Dream World by S.J. Hitchcock

Dream World is an interesting book following the stories and lives of 3 major people. Each of the teens is experiencing struggles and learning to cope with them.

First is Debbie. She is a witness to a horrific accident which takes her mom's life. In order to deal with the situation, she withdrawals to her room and starts to dream of her TV idol where he is a huge help in her recovery process. She begins to "see" him when she needs help. Her story is a journey of grief, struggle and forgiveness.

With Karen, Debbie's former friend, we find a girl who feels left out of her family. Her sister is the "golden child" and gets all of her parents attention. Karen feels invisible, and it seems to be with good reason. She deals with her home life and learns to relate to the kids at school in a destructive way, seemingly to gain the desired attention. Her journey relates to the notion of bad attention is better than no attention. She never really seems to find a healthy way to deal with her life.

Mark finds himself being sent to the UK while his parents jet off to a year long tour. While he is there he finds himself feeling a sense of abandonment by his parents and living life in the shadow of his cousin. He has to learn to survive and adapt to the life he is given.

This book has some good story lines, especially with Debbie's mothers accident and how she struggles with guilt and moving on. I felt this part had some real emotion and was realistic in her response to death.

To me, with so much back and forth of which story was being followed, it had a slightly confusing aspect to it. I think I would have liked to hear more about 1 or 2 characters with more depth, then trying to cover them all.

It was a good way to look at the differences in the teens and how they reacted to difficult situations however. This to me was realistic of how teens might feel and would be a good read for that age. It allows teens to see different ways situations can affect people and how relationships affect all aspects of life.

Teens would definitely be able to relate to many parts of the book and would grasp how the issues can affect people.


Disclosure: I received a free ebook copy of Dream World in order to do my review as part of the blog tour. I did not receive any other compensation. My reviews are my honest opinion and may differ from others.