': The Vault of Dreamers by Caragh M. O'Brien|Review & Giveaway {Book Nerd tours}

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Format: Hardback | 418 pages

Publication date: 16 September 2014

ISBN 10: 1596439386

ISBN 13: 9781596439382

From the author of the Birthmarked trilogy comes a fast-paced, psychologically thrilling novel about what happens when your dreams are not your own.

The Forge School is the most prestigious arts school in the country. The secret to its success: every moment of the students' lives is televised as part of the insanely popular Forge Show, and the students' schedule includes twelve hours of induced sleep meant to enhance creativity. But when first year student Rosie Sinclair skips her sleeping pill, she discovers there is something off about Forge. In fact, she suspects that there are sinister things going on deep below the reaches of the cameras in the school. What's worse is, she starts to notice that the edges of her consciousness do not feel quite right. And soon, she unearths the ghastly secret that the Forge School is hiding—and what it truly means to dream there.

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The line between consciousness and dreams is blurred beyond recognition in this thrilling new world brought to us by the same Author that penned The Birthmark trilogy.

Rosie Sinclair is a student at the Forge School which is an elite school for creativity and the basic backdrop of the reality show, The Forge Show. Every waking moment of the student’s lives is televised on the show, it’s the moments they aren’t awake that they should be worried about. Given sleeping pills nightly to allow twelve hours sleep and enhance their creativity, Rosie doesn’t feel like herself after taking the pills, so she stops. Rosie is not like most other teenagers, she is a free thinker, intuitive and sort of detail oriented, she doesn’t follow the crowd. So it is no surprise that she notices things are amiss at the school.

I really loved the reality TV show setting at an art school full of societies most gifted teens. Rosie was a three dimensional character that you couldn’t quite figure out all the time. She grew a lot throughout the story and her actions and decisions weren’t always predictable, which was refreshing. And the romance was a slowly evolving aspect as well, growing into each other and getting to know each other.

The story started out a little rocky, then it slowed mid way and this was a quite long book that was rather uneventful. You know something is amiss, there were so many bread crumbs dropped a sandwich could have been made, but it took too long for Rosie to find the answers she sought. And I still haven’t decided if the ending was a cliffhanger, or anticlimactic.

All that being said, I love the way O’Brien creates these dystopian worlds you find in her books. She definitely has a unique writing style and ability to take the reader to another world that is completely believable. Fans of her Birthmarked trilogy, The Selection series or Amy Carter’s newest title Pawn will most likely love this new story. Even though I had some hang ups with this first book, I will grab a copy of the next book because I was intrigued enough by the world and the characters to see where O’Brien takes them in book #2. I give this one 3/5 stars.

Book Nerd Spotlight

Caragh M. O'Brien is the author of the BIRTHMARKED trilogy and THE VAULT OF DREAMERS, both from Macmillan/Roaring Brook Press. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Ms. O'Brien was educated at Williams College and earned her MA from Johns Hopkins University. She recently resigned from teaching high school English in order to write young adult novels. For more information, visit http://www.caraghobrien.com.

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