I gave this book only one star because that is the lowest I could go. I really enjoy books by Sarah Dessen and expected this one to follow suit of all the others. However, this book was not the normal fun enjoyable Sarah Dessen novel. I thought this book was so depressing and felt very bummed out when I finished reading it.
It is about a girl whose sister runs away, it is about her trials with like and trying to find herself. Along the way she meets a very intersting boy who she starts to date. He becomes very possesive and starts to beat her. (this is where it got really depressing) the rest of the book is about her struggle to keep her abuse a secret from her family and friends.
I kept waiting for her to decide she was better than that and fight back or find a way to get out of the bad relationship, but she never did. it wasn't until her neighbor she her boyfriend beating on her that she got the chance to start a new life.
I did not enjoy this book.

*This review (and more) can also be found on my blog: The Humble Watermelon*

What makes Sarah Dessen's books so special is the fact that you feel like you can actually relate to the characters. Also, the plots are almost always the same, complete with a girl, a boy, and some romance, and the main character always has some kind of emotionally damaging problem they have to deal with, but it never seems repetitive.

Dreamland was haunting. It was disturbing. Not words you usually associate with Dessen, the queen of summer romance and chick flicks. But words that Dessen definitely pulled off.

I had to take a few breaks from Dreamland, first because I finally got ahold of Insurgent, and then because somebody lend me The Maze Runner. Yet every time I came back to read this book, I didn't feel very distant from it or confused, because the plot just sucked me right in, like the last time I read the book was not a week ago, but a day ago.

The thing about Sarah Dessen is that she gives you a lot of time to know the characters more, and then after a couple of hundred pages or so she actually gets into the plot. Normally, this kind of format would greatly annoy me, but with Dessen's books, I think it actually works really great. By knowing the characters with more details and revealing many different sides of them, everything in the story just seems to be more vivid, more rich.

Caitlyn is the kind of girl that can easily be persuaded at her weak point, but has a very strong will and drive. Honestly, I was more emphatic towards her than sympathetic, but I felt like she was a pretty well-rounded female lead. Now Rogerson brought a whole new dynamic to the story. Whereas Caitlyn was hesitant, forgiving and slightly self conscious, Rogerson was mysterious, impatient, and possessed quite a temper. In fact, Dessen made these two characters- well, all the characters- all so complex and developed that I fear I may not ever have the right words to describe them.

Caitlyn and Rogerson's relationship was what you could call unexpected and tumultuous. I desperately wanted to yell at Caitlyn to get away from this abusive relationship, yet I understood how she really couldn't. It's that kind of relationship that draws you, drowns you in with a brutal force, and never let's you out of its grasp. Sometimes, you might be able to wiggle a little looser from it, yet you just can't completely set yourself free. It puts you in a daze, a hallucination where you think that everything's all right, yet you know that it's not.

Sarah Dessen definitely blew me away with this one. All the elements in this story- the relationships, the family dynamic, the pain, the emotions- interwove with each other in perfect harmony. She made the book feel so light, so eerie, and ever so fascinating. Just like you were in dreamland.

Like Caitlin, my emotions are all out of whack. If I’m not careful, I may even resort to sucking my thumb, screaming at random times and intervals, rolling around on the grass, flopping on my bed, or sticking my feet up in the air and playing dead. It’s really hard to say what I might do, and if I tried to pin it down, my response would be filled with conjecture, and I prefer to deal in facts.

The fact is I hated this novel. Hated it with a passion, because it discussed abuse, and I prefer to look at the world through rose-colored glasses and deal in unicorns and rainbows and Popsicle sticks and ice cream sandwiches. But this is one world that is filled with a vast emptiness that extends for miles and miles.

When I go to sleep, I dream of Junior Mints and Butterfingers and Milk Duds. I certainly do not wake up screaming in the night, or cover myself in cold sweats and silently stare out of open windows with my mouth offered up in the open position. I certainly don’t have a negative view of the world.

So, yeah, it was hard for me to understand someone that might. Not just hard, it was nearly impossible, as I struggled with it throughout the course of this novel. DREAMLAND was a virtual world for me, and it was filled with potholes and minefields and .44 Magnums pointed in my direction. The gun didn’t go off thankfully, but it was darn close, and it was pretty damn big.

