Lucidly Afraid of You

Expected Publication:  October 2nd, 2012
Lucid
By: Adrienne Stoltz and Ron Bass
Razorbill
ISBN-13: 9781595145192

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.

Review

 

     Sloane and Maggie have never met, but they know everything about each other.  This is because only one of them is probably even real.  They have the same name, but everything else is different.  Maggie is an aspiring actress who is on the road to a GED and a serious career in New York.  She lives with her Mom and little sister Jade, having lost her Dad a few years previously.  Sloane is a small-town girl, one of the smartest at her high school, who has a happy family and a wonderful best friend named Gordy.  But she is also dealing with heartbreak, the senseless death of her other best friend Bill the year before, in car accident.  At first everything is okay, until both girls are torn between superficial relationships and true happiness with the right guy.  Now they each have a reason to want the other gone for good.  Spiraling out of control and unable to tell what world is real, Sloan and Maggie begin to blur together.  But who will be the one to survive the breakdown?  I liked the premise of this book at first and thought it was a really intriguing concept.  I thought that both girls would be real and inexplicably connected for some reason.  I liked how detailed and true both girls' lives came across as and the budding romances were very sweet.  However, I felt no need for Sloane and Maggie to be strining along two or three guys each AT THE SAME TIME.  Seriously?  You really don't know which one you like more?  I could really feel Maggie's heartbreak at losing her Dad and Sloane's at losing Bill.  But I got lost around the last 100 pages or so, when the girl(s) start to have a mental breakdown and reality becomes blurred.  For most of that chunk of the book I couldn't even tell who was speaking because they were half in both worlds in every chapter.  I saw the ending coming from a mile away and felt that it was extremely cliched and predictable.  It could have gone in so many fresh, original directions if only the author hadn't gone the 'suppressed guilt' route.  Overall, a disappointment and I feel like I wasted my time.  But for the decency of the first half and how well-written it was, I give this a couple concessionary stars.

 

VERDICT:  2/5  Stars

 

*I received this book as part of Around the World ARC Tours, run by the lovely Princess Bookie. No favors or money were exchanged for this review. It will be available for purchase on October 2nd, 2012.*