Novels Now

Fade by Lisa McMann
Wake Trilogy, Book 2

Pages: 248
First Published: Feb. 10, 2009
Genre: YA, magical realism
Rating: 4.5/5

First sentence:

Janie sprints through the snowy yards from two streets away and slips quietly through the front door of her house.

Comments: Janie has found out that she is not the first to experience her ability to enter other people’s dreams. She and Caleb start researching dreams and she begins to learn to gather some control over her blackouts and the dream events themselves. The nightmares are the worst they make her totally helpless and she begins to experience a classmate’s terrifying nightmare over and over as they share study hall together. Caleb and Janie become aware of a horrible situation taking place at Fieldridge High between teachers and students but no one will talk. Janie tries to find the truth, and stop the terrible event from happening anymore, through her dreams. Caleb and Janie’s relationship also matures and two people who have never felt love from anyone their whole lives find love for each other. Janie also learns a brutal truth about her condition and how it will affect the rest of her life. Again tough issues are dealt with here; rape and once again parental neglect and terrible abuse.

Picking up immediately after the first book, Wake, and written in the same day-by-day format the second book of this trilogy grabs you from the first page and doesn’t let go until the end. This book is on an equal footing with the first; well-written, dynamic characters, compelling and page-turning. I haven’t felt this way about a trilogy since the Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray. There is no doubt these books are going to catch the heat of popularity from teens and adults like.

While I liked this book probably even more than the first one, my slightly less rating is due to two points, one of the author’s doing and one of my own personal opinion. First, Janie and Caleb’s relationship turns s*xual and while not graphic it isn’t left to the imagination either. On one hand, the author handled the situation well; it is not portrayed as reckless. But on the other hand, I do not like s*xual intercourse to be portrayed as a “good thing” in books aimed primarily at Young Adults. My second quibble is the plot went, I felt, beyond realistic believability in the way Janie’s “job” was handled.

I can’t wait until the third book of this trilogy, Gone, is published but I will have to somehow make it through the wait until 2010. Highly recommended!