Rogerson pinpointed everything I hate about this world. No, hate is probably too strong a word. But extreme dislike might not be far off the mark. He might even qualify as a beautiful bastard, I don’t know. And, frankly, Caitlin put up with way too much of his shit, and she needed to develop a few more thoughts for herself. Not maybe, this is a definitive requirement.

Otherwise, this was a beautifully written novel with fully developed characters and passionate prose and a flowing storyline that kept me on my toes. Had I liked either of the main characters, I might have even rated this novel higher.

Cross-posted at Robert's Reads

In order for this book to work the author needs to make the reader understand why someone would choose to be with someone who abuses them. She didn't even come close to making me understand.
I grew to dislike the abuse victim even more than the abuser because it made no sense to me why she kept putting herself in a terrible situation over and over again, without even saying so much as, "Please don't do that." I know there are people who are compelled to be in this situation, but this book did little to help me understand them.

If you're going to write a novel about an abusive relationship that is written in the first person, I expect to understand more about the protagonist's motivations than whines of "but I love him" can give.

something i just never, ever needed is sarah dessen writing an abusive relationship.

summertime romances? sure. vacations and road trips? you bet. the difficulty in childhood friendships becoming adolescent friendships becoming adult friendships? any goddamn day of the week.

but THIS? this? no way.

even though sarah dessen's Troubled Girl Meets Troubled Boy And They Fall In Love And Also It's Summertime interchangeable storylines bug the hell out of a lot of people, i love em. nostalgia and fluff are all i need sometimes.

but i don't want a shallow silly story when it's about a serious topic like this one. and this just felt flat. even when i was sixteen and very easily impressed this felt flat.

the abusive boyfriend is a flat villainous person and there's no reason or explanation for why he is the way he is. the victim girlfriend is flat too, with a series of cyclical excuses and logical fallacies for why she can't tell anyone / change anything / leave.

when i was sixteen, i didn't have any relevant life experience to hold counter to this narrative, and it still rang false. now i do and hoo-wee, it is smellin like bullsh*t around here.

i'll still be there for the fluff, though, sarah.

this review is part of a project i'm doing where i review books i read a long time ago. turns out i still have some anger i can use on this one.

I'd been wanting to read something by Sarah Dessen for awhile. She's one of those prominent YA authors, and I've heard good things about her books...although not so much as to tell me what they were about. So while I was at the library the other day, I picked up one of her titles at random and read the back – description of the “hot” guy. I decided, sure, why not? So Dreamland came home with me.

It starts out with a gripper – on Caitlin's 16th birthday, her sister Cassandra, 2 years older, runs away to be with her boyfriend who is a bouncer/security guy on some crazy talk show (akin to Jerry Springer/Jenny Jones). This is totally out of character for Cass, who has always been the model student, person, daughter. And everyone is lost without her. Caitlin is sort of drifting the whole time – into one thing or another. She ends up being a cheerleader and describes the experience as something that “just happened” to her. In fact, many of her decisions are made on the basis of whether it would be different from something Cass has done. She does make a conscious decision to start dating Rogerson, though – the hot boy described on the back cover. Rogerson has problems of his own – an abusive father, a criminal record, and he continues to sell pot and narcotics even after his arrest. But he and Caitlin seem to understand one another. Until one day, when Caitlin fails to meet him at an agreed upon time, he hits her. And then it's like he can't stop hitting her. And she can't stop seeing him.

At this point in the story, I sighed, because this story has been told time and time again: woman trapped in an abusive relationship, can't bring herself to leave. And I prepared myself to slog through it, waiting to be deliberately manipulated by a heavy-handed author...but it didn't happen that way at all. The abuse was bad, but it was like I was in the same drifty dreamworld that Caitlin was in...and I felt her fear and trepidation, but I also felt her strength and the conflict within her. No one thinks that they will ever be in this kind of situation. No one wants it. But it struck a chord with me, because Caitlin loved Rogerson, and saw something behind his hurting her...which is what made it so difficult for her to leave him. It made me think about how hard it is to walk away from something you are so bound up with emotionally...even when things are bad. And this story did not HARP on about the good days and how Rogerson was so good. Caitlin didn't see it like that. She just saw those days/times as being safe. She could be with him and not have to worry about being hurt.

