Lucid
Written By: Adrienne Stoltz and Ron Bass
Review By: Katie C
2/5 Stars
What if you could dream your way into a different life? What if you could choose to live that life forever?
Sloane and Maggie have never met. Sloane is a straight-A student with a big and loving family. Maggie lives a glamorously independent life as an up-and-coming actress in New York. The two girls couldn't be more different--except for one thing. They share a secret that they can't tell a soul. At night, they dream that they're each other.
The deeper they're pulled into the promise of their own lives, the more their worlds begin to blur dangerously together. Before long, Sloane and Maggie can no longer tell which life is real and which is just a dream. They realize that eventually they will have to choose one life to wake up to, or risk spiraling into insanity. But that means giving up one world, one love, and one self, forever.
Lucid angered me for a variety of reasons. Though the premise was interesting and the writing was smooth enough that I didn't end up putting it down, it never really grabbed my attention enough. The two stories were completely separate for most of the book, and only when the girls' worlds began to overlap did I finally get excited about the story. Unfortunately, it was too little too late.
The characters themselves weren't terrible, but I got the impression that not enough of them made it onto the page. Sloane was a typical, high school-esque girl with very little defining qualities besides being meek and fawning over the hottest guy in school. Maggie, on the other hand, seemed like a bit of an easier character to sympathize with, although sometimes it felt as if I'd gone from reading a book about a 17-year-old to one about a 30-year-old. This was purposeful and handled pretty well, but it still threw me off in the beginning, when I wondered if Maggie would ever start showing her age.
As for the writing-- simple and easy to read, but unfortunately the writers relied too heavily on telling, rather than showing. Most of the scenes were filtered through the narration. Instead of showing the reader how a character reacts, often the MC will gloss over it and tell the gist of what was said. Due to this, the tension was lacking until the climax, but even then I felt the tension could have been drawn out throughout the entire story, instead of just throwing it all on you at the very end.
As for the overall story, it had its moments. It definitely focused more on the girls' love lives instead of the issue of their dreams. They're definitely passive about their situation, although they both fret over it constantly, neither really takes active steps to try and understand or solve the problem. Also, there was no force that drove the plot. The girls were simply expanding their lives to include boys, and all of a sudden that sends their delicate balance into chaos. It appeared like the writers were purposefully trying to be vague to let the readers draw their own conclusion, but it came across as weak and underdeveloped. The end also reminded me very much of Going Bovine by Libba Bray, only it wasn't handled as well.
All in all, I'd say this book is best for readers looking for a romance story with only a hint of paranormal. Those that enjoyed Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler or The Secret Year by Jennifer Hubbard might enjoy this. If you want a book that's more on the paranormal side, this one might not be for you.
Cheers,
-Katie
