I read many reviews of this book prior to getting an ARC, and I was disappointed afterward to find that, 1, none of the reviews or synopses I'd read had mentioned that drag culture was a huge element of this book, and 2, that so much of this book relies on cis white gay culture, and stereotypes derived from this culture. This does not make for an inclusive reading experience for many people in the LGBTQ2S+ community.

Can we just take a moment and appreciate the BEAUTY of this book. This book had a great level of mystery and magic and left me turning pages for hours.

I didn't know what to expect reading the synopsis, but I was actually hooked right away. It was kind of a strange story, but I loved it. The story was unique and entertaining. Definitely look into it if you enjoy fantasy books.

I'm actually having trouble truly understanding how I feel about this book. While the premise is INCREDIBLE, I just kind of wish that the execution was a bit more cohesive, a little less drawn out and I wish that I could have connected with the characters more.

I received a Netgalley ARC of Ryan la Sala’s magically realistic novel Reverie in exchange for an honest review, and I am so glad to have gotten the chance to start my 2020 with this gem. The story begins with Kane Montgomery struggling to make sense of a car accident; according to police reports, the wreck that inflicted massive damage on his town’s historical mill was all his fault, but Kane can remember nothing surrounding that moment. After meeting Dr. Poesy during an interrogation, though, Kane starts to realize that the accepted trail of events may not tell the whole story, causing him to question the very reality around him. Soon, Kane is battling through previously unfathomable realms and reclaiming his memories--and his potential--with a group of newly-rediscovered friends dubbed “The Others.”

What I loved about this novel was the nuance of the plot, the crystal-clear characterization, and the superb, wry prose. For example, one “reverie” is spawned by rude boys in Kane’s gym class who are described as being “in the process of peaking early in life.” Characters such as Ursula are described with such precision that I could picture her in front of me, even when she was performing such unbelievable acts as donning a wedding dress while karate-kicking an oversized, bejeweled beetle. And if that sentence sounds completely incongruous, that’s the other thing that was so wonderfully intoxicating about this book: despite how outlandish the premise, the plot just worked. Are there moments when a teacup can swallow an entire world? Yep! Can reality grind completely to a halt from time to time? Of course! Do we have a realm-bending drag queen as a main character? Sure! Yet in reading la Sala’s words, it’s so obvious that none of these things could be any other way. Finally, amid these completely entertaining moments, there is such a message of hope for any reader who feels on the fringes; although la Sala acknowledges the “secret sadness that [grows] like mold in the humidity of a life kept closed” when Kane considers himself as a queer person, the story ends on such a positive note as to encourage those who may not have yet found their way toward acceptance.

With its beautifully written prose, positive message, and thrill-ride plot, Reverie is a strong purchase for school libraries and a strong recommendation for students who have enjoyed titles such as Stephanie Garber’s Caraval or the Sci-Fi series The Magicians.

I was very excited to receive this eARC from #Netgalley and am delighted to report I wasn't disappointed at all. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read and review it.

Reverie is beautifully written by Ryan La Sala, full of vivid imagery and prose, so very unique in its creativity and just an absolute delight to read. Where do authors get their fantastic imaginations from?!

I loved the diversity of the high school characters: firstly our protagonist Kane, gay, confused, looking for acceptance but always running from something, and totally oblivious to the fact that he has the best type of friends who would follow him into the unimaginable, because they believe in him. Then there's Ursula, so strong physically, yet so vulnerable and unsure of herself too; Adeline, brave and fiery and loyal and absolutely nothing like her 'cheerleader' facade, Elliot the high school jock, adored by all and part of the 'in crowd', but how much of his persona is actually an illusion, and of course Dean, the mysterious interloper and protector, but where do his loyalties actually lie? Lat but not least of course, you have the arch-villain Poesy, the powerful, magical, drag queen sorceress😈 What a character!

The premise of the story is that concurrently/simultaneously (I wasn't totally sure which, but this is a tale of magic and deception, so don't hold it against me) with life as we know it, people's reveries (dreams/nightmares) are being played out like live theatre, with the players having no memory of the reverie once it's 'unravelled'. Only our heroes are able to remember, participate and actively affect the end result of the reverie.

