Tuesday 30 August 2016

2016 Book #5 (+ 5.5) (Review): 'Dream a Little Dream' (+ 'Dream a Little Christmas Dream') by Giovanna Fletcher

I know I know, my blog has been abandoned for almost two months which is ridiculous! The thing is, the first 5 weeks of summer were pretty quiet, and then July began and I've bee non-stop busy since then!

I started July with 8 days of relaxed time in one of my favourite places, Donegal, Ireland. My mum, Gran and I stayed at my Uncle's lovely house and I spent most of the time going on walks and reading on my kindle. I decided to take the time to catch on the books of the lovely Giovanna Flecther, as they are pretty easy holiday reads.

I loved how this book was based around a pretty simple idea! Basically,The main character Sarah begins to have dream about a boy she met in her past, and then he shows up in her real life. Each chapter begins with a new dream recounted. As a rule, I usually find these opening parts of chapters, always in italics, kind of boring, but for once I thought it really worked.

As I have found previously with Giovanna's books, sometimes the way things are worded can be almost cringey. I don't really mean this as a criticism, because it is still well written and reflects the type of Young Adult Genre its aimed at, but as someone who enjoiys reading such a wide range of material, these 'girly reads' can come across as quite childish sometimes. What the language did do, however, was give me confidence that one day I really could publish my own novel one day. Giovanna is a won derful writer in terms of her ideas and the characters she creates, but she doesn't need to use lots of complicated words to get her point across, and that has been my writing style in the past too.

Speaking of characters, all the characters in 'Dream a Little Dream' were likeable, and really made you root for them in some way - this makes 'Dream a Little Christmas Dream' even more of a satisfying read, as you get to see how everyone's lives pan out and where they end up. Sarah is part of a cute, and very realistic, we group of friends, which as a young uni student I feel I can identify with.

Actually, I felt I could identify with Sarah in more than one way. She wants to prove herself as a creative talent, and most of all she's looking for love, a relationship, anything romantic really haha. Like me, she's not desperate, she's a strong lass with career goals, but its always nice to feel loved!

Overall, think both books are lovely romatic reads and I was pretty gutted when I finished them!