She does get out of it. Something within her crumbles, and she just can't move...and someone sees Rogerson beating her. She ends up in therapy in a psychiatric hospital, where she gets the rest she needs, and gets to talk about what's happened to her since her sister left. And we aren't left with the feeling that everything is going to be happily ever after, but at least we know that Caitlin is free of this hurt, and she's on her way to healing.

This moved me, and I can be SO immoveable when I've decided not to like something. I'm so glad I gave it a chance, even when the PLOT was revealed. Thank you Sarah Dessen for not being heavy-handed, and for telling this kind of a story in a new and meaningful way.

Here's my view on Sarah Dessen books: They're all the same. Now you may be saying "Jolie, They are not all the same! In one of them there is an abusive boyfriend. In the other, a motorcycle accident."
Then thats where i say "I know, i know. But think about it."
Now i'm not saying i don't like her writing. i think its decent good even. But what she does is, she write for her audience. No, i'm not saying she's selling out or anything. I'm just saying that she knows what the typical teenage girl wants to read about. A love tragedy. Now, i'm not saying that a book about love and tragedy is automatically a bad book. I mean look at Romeo and Juliet for god sakes! I am also not calling you "typical" if read and like her books. I'm not criticizing you, i'm criticizing her. Every book has the same plot. Girl is desperate, wants guy, finds a guy, falls in love, something horrible happens, copes, finds love in another or changes the guy and the end.

Very heavy. Very interesting. Abusive relationship is shown very well. The girl seems likable and relatable. Tbh I found no interesting point in her sister Cass, she was an unnecessary character, Rina was better.

I read this when I was a teenager & remembered it’s impact on me, so I decided to read it again.

I actually was afraid I wouldn’t like reading it as an adult. I saw a lot of bad reviews saying that this book doesn’t explain why Rogerson did what he did. I feel like when people read about DV they want it to be minimized or the abuser to be explained so that it helps them sleep at night to have some sort of explanation of why one person could do that to another. Would it make you feel better if it said he was stressed, he was struggling with his jealousy issues, he just wanted to be loved? Does the reason matter really?

It’s also missing the point of the book- the book is about Caitlin and her voice about what happened to her. Rogerson doesn’t need a voice.

I personally felt this book provided a way more accurate look at DV than any other book I have read about the subject. The numbness she felt and her inability to feel anything at all. How she knew it was wrong- but she felt stuck. The extreme shame that comes along with it. Wanting everyone to see what is going on, but also not wanting anyone to know and hiding it.

This book won’t be for everyone. The subject matter may be hard to read for some.

This book was heart wrenching and powerful, and it kept me engaged while I was sick. I read it over two days, and while it’s a YA novel, the themes are strong and made me reflect deeply on the character’s perspectives.

Actual Rating: 4.7

*Warning*
This book made me cry. I intend to talk about the book as a whole in my review which is hard to do without posting spoilers so if you haven't read this yet and plan to, don't read this.


Anyways.. Wow.. I was not expecting that. I have been on a Sarah Dessen binge recently and I find that I like some and hate others. I am not one to read the synopsis of a book before reading it as I think it often gives too much away. I was not expecting this relationship to take such a violent turn. I felt like I was watching [well reading about...] a tornado just building and building and waiting to take off on it's destructive path. I really liked Caitlin and in the beginning of her relationship with Rogerson I was pulling for him, thinking, you know, she would be the one to make him change his ways. To rescue him from his destructive home life or whatever. I didn't even consider that he was a product of his upbringing... The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, right?

My heart broke for Caitlin as I watched her ALLOW herself to get trapped in a relationship like this. Shame on her parents for allowing her so much freedom. So much independence that it came off as not caring. So many things, weighing down on her, she couldn't handle the pressure. I cried when she went to "rehab" and at the letter Cass wrote her, I cried at so many things!

I'm so glad books like this exist. It opens up the lines of communication about abuse and [hopefully] helps people to see how NOT okay it is. To tell somebody! Stand up for yourself. Allowing that to happen to you more than once is unacceptable.

Anyways, I loved this book. Super glad to have read it.

Rating: 3.25/5

Review coming soon!