Adrienne Stoltz
Ron Bass
Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: October 2, 2012
Source: Publisher
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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.
This is a dazzling debut that will steal readers' hearts.
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CATCHALL
Wow. I mean, wow. Just, wow. I was literally speechless after I finished this book. It was completely and utterly amazing and I positively loved it. I was just absolutely blown away. I won't be the first or the last person to make this comparison, but this book is a lot like Inception. The first time you read it, you don't really understand exactly what's going on but you love it anyway because it's that incredible. As time goes on and you read it again and again, it slowly begins to piece itself together, starting to make an increasing amount of sense. Yet through it all, whether or not or not you really grasped the concept, you fall in love with it. Simply, simply incredible. Fantabulous, even. I also realize that this review is just a biiit long. Actually, it's longer than my Lit papers, haha.
THE HEROINES
MAGGIE
Maggie is very, very different from Sloane. She's much bolder and independent. She's used to living on her own terms and doing what's best for her. She's an actress and she loves life. Maggie is worldly but she's also very naïve. She steers life in the direction she wants it to go and expects it to obey. Maggie isn't often afraid, but when she is she never lets it show. She always projects a strong and confident exterior to the world even when she feels anything but within. It was easy for me to relate to her and I really found myself rooting for her throughout the book. I definitely liked her better of the two girls.
SLOANE
I liked Sloane, but I didn't connect to her the way I connected to Maggie. Maggie and I were best friends from page one. Sloane was more like an acquaintance until the middle of the book. she's less bold than Maggie and is very vulnerable. She wants to feel loved but she suffers intensely from loss. Sloane struggles more than Maggie to make her world fit together. Sloane loves her life, but there are parts of it that are missing. I also think that Sloane didn't know how to channel her grief, and also I think that she was definitely genuine in her feelings.
THE LOVE INTERESTS
ANDREW
I absolutely love Andrew. Like, I absolutely absolutely love him. Like, I legit want to have his kids. Anyway, before I start to get really creepy…he's just awesome and, like, I don't know, completely amazing. And I don't know how to explain too much of the why, he just is. He's a film student. When Maggie first meets him, she's convinced that they could be pod friends, if nothing else, since he seems to be happy with his girlfriend. Andrew feels things intensely. That's clear from the beginning. He wants what's real, and he decides eventually that he won't settle for anything less. He's incredibly put together for someone who is young but not in a way that makes him too old. He also always makes Maggie smile and he always, always took care of her and was there for her. He also was so good to Jade, Maggie's little sister. And the thing that makes him the most perfect is the fact that he isn't perfect. Andrew is also extremely symbolic but that's spoilery territory so I won't be going there.
JAMES
James is very, very different from Andrew, but I love him too. Sloane doesn't want to like to him. In fact, she's a little afraid of him. But somehow she's drawn to him nonetheless. He's actually a lot like Sloane. He's very intelligent, and he loves to read. Classics like Siddhartha and The Great Gatsby. He can be difficult but he genuinely cares about and even loves Sloane and wanted her to be happy. He tried to understand what she was going through even when there wasn't anything he could do. James also gave Sloane space when she needed it. Though he struggled to put his mind in the right place, his heart was really always with her and he didn't always do the smartest thing but he really did want to be with Sloane and made sure that he tried his best.
THE PLOT
Well, I'm not even sure where to begin. This book blew me away emotionally and mentally. I mean, it actually drained me. Very rarely do I become so invested in a book that I actually feel like curling into a ball and wasting away. Sure, I've been so upset that I couldn't eat multiple times. Many times. But I have never felt about another book the way I felt about Lucid. I wanted to crawl inside of it and live there. I really did. Because I thought that living life otherwise was unbearable. Obviously, I have made it through that point. But my original conviction remains true and steady.
Maggie and Sloane are two very different girls living in two very different worlds. But they're also not. There are so many parallels that I could draw between them. So freaking many. They're not quite so different as we're led to believe at first. Maggie is simply a more confident version of Sloane, almost as if she wishes that's who she was. Sloane is more like Maggie's inner self, vulnerable and naïve and unprepared for what's in store for her.
Maggie is an up-and-coming actress. Suddenly, there's a guy who's offering to get her casted as one of the leading characters on a hot new TV show. The only catch? He wants to sleep with her. And as more than a one-time thing. At first, Maggie doesn't mind. She finds him attractive, and he is doing her a favor. She goes along with it for a long while, but eventually she realizes that she isn't sure that that's what she wants at all. He doesn't really care about her, and Maggie isn't sure her career is worth that. He isn't the most amazing guy in the world, and he does some things that Maggie must use all her smarts to get out of.