But there's more to it than that. There's (of course) an evil plan for world domination, a hero who can't remember who he is or what he can do, and layers upon layers of secrets and lies and red herrings.

I completely loved it! Highly recommended and 4 ✨✨✨✨

"What makes this book especially powerful to me as a queer reader myself, is not only does it feature a gay protagonist, but the powerful and magical authorities are ALSO queer, like gender-fluid drag queen sorceress, Poesy, who travels worlds and takes a special interest in Kane for reasons we find out later in the book. People like Poesy become possibility models for Kane’s growth as a queer character in both the realism and magical elements of the story." excerpt from online review below.

I wanted to like this more than I did - the idea behind it was wondrous, but something about the execution fell flat for me. So many of the separate parts of this book should have added up to a favourite - a month has passed since I read it, but I can still clearly picture the characters in my mind. A fun read, even if it didn't quite live up to my expectations.

The first couple chapters of REVERIE kind of had me scratching my head– I couldn’t quite get my head around what was happening– but then things clicked and I got into the story and especially Kane as a character.

He’s funny, but angsty– which has to be my favorite combo– and while he’s desperately serious, he kept me laughing with his insights and side observations.

REVERIE is a weird book, for sure. But it’s a super endearing weird. I love the way the book stretches and twists reality and has Kane and his friends jumping in and out of different dream-like sequences.

If you mashed together the dream-jumping element from the movie INCEPTION and added the upbeat, liveliness of a Caleb Roehrig novel, you’d have something like REVERIE. I had so much fun reading it, and I can’t wait to see what Ryan LaSala writes next.

I’m sad. Mostly because the idea of a gay kid having superpowers that including shooting rainbows out of his hands sounds great. But I was expecting this book to be less fantastical and more based in reality.

I have a hard time with narratives where the POV has amnesia. It’s frustrating in a bad way. And Kane’s attitude and behavior didn’t help matters at all. I really like the group of friends and the epilogue was more of what I wanted the story to be (minus like kitschy Halloween part just more of a group of friends being friends and solving magical problems).

I’m sad I didn’t enjoy this, but I know many people love it and I would not stop someone from reading it. It is a slow story, the plot moves very slowly and folds back on itself a lot and I found that to be annoying but others seem to really like it. This is probably just a case of wrong reader syndrome.

I'm not even sure where to begin with how much I loved this! Reverie has an incredibly promising concept and absolutely delivers with the wonderful characters, prose and reveries themselves. The imaginative ways that each reverie was crafted and written, plus the clever ways they were interlocked with the cast's experiences and stories, were an utter delight to read. I adored all of the characters, their strong, dynamic friendships and the unapologetic expression of their identities.

This is definitely a book I'll be gladly returning to and reading again and again.

I received this book the publishers via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

I found this really intriguing and lovely! I really enjoyed the concept and how unreliable Kane was as a narrator, so we find things out alongside him. That worked well for me. The reveries themselves are honestly such a cool idea - i definitely see the comparison to Inception here! But I also like that we get to see both "quieter" ones as well as ones that go wrong.

I did find it a little hard to get into at first but only because I was tired and you know something is up and you're not sure what! Once the main story gets going and Kane learns more of what is going on, it really picks up and I couldn't put it down.

This book is also wonderfully queer - Kane is gay, but there's a whole host of queerness including someone who never names it, but is written as gender queer, complete with changing pronouns, and I *adored* that!

The friendship is wonderful when it gets going too - especially as we learn more about what happened. I really liked how everyone's powers worked with their personalities, but also how it helped us get to know them.

Reverie is a teen fantasy superhero adventure romance… a bit of everything for everyone!

Kane has had an ‘accident’ and has lost his memory of the events surrounding it. Gradually he becomes aware that there is more missing from his life, and embarks, reluctantly and suspiciously, on an adventure that sees him facing down evil, fighting for what he believes in, and making dreams come true – but not necessarily good dreams.

Perhaps more importantly, he makes some friends. The problem is whether he can trust them when he can’t even remember them.

