Dreamscape: Saving Alex

FANTASY/CONTEMPORARY:  Sixteen-year-old Alexis Stone uses Dreamscape, a video game, to escape from ordinary life. But when her family prepares to move out, a sleepy night of gaming has her trapped in the world of Dreamscape, and the choices she made in the game will not have consequences for real… 

Alex’s character went through a lot of development throughout the book. She starts off as an angry teenager, frustrated with her parents, school, and life itself. But as the book progresses, the reader gets to experience her journey and growth from the first line. The author also does an admirable job portraying Alex’s confusion and worries as she first enters Dreamscape. The love interest, Arrow, was an interesting character too, although not as memorable as one would’ve hoped. 

The video game world was really entertaining, and despite Alex being familiar with the game, the reader tumbled from one surprise into the next, never knowing what to expect, and the suspense could keep any reader glued to their seat. 

As a downside, the pacing was all over the place. At the start, it was slow, but once Alex ended up in the video game world the pacing was so fast sometimes it ended up confusing. Besides that, the writing was decent and entertaining. Character development and world building are clearly the strong points of this book, which would be an excellent read for gaming fans. 

Majanka Verstraete