At first read, this book was just ok for me. I do plan on rereading it, with friends. I want to get a better understanding of it.

Snarky, unique and utterly brilliant. I fell in love with this book, and I could not stop reading it. This is definitely a must read for any one, especially queer teens!

This book was an interesting take on its subject matter, but it's convoluted. It wasn't really for me.

Ryan La Sala is a debut author with the draw and personality of someone enchanted with and excited about the future of young adult literature. He has unapologetically weaved a story of inspiring, flawed characters seeking personal redemption, self awareness, and we can only assume, a restorative afternoon nap.

Thank you to Netgalley and publisher for release of this review copy!

SO happy that I got this book and was approved. This book did not let me down and guys this cover is stunning. I will make sure I check out of other works by this author! I highly recommend picking this book up. I had so much fun reading it.

I had a really hard time connecting with this book. I wanted to love it so badly but the plot completely confused and felt extremely lost.

Unfortunately, I DNF'd REVERIE by Ryan LaSala. I cannot pin point why, but it just wasn't clicking with me. Maybe I'll try again another time. and give it a proper review.

While I enjoyed this, it wasn't something I fell in love with immediately. It took me a while of picking it up and putting it down before I finally sat down and just read it all the way through. I never fully grasped the whole "reverie" aspect and unraveling them, but I understood it enough to keep going through. Characters were fun, and I liked seeing how relationships built between each of them. Wasn't a fan of Ursula and Kane's friendship though -- it was a lot of push and pull. One moment he liked Ursula, and then the next he didn't...

Fun read, but not one I would pick up again.

This book was just not for me, but not because it was badly written . I really wanted to like it, and I loved the concept (Inception meets The Magicians sounds like the exact type of book I would love!) but I just couldn't connect to it and had a hard time wrapping my brain around the reveries.

Kane Montgomery is returning to the scene of the crime. He’s accused of taking his parents’ car and driving into a historical site, an old mill in his town in Connecticut. But he doesn’t remember a thing about it; he just knows he woke up in the hospital after being fished out of the nearby river. So he’s desperately trying to piece things together — it’s not just the police who want answers; he wants them most of all because it’s his memory that’s gone.

Thanks to being gay, which most people seemed to intuit before he even did, Kane has always been made fun of and left on the fringes. He’s used to being alone. So he’s pleased, though confused, to start figuring out he has had a group of friends the past few months, the period of time he can’t remember. And they are the only ones who are “lucid,” remembering who they are, when the cheerleaders, football team and other kids from their school all of a sudden are players in a very weird and scary dream made reality. They even have magical powers to fight inside this “reverie” and are the only ones who can bring it to an end, returning the whole dream/imagined world to the mind of the kid who thought it up.

The reveries keep happening, and Kane encounters two other people in and near them who may or may not be on his side: Poesy, a drag queen who is able to explain exactly what is going on to a confused Kane, including the source of his magic and that of their group the “Others,” and Dean, a good-looking guy who’s new to their school and who seems to have a history with Kane as well.

Despite their powers, Kane and the Others may be outmatched by an entity who wants to use the reveries to create a whole new reality. They must decide whom to trust and how to use their gifts to keep their world from being swallowed up in a ghastly new one.

Reverie has a clever and promising premise and follows some good plot lines, but it fell flat for me. Despite it being marketed as a young adult book and with some elements being most appropriate for an older, YA audience, three-quarters of it read like a middle-grade book, with the phrasing and style I would expect from stories aimed at that younger age group. So it was jarring when there were some instances of strong language and more mature content. I also felt that the author was trying too hard at times to use some “impressive” vocabulary (and it was a bit annoying when I noted he had used “desiccated” three times within a chapter or two). It didn’t feel organic.

All in all, some good bones, but the flesh needed more work and maybe defter hands crafting it. The author is a member of the LGBTQIA community himself and says in the acknowledgments that he appreciates the opportunity to be able to live in a time when he can publish this book and have it be there for youths like he was. But it still seemed too often like a statement piece rather than just a book where these LGBTQ characters live and grow naturally within the story.

Reverie by Ryan La Sala

Note: I received an ebook ARC but I discovered to my peril I’m rubbish at reading books on my phone. So I purchased a paperback copy.

Focusing on Kane Montgomery a teenage boy who wakes up on the side of a river by Police. Kane who has significant gaps in his memory slowly discovers he has abilities to travel into Dreams that manifest into a sort of reality.
Except someone is using Kane, and is it his once friends or something more sinister.

This book was such an atmospheric read. I had visions of a Riverdale like town, a Drag Queen that frankly Billy Porter would frankly slay playing. Kane was engaging flawed protagonist, who’s missing memories slowly begin to piece together. His mysterious love interest Dean, who’s place in the world was intriguing mystery.

It’s a little like inception, a lot of fun, with powers and vivid realities. I’m always a sucker for YA fantasy, particularly with a queer protagonist as it’s lead.
It’s a Define recommendation!

One of the BEST books I’ve read in a while. Such an intriguing magic system involving dreams and reveries. Plus the LGBTQ+ rep in the book. Ugh amazing!