There are elements of the familiar, like X-Men style super-powers and an Inception-like incursion into the imaginations of other people. Ryan La Sala has created a fresh story here though, with some very endearing characters and a fascinating take on following your dreams. I particularly loved that in order to resolve each ‘reverie’ the team had to first identify which literary or pop culture trope it was following and then blend in with it – like a cross between puzzle-solving and an RPG!

A strong theme running through the book is that of otherness, or feeling like an outsider. Alongside that are plenty of positive lessons about learning to love oneself – the bad as well as the good – but the author doesn’t preach, allowing the story to make his points for him organically as the plot unfolds.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and it was great to see LGBTQIA characters represented naturally and with complexity. I would definitely read more from this author, especially in the same fiction-verse, and would recommend it to teens upward looking for a fun fantasy read.



Kane might have noticed Sophia look away too quick if he wasn’t watching a shadow behind her break away from the wall and scamper, huge and spider-like, across a doorway.
“Something’s in here,” he whispered.

– Ryan La Sala, Reverie

Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog

"Just because something is imagined doesn't mean it isn't dangerous."
This was a message the characters in Inception needed to hear and wildly ignored, but it is something that the characters in Reverie slowly began to understand and adapt to, thank goodness. It's a difficult thing because we tend to find hope in our dreams, in the things our mind tells us in quiet places. However, these hidden whispers can be dangerous, wicked in their stealthy ways. Despite all the negative things that happen to the characters throughout, they still hold on to their hope, the small pieces of themselves that keep them going.

Ryan La Sala weaves humor into the dark moments and keeps the reader invested in the action throughout. I'm not always in love with realistic fantasy that occurs in the "real world;" but I was invested the entire time while reading this, always anxious to the new and varied ways in which the "real world" changed to adapt to the characters, the magic, and the circumstances. I'm always in love with romance of any kind in a novel and the romance in this one did not disappoint. It was careful and kind, building up appropriately so that the reader falls as the characters fall, bringing you in with them. I recommend this book to others and have already done so to make more queer friendly books available to my students.

I wanted to love this so much but I had so much trouble understanding it all. It just seemed pretty messy and I couldn't connect to the characters either. I'll probably try whatever else this author writes because I see some promise but this wasn't my kind of book!

Kane wakes up in the hospital and has no memories of how he got there. People keep telling him that he stole his parents car then crashed it into a building which proceeded to blow up. As he tries to return to normal life everything feels a little off so now he has to try to uncover the clues to see what actually happened with some strangers who claim that they were once really good friends.
I thought the concept sounded very original and interesting and I think this story could have been great, but for me everything just seemed so flat and the story dragged on and on. The whole story just seemed all over the place and disjointed. The characters also had no depth and I felt like I never got to know them. Maybe of the characters spent more time in the real world instead of the dream world. Then the romance that the main character in seemed undeveloped and forced. The cover was beautiful which is all I can say I enjoyed about the book.

Ryan La Sala’s debut book, Reverie, is a dynamic, action-packed adventure that digs into the worlds between fantasy and reality. It asks a central question that carries the plot of the book forward—what makes reality real?

Reverie follows Kane Montgomery, a teenage boy who was found half dead in a river and who has no memories of his past. The bits of memory that remain are confusing and leave him with more questions than answers. Nevertheless, he is determined to find out more about the circumstances of his incident and life pre-memory loss.


Sourcebooks Fire
While searching for answers, he meets Ursula, a girl who he learns was his best friend. She is cautious around him and they build an uneasy friendship. When he goes back to school , he learns he had two other friends in his group — Elliot and Adeline.

But not everything is what it seems. He find out about the mysterious world he used to be involved with after overhearing his friends talk about him behind his back. He learns that they called themselves The Others. The group possess magical powers that help them control the reveries. Reveries are people’s inner fantasies that play out in the real world. They follow story lines and their constructed worlds are fragile and dangerous. Kane and his group of friends are able to stay lucid during them and guide the reveries to a natural finishing place. Disrupting a reverie before it ends can cause catastrophic problems. The crew are experts at handling them, and in one particular scene make light of some of their crazier adventures by recounting old stories.

