Review: Dream a Little Dream by Kerstin Gier (ARC)

Title: Dream a Little Dream (The Silver Trilogy #1)
Author: Kerstin Gier & Anthea Bell (Trans.)
Publisher: Henry Holt & Co. BYR (Macmillian)
Release Date: April 14, 2015
Acquired Via: Publisher
Mysterious doors with lizard-head knobs. Talking stone statues. A crazy girl with a hatchet. Yes, Liv’s dreams have been pretty weird lately. Especially the one where she’s in a graveyard at night, watching four boys conduct dark magic rituals.

The strangest part is that Liv recognizes the boys in her dream. They’re classmates from her new school in London, the school where she’s starting over because her mom has moved them to a new country (again). But what's really scaring Liv is that the dream boys seem to know things about her in real life, things they couldn't possibly know—unless they actually are in her dreams? Luckily, Liv never could resist a good mystery, and all four of those boys are pretty cute....

My Review

You can read Kayla's review HERE.

I read Gier's first trilogy The Ruby Red Trilogy and really enjoyed it. Considering I'm not generally a time-travel fiction fan, this was quite a feat. Gwyneth from Ruby Red was just so spunky and had such a silly, witty humor I had to smile while listening. Liv from Dream a Little Dream has the same spunk and humor so I just knew that I was going to enjoy it just as much. And if I had to wrap up the entire book into one word it would be "cute". In fact, in my two pages of notes on the book, I called it "cute" 6 times. I need a thesaurus apparently.

I do wonder if the slightly British humor is due to Gier's writing or Anthea Bell's translation, however. Bell translates both The Ruby Red Trilogy and Dream a Little Dream so either is possible. Either way, I want to be best friends with both of them. I did miss the narrator from The Ruby Red Trilogy, because her crisp British accent just added to my overall enjoyment of the story.

Regardless, I smiled throughout pretty much the entire book. I loved Liv's snark in her head like calling one of the gorgeous boys in school "Shaving Fun Ken." I did roll my eyes a few times about how much of an inquisitive idiot Liv was, but it advanced the cute story (See? I can't help myself). I giggled about how stubborn Liv was in refusing to believe in the supernatural. She's also a little more pragmatic than the normal YA heroine, because she and her sister both refuse to reduced to ninnies at the sight of a cute boy.

There is a little bit of a meandering plot that doesn't really go anywhere until the end. But I was so amused by Liv's humor and all the happenings in her family, I really didn't care. I was a little leery of the "Gossip Girl" type gossip blog at the beginning, but it worked its way into the story without feeling too much like a clone.

If you want a light and cute YA read with some British humor then pick Dream a Little Dream up. I'll definitely be picking up anything Gier writes and Bell translates in the future.

- 3.5/5 Stars -

Buy Links
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Fishpond | Google Play | IndieBound


To satisfy FTC guidelines, I am disclosing that I received an advance copy of the book for reviewing purposes through the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way affected the outcome of my review.