I could not get into this story and had to DNF at about 30%. I'm hoping that this is a case of "right story, wrong time" and will be better when I return to it at a later date. There was nothing overwhelming bad about this story, I just struggled to stay invested.

Although I loved the concept of the book - the reveries, the Others, I was not impressed with the execution.

Reverie is a queer contemporary portal fantasy that kept surprising me as I read it, mostly in good ways.


Reverie CoverAll Kane Montgomery knows for certain is that the police found him half-dead in the river. He can’t remember how he got there, what happened after, and why his life seems so different now. And it’s not just Kane who’s different, the world feels off, reality itself seems different.



As Kane pieces together clues, three almost-strangers claim to be his friends and the only people who can truly tell him what’s going on. But as he and the others are dragged into unimaginable worlds that materialize out of nowhere—the gym warps into a subterranean temple, a historical home nearby blooms into a Victorian romance rife with scandal and sorcery—Kane realizes that nothing in his life is an accident. And when a sinister force threatens to alter reality for good, they will have to do everything they can to stop it before it unravels everything they know.

This wildly imaginative debut explores what happens when the secret worlds that people hide within themselves come to light. (Goodreads)
Goodreads

I received an eARC of Reverie via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Reverie is one of the most unusual novels I’ve read in a long time. It’a book where portal fantasy meets inception, which is a really great combination. It was like La Sala had a lot of alternate universe ideas and found a way to work them all together into a cohesive plot that kept me rooted to it.

It needs trigger warnings for memory loss, false memories, police involvement, queerphobic and homophobic microaggressions against the main characters, and the disappearance of minor characters.

Our main character, Kane, is kind of a dick for the entire novel. He has many reasons to be because pretty much everyone around him is hiding things from him and he has no memories of most of them. I’d be a dick, too, if that was my reality.

Poesy was a hell of an antagonist, and I can’t get into why without spoiling just about everything. However, if you want a great villain, you are in for a treat here. I also loved that there were background characters that were queer women.

Personally, I would have loved to have seen a little bit more delving into the background of the loom and the existence of the reveries, but in such a fast-paced novel, I can see why La Sala chose not to. I also wish there was a queer man in Kane’s life that he could have turned to other than Poesy because he desperately needs an adult he feels comfortable talking to. I hope Kane finds one soon.

While there were a few things I didn’t love about this, it’s still a great book and one that I think a lot of people are going to love. You can pick it up on Amazon, Indiebound, or Book Depository through our affiliate links!

this has a lot of good ideas, such as the concept of a "reverie", a dream-like state that can pull people into it and have devastating consequences. unfortunately, i think the book failed to deliver on its promise.

kane made some stupid, illogical decisions such as trusting/not trusting certain people that made absolutely no sense and were clearly there only for the furthering of the plot. the plot itself was veryslow-going at first, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but even when it picked up it felt oddly disjointed, like an inexperienced knitter dropping stitches all the time.

the romance was same gender (m/m) which was nice, but the trajectory was very predictable. the characters were also not particularly interesting.

basically, a solid 3 star book: interesting premise, failed execution.

The writing in this book was clear, the description was incredibly vivid. The plot was confusing for me, and I never really understood what was going on, which may be the point, but it wasn't enjoyable to me. However, the book was intriguing, and kept me on my toes!

This book has an incredibly interesting premise!! Mysterious clues, a fantasy world appearing before the main character's eyes, familiar-looking strangers hiding strange secrets - it's such a gripping and exciting idea!

I'm sure I absolutely would have LOVED it... if I'd been able to make it past around page 50.

I feel so bad for DNFing this book, because I feel like if I'd gotten a little farther and actually reached those fantasy elements, I would have really, really enjoyed it.

But I just couldn't get past the beginning, the scenes where MC Kane still has no idea what's going on. The writing was just... dry? Not bad writing, not by a long shot, but not engaging at all. I found myself skimming the words but not really being able to actually get *into* the story.

It pains me to say this, because, as aforementioned, the premise sounded great, and the cover is absolutely STUNNING. I'll probably pick this back up one day and try to make it to the end, but as for right now... I just couldn't finish it. I'm so sorry :(

This was a snoozefest and that's putting it mildly. If you weren't already able to tell by the rating, "Reverie" was a huge disappointment for me, which nearly breaks my heart because from the get-go (the cover, blurb and everything in between) left me enthusiastic to dive into this read and within a span of a few chapters, it almost pained me to say that this wasn't what I had expected. The plot was too confusing and overwhelming, the author's writing style that was featured was too dry, mediocre and lame for such a large concept in which failed to meet all expectations and didn't have that wow factor to win me over.

I will give kudos to the author for the originality, queer inspired tale that pulled me to this read at the beginning. Sadly it just didn't do much for me and it's better for me to drop this now before I get too deep. Let's just hope the next one is a keeper.

This was okay. I've read so much teen fantasy/sci-fi that I absolutely LOVE, so, unfortunately, new titles are often hard for me to care about. While this book is beautiful to look at and has an interesting plot, it fell flat in the end and I found myself skimming. NO ONE IS MORE DISAPPOINTED IN MYSELF NOT LIKING THIS THAN ME. TRUST ME.