This book is flashy in all the right ways, especially with the deliciously wicked Dr. Posey. There has never been a villain so fabulously nefarious in recent YA book history. Dr. Posey is a drag queen sorceress who wants to rip the seams of reality as Kane knows it.

Be warned—some of the explanations of the mechanics of the world are blink and miss. This is a book that you really have to close read, because it’s very easy to get lost in it. Like Kane—you’ll be stuck wondering how you got there in the first place.

The reveries themselves are some of the most interesting aspects of the book. Each mini world unravels different parts of the plot—it feels like puzzle pieces coming together. It’s almost like reading a fanfiction AU of the book—in realtime. Stylistically, the reverie fantasy sequences, let La Sala write in different genre styles all while staying within the same story which was compelling to read.

Described as Inception meets The Magicians, Reverie is a must read for fans of dream bending, magic heavy stories. It’s a roller coaster of a read with vibrancy that glows beyond its pages.

Reviewon TheYoungYolks.com

Reverie is a fresh and innovative YA fantasy that stands out from the rest with its creativity, representation, lively prose, and willingness to tackle difficult issues such as homophobia and bullying. Perfect for any reader looking for a vividly LGBT fantasy or a book they won't be able to put down.

This is the perfect LGBTQ YA fantasy novel that we have all needed! There are some authors that throw in a LGBTQ character here and there to just earn more followers and publicity, but Ryan La Sala incorporates it perfectly, bringing light to the feeling of loneliness that a young teen may feel in this society where they are still so heavily ostracized. YA fantasy has reigned as a leading genre, but I think I can count on one hand where the main characters are LGBTQ. Finally, Reverie gives them the equality they rightly deserve as human beings. Reverie should be the YA fantasy book of our generation.
Kane had been outted pretty young by his eccentricities. Maybe a more astute child would have tried harder to reign themselves in, but Kane was the last to know he was gay and therefore powerless to deny it once he was finally told. Sleepover and birthday party invitations dried up. Teachers became overkind, which secured his shame. He became marked. A curiosity placed in the limbo between the worlds of boys and girls.

Reverie creates a unique fantasy world built around 5 teens that have the ability to help control a reverie, similar to a person's dream. A reverie is when a person's dream becomes real, like a miniature reality. The slightest action by the 5 teens, also known as the Others or being the only lucid people within the reverie, can have dire consequences-plot twists-on the reverie. The story opens with Kane having lost most of his memories and being under police investigation for the destruction of a historical mill, stealing and wrecking his parents' car, and the disappearance of the beloved town painter, Maxine. An unexpected visit from a unique psychiatrist leads Kane to start piecing together the mystery.
Kane gradually gathers small glimpses into his memories, discovering he's the leader of The Others, a group of 4 friends that help people through their reveries. They have unique powers that are later described as having be related to their insecurities. To name a few: Ursula prefers to stay quiet and unknown, so she is given great strength. Elliot is beyond popular and fears being unseen, hence his ability to become invisible. There is also Vivian and the mysterious Dean Flores whom happens to be in the reveries, but not a part of the major clique.
It is with these friends that he tries to put a stop to the frequent and power-growing reveries that are plaguing their town. One wrong move and a reverie could become the new reality. But is there someone behind the madness plaguing the town, making the reveries harder and more chaotic?

Overall, this book seriously should have been in the GoodReads books of the year list. It had a STRONG chance of winning because it is literally perfect.

Ryan La Sala provides the perfect ending quote that speaks to not only readers, but anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong:
That's the thing about a big imagination. It's hard to belong anywhere when you can always imagine something better
I hope that anyone who has dreamed of living in their own dreams, where they feel like they belong, I hope you read this and find yourself connected to a universe of book readers that dream alongside you. Because we all have imaginations that make life seem greater when we are alone.

This books was incredibly ambitious for a debut. It was a clear attempt for the author to try writing different genres within the greater novel. However, there really isn't anything outstanding about it. It was fine but not great.

I would also like to mention that this book is in severe need of additional editing. I actually read a final copy and there were so many spelling and grammar mistakes.