Dreamology – Lucy Keating

For as long as Alice can remember, she has dreamed of Max. Together, they have travelled the world and fallen deliriously, hopelessly in love. Max is the boy of her dreams—and only her dreams. Because he doesn’t exist.

But when Alice walks into class on her first day at a new school, there he is. Real Max is nothing like Dream Max. He’s stubborn and complicated. And he has a whole life Alice isn’t a part of. Getting to know each other in reality isn’t as perfect as Alice always hoped.

Alarmingly, when their dreams start to bleed into their waking hours, the pair realize that they might have to put an end to a lifetime of dreaming about each other. But when you fall in love in your dreams, can reality ever be enough?

DREAMOLOGY has been on my list for a very long time and I’ve been excited to read it the whole time but just never got around to obtaining a copy. When I saw the audiobook pop up on Scribd, I knew it was going to be my next read and I’m so glad I finally read this one!

Others seemed to fall head-over-heels for DREAMOLOGY, and while it was very enjoyable in so many ways, it still felt like it could have gone a couple steps further and I really would have loved it. I really enjoyed the concept of dreaming here, specifically that the two main characters dream about each other… and they both remember the dream. It was a really neat concept that I wasn’t sure how to define. Does it fit neatly in a box of sci-fi, magical realism? No matter how you classify it, it was such a fun idea that was also neatly backed by science (some real, some fake novel science) that really brought the concept to life. Felt like this book could have gone just a teensy bit further in any direction — the dreaming, the science, why the characters were connected — to really make it that much more special and wow me, but it was still a fun read the way it played out.

I enjoyed the romance but could have done without the love triangle. I liked Oliver a lot but I kind of wished he didn’t have to be a potential love interest, even though it was clear that he and Alice were really never going to get together. I would have loved to see him more platonic and leave the drama for the other half of the love triangle romance between Max and Celeste, which was much more relevant to the book. I actually kind of liked that triangle because there was meaning behind Max’s relationship with Celeste and it wasn’t just a throw away thing, and there was also the fact that Alice ended up actually liking Celeste and it wasn’t this sort of mean girl thing. It made for a nice, complicated plot point but it wasn’t overly dramatic by making any of the characters catty.

I really thought Max’s character could have been a little bit … better. He was a bit flat and it seemed like Alice kind of carried a lot of the emotion. I actually really envisioned a POV chapter from Max right off the bat and I really wished we could have seen things from his perspective too.

I kind of didn’t love how everything resolved regarding the dreams. It all seemed a little too easy and was like “Let’s fix it. Okay it’s fixed.” It was interesting but also kind of didn’t make sense… Maybe I missed something but to me it only described why they dreamed about each other but not why they both had the same dream and remembered it.

Anyway, this was a fun, easy read with a unique concept and I’m glad I finally got to it!

Kept Me Hooked On: A different kind of sci-fi concept. I really liked the concept of dreaming! I haven’t really read many books that dabbled with things like that and it was a fun kind of read.
Left Me Wanting More: Closed plot holes. There were just a couple things that I felt like were left open and didn’t quite get answered. I think the book could have been amped up a notch with a few more cool answers and reasonings.

Addiction Rating
Try it

I didn’t full-out love this one but it was a quick and easy read with some fun dreaming concepts!

BOOKS LIKE DREAMOLOGY