there. I usually attribute it to lazy writing; but in this case I think it's just immature writing.

Characters
On first glance our cast of characters seems pretty good. We have our gay lead teen boy, his annoying younger sister, some parents (that are of course a non-factor, because what parents would be concerned about their kid that just woke up with amnesia after a large incident... let's not even get into this ridiculous teen troupe...), a villain, a female best friend, a couple other friends to make up the little team, and of course, a (gay) love interest. Sounds not bad... expect that none of these characters (expect maybe the sister) really have any actual personality. A hint to La Sala and other writers; if you want the reader to believe that someone is acting or given powers opposite of their 'normal' nature, you have to first let them see and understand their 'normal' nature! One line about how someone is kind, hates illusions, or wishes they didn't have certain memories is just not going to get the reader there. The average reader wants depth, emotion, and understanding of these people. Sadly we don't get that here.

Unraveling the Story
In order to really do a mystery back story well a writer has to be skilled at unraveling and revealing the story to their reader. This is La Sala's debut novel, so some allowances might be given, but not enough to make this novel feel anything less than a knotted mess. Between not really understanding what a reverie is (or how they come to exist) and constantly feeling like I was missing something critical to really follow the story; there was no chance of me unraveling this complex and disorienting plot. Additionally a reveal near the end felt random, inconceivable and really highlighted that the rules of reveries, this 'magic' or power, and just general physics of this world was never well explained. If you are going to have something surprising happen then it needs to feel like it was there all along. Instead I realized I clearly misunderstood some aspect of reveries. Even after contemplating this miss for a day I still can't figure out how the reveal is even possible! It's very mind boggling and doesn't make for a 'fun' time on the readers behalf.

Overall
La Sala has the right idea when it comes to setting up a complex, intricate, interesting teen novel. All the elements are there but each of them needs some major refinement. From setting the rules of the magic/power in the story, to expanding on characterization, to making the scenarios feel realistic to this fantasy world (a version of our own). If a reader isn't convinced that something is possible, or at least an intriguing idea, then they will not buy into the premise of the story; and with no buy-in you might as well have blank pages.
All that said: with a killer editor, some stronger plot lines and explanations, and maybe some really harsh beta readers I think La Sala has the base components to be a good writer. I did after all finish the book (even if I was frustrated nearly the entire time by what I didn't understand). With more time and refinement La Sala could be a real powerhouse for LGBTQ+ teen literature. He maybe just needs to grow up a little, get some more experience under his belt (I always recommend short stories as they have to be simpler but clever), and find a way to bring his story all together.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

ARC kindly provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This one makes me sad, because I wanted to love it so bad but for some reason my brain couldn’t comprehend the reveries and connect with the characters enough to fully dive in.

I didn’t understand most of the plot and was unsure why the reveries happened, why did only a few friends from school have the ability to access them and have special powers. I just feel like things weren’t explained well enough for me.

Near the end of the book though, there was a sub plot (that i will not go into further, unfortunately, due to spoilers) between our main character Kane, and another character and I wish it would have gone more into that but it ended up being wrapped up without much explanation.

I’m so sad to say I did not enjoy this book as much as I had hoped I would.

*I received this book as an eARC from Sourcebooks Fire via NetGalley. I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*

This book is so queer and I love it! Not only is the protagonist a gay teen, but the antagonist is a drag queen sorceress! Reverie is full of imaginative mini-worlds that are beautifully fantastical. They span genres and play with tropes in a fun way. Each time one of these reveries began, I got so excited to read about the details of this one and how they related to the person the reverie was spewing from.

This book isn't just a fun "magic girl" team fantasy. There's also some very universal queer themes. Kane has his past taken from him and has to quite literally find himself again. The theme of finding yourself and finding/making your own space is central to this story.

I really liked the team component of this book. It definitely has a Sailor Moon, Power Rangers, or Animorphs vibes in that each person of the time has their own powers they bring to the table as well as their own faults.

La Sala does an excellent job of revealing things slowly over time. When they're relevant. And when it really moves the story forward. This was not a slow read for me.

I obviously am giving this book a 5/5. This is such a beautiful book. I wish I had this book as a teen.

What a fantastical, imaginative debut from author Ryan La Sala.

It offers characters that range from witty to snarky to dark and deliciously devious (a drag queen sorceress!), a very fast-paced plot, and evocative imagery in both the reveries themselves and in Posey's "world". At times, I got lost within the world-building, particularly during the reveries, but the concept started to make more sense as the story unfolded. Kane's initial amnesia lent to some distancing or disconnect between characters, and as a result, I wasn't sure who to trust.

This is a roller-coaster ride of a plot. I enjoyed it, but my teen absolutely ADORED it, and couldn't stop gushing over it (and in fact, bought copies for her teachers to add to the school and classroom libraries when it came out.) There is a great amount of queer rep in the book, and I think it will appeal to teens.

As a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, the concept of this book was everything I dreamed of as a kid. Books about people "like me" were few and far between when I was growing up; I'm always happy to see queer books hit the shelves. After reading the synopsis, I was super excited to dive into Kane's story. What could possibly be more exciting than magical, gay day-dreams coming to life? Not to mention, I love a well-executed "lost memories" trope in YA.

I wish more time was spent explaining how exactly how the magic/dream system worked. I found myself re-reading a few of the sentences because I got lost part-way through paragraphs. I also wanted more details about certain characters (like Posey). I couldn't fully make sense of their intentions.

Unfortunately, the execution of this story just wasn't for me- and that's okay! I think many of us who grew up with a lack of LGBTQIA+ content feel guilty about not enjoying books by authors from our community. However, just because a book has queer representation doesn't mean everyone should feel pressured to enjoy it. There is definitely an audience out there who will fall in love with this book, I'm just not one of them.

I wanted so badly to love Reverie as the author’s social medias are a delight to follow on the daily, however this sadly just didn’t work for me. I found the world building confusing and found it difficult to connect with any of the main characters. Ryan La Sala’s ability to create stunning visual imagery and descriptions can’t be denied, however I felt the descriptive flair was lost in the jumbled and confusing plot.