Sloane is almost a typical high school student, except, of course, that she isn't. Sloane's greatest evil is that she suffers the loss of someone she loved. Her best friend, Bill, who she also loved. He was everything to her until the night he died, and she was completely broken up when that happened. She hasn't been interested in anyone since, not even Gordy, the friend who loves her. She grieves deeply and has two close friends, Lila and Kelly, who would do anything for her and frequently offer stellar advice. But when new boy James comes to town, Sloane thinks she just might be able to love again.
Though both girls' lives are as far apart as can be, it only takes a single lynchpin for them to completely collide. And when they do, it's explosive and intense and maybe even a little bit deadly. Nothing will stay the same once that happens. Everything is going to change for Sloane and Maggie. They must choose one world. The stories are heartbreaking and real, and they made me realize how impossible such a choice would be. How can you give up something like that?
Throughout the novel I felt very connected to everything. When the story was bright and cheerful, I was happy and smiling and laughing. When it was dark, I was crying, my heart bleeding for Maggie and Sloane. It completely trumped pretty much everything else in my life and became the Most Important Thing Ever to me. I mean…I couldn't stop reading it. And I didn't want to. I let this book into my heart, and I don't think I'll ever let it go. It's the kind of book that left a deep imprint, the type that you'll never forget even if you want to. It simply means too much to be let go.
THE ROMANCE
The romance. Oh, man, the romance. It was just so seriously swoonworthy. And very, very beautiful. Maggie loves Andrew even though she doesn't admit it for a long time. And when she does, it's so sweet. They have such gorgeous chemistry and they just fit so beautifully together as a couple. I'm not sure I could love them together any more. The way Andrew feels about Maggie is tangible, and the way she feels about him is almost immediately obvious too. I especially love the way they argue and then always, always make up. Like Maggie says, it takes a very special kind of guy to be able to argue with like that, and the fact that they can do so together makes the sparks that much more electric. And then I also love James and Sloane together, though perhaps not so much. They definitely go through some rocky times and James doesn't always treat her as well as he should. Even so, they're intellectually matched and they have chemistry too. They're alike in a lot of ways and that's why their relationship is so deeply intense too.
THE WRITING
This writing is simply phenomenal. I honestly don't know how else I could possibly describe it. It completely and utterly blew me away. Adrienne and Ron make a peerless team and I devoured every word. Maggie and Sloane are achingly real characters. Their voices reflect that and make them completely come to life on the page. Each of them also has a distinctly unique voice. You can hear something of them in each other, but they're still as different as can be. They're both struggling for identity and that is also reflected. The worlds that Maggie and Sloane live in are vivid and described beautifully. The New York and Connecticut that this book takes place in are absolutely fantastic and I really definitely could picture the people and places in this book. I was pulled into the story until I became a part of it, until the writing enveloped me. I don't always provide excerpts since they take forever to find, but this book has such awesome writing that I simply can't resist. These were taken from my uncorrected proof.
And at this moment, the boy who couldn't possibly have heard anything we were saying slowly turns. And looks directly into my eyes. For exactly two seconds. And then he walks away.
I only want to be with someone I actually love. Love has never happened to me. I guess I'm afraid it never will. But all of a sudden, I have this rock-solid conviction that I don't want to settle for less.
THE ENDING
The ending was gorgeous and haunting as well as heartbreaking. There were tears and actual sobbing going on. Maggie and Sloane's worlds are beginning to crash together until neither of them knows what is real and what isn't. They can't keep things from colliding. And somehow, each of them knows that they have to choose. But they can't when they don't know what's real. Maggie and Sloane each become convinced that their world is a lie, nonexistent, invented somewhere in the other's head. They doubt themselves until they can't remember who they are. Maggie, Sloane, Maggie, Sloane. Ultimately, the choice will be made and the truth behind everything will be revealed. And when that happened, something inside me cried even as I could see the happiness in the ending. There were tears and smiles, and I'm not ashamed of that.
WRAPUP
I'm honestly not sure I've ever fallen so deeply in love with a story before. Lucid absolutely consumed me. It literally became my world and I didn't ever want to have to leave it. I know how insanely and ridiculously cliché that sounds, but I can't think of a better way to describe it. It's seriously one of the truest things I have ever said. I was just completely blown away. Lucid made me think and it fascinated me. It's definitely not an easy read but it is a seriously emotional one. It was a crazy ride, but I loved every single second of it. It was one of those books that totally screws over whatever you read after it because there is no way it can possibly measure up. I'll definitely be reading works by Adrienne and Ron in the future, and I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for another collaboration. Do you have my most fervent recommendation to read this novel as soon as if humanly possible? Yes, yes, yes. A thousand times, a million times, a billion times yes.
FINE.
One thing that annoyed me: In my uncorrected proof, a Breakfast at Tiffany's scene was incorrectly referenced. I will be checking the see if this was corrected in the final copy, which I hope it was!
*****FINAL RATING: 5.00 RED ROSES*****
