Dreamwielder

Book Title: Dreamwielder

Author: Garrett Calcaterra
Series: The Dreamwielder Chronicles #1

Date Started: September 18th 2016

Date Completed: September 23rd 2016

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure
Quality Rating: Two Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Two Star

Final Rating: Two stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

I didn't finish Dreamwielder, and frankly, I didn't want to. I admit, the story had potential that might have turned into something right at the end of the book, but I read a fair bit of the way through and it was making me want to avoid reading altogether. From what I did read, my main sentiment was that of confusion: there seems to be the style of a children's book, but with some things not suitable to be in a children's book - and I'm pretty sure this is aimed at a Young Adult audience anyway.

Dreamwielder has a weird writing style and that was ultimately why I let myself give up on this book. It's not quite third person, but even if I ignored that strange feeling in that audience positioning, we then got very different levels of characterisation for each person we followed; even if you're in third person, there's often an atmosphere or a tone when following a certain character and that was definitely true for Prince Caile, for example. I felt his tension in his chapters, and I could pick up on the relationships he had with those around him because of the subtext of his actions. Jump over to Makkaria, and there was no substance in her story - everything was suddenly very direct and felt so hollow.

In general, it felt a lot like a children's book in its choice of words, and its way of getting across information. But then there are some elements that shocked me just because I was automatically going into the mindset of 'this is a children's book', and then suddenly there's a naked women nailed through her navel to a wooden wheel that detects when magic is used. That's quite a sickening image regardless of the context, but when I felt like I was reading something intended for children - when it isn't even intended for children, this is supposedly a Young Adult novel - I was jarred again and again out of the narrative, and if a book can't keep me in its world while I'm reading it there's a problem.

Though I didn't finish Dreamwielder, so can't talk about the entire story arc or how it resolves itself, I can talk about its lack of unity in the first third of the book. Taking the time to gently establish the world at the beginning of this book would have been really helpful to the whole book, and I feel a bit sorry for Calcaterra because I can see how he tried to weave the world building throughout the whole novel, but he didn't manage to pull it off. What we end up with is a lot of information dumping scattered through various parts of the book, including an attempt to make come complicated politics that really drives the story. The problem is there isn't a strong enough world in place to hold these things up when you're also trying to concentrate on the story and the characters.

Furthermore, from what I read, the various stories we're following seem incredibly disjointed. I was hoping they were going to start converging and overlapping (I read quite a bit further than I originally intended to because I could feel things starting to head together), but the more I read, the further everyone started to move from each other. Makkaria is completely separate from the Prince and Princess to start with, and all the main characters end up heading in completely opposite directions - which of course would have been great if they had been united in a theme, or a discovery, or something that just gave us a reason to follow their stories simultaneously.

I was quite hopeful in terms of characters for this book because we're initially introduced to quite an unusual cast at the start. It seems that Makkaria is the main protagonist, but then we've got her grandfather who is actually quite central to the story (more so than Makkaria herself, but I'll get to that in a moment), and we also have Prince Caile and his bodyguard, and then Princess Taera. What I didn't understand was why we're sold a story about Makkaria being the key character that is going to influence everyone else in the first few chapters but end up actually getting a whole lot more activity and general plot from people that feel completely unrelated to her story. What I read made it feel like Prince Caile's book - in fact, Makkaria barely feels like a character in this story because she's so passive and seemingly childish. I think she's intended to be about 12 years old, but she feels 7 and the problem is that, because she's influenced and directed by the people around her, her story is actually completely overtaken with her grandfather's character. If it was supposed to be about her grandfather, I would be happy to buy into this, but Dreamwielder doesn't establish him as the protagonist, it establishes Makkaria - and she is almost entirely submissive to her grandfather's story.

There's a possibility that things get better in this book, but I got a third of the way through and I was finding it really hard to stay in the world because the style of writing just wasn't right. From where I left off, I wasn't convinced the story was going to make up for the frustration the writing was causing me, so I decided that life's too short and I stopped reading. Overall, I don't think I can recommend this book to an audience because it doesn't fit in a definite category; I wouldn't say it's suitable for children, but the writing isn't up to the standards of Young Adult fiction. Maybe it does get better, and that's why I've given Dreamwielder the benefit of the doubt and a two-star rating, but I didn't really want to spend any more time finding out for myself.

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