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A review by endlessreader
Life is But a Dream by Brian James
3.0
I'm going to start off by saying that reading Life is But a Dream was like pulling teeth for me. I had assumed that I would love this book because schizophrenia is a subject that I'm interested in learning more about whether it be through non-fiction or fiction. Of course, me being me (YA reader extraordinaire), I thought schizophrenia + YA book would equal win! But it didn't...not by a long shot.
Life is But a Dream wasn't a bad book, but for some reason, every single time I started reading it, my mind would wander and I would start daydreaming instead of focusing on the book. When I put the book down, I wasn't at all interested in picking it back up. When I did pick it up, I kept thinking "Uggh, time to continue reading Life is But a Dream." I feel bad for thinking this since like I mentioned, this isn't a bad book at all. It just failed to captivate me and due to that, this book dragged. I just couldn't connect with Sabrina. Don't get me wrong, I was sympathetic to her plight and felt bad for what she has to endure, but I just didn't get a deep read on her. I expected that I would get to know Sabrina and her problems on a more deeper level than I did. I also felt very aggravated by Alec. I don't buy the whole thing with him not knowing how fragile Sabrina was at that point in her life. She's in a mental hospital. Most people don't get there by being the most mentally healthiest person in the world. While he redeemed himself a bit towards the end, by that time, I started feeling like his redemption didn't mesh with the way his character was initially introduced and found that it rang a bit...fake. Feeling disconnected from one of the main characters and feeling aggravated by the second really isn't the best way for a novel to win me over (and yes I'm fully aware that novels don't solely exist to please me, this is just my opinion)
One good thing about Life is But a Dream was that it was amazingly written. It was descriptive and the writing just flowed instead of being stilted. The author contrased Sabrina's reality with her delusions so well, that I felt that the book was only confusing when the author intended it to be confusing so the readers could get an insight into the confusion that schizophrenics tend to feel, particularly when they're not on their medication. But again, beautiful writing couldn't really save the book for me.
In the end, I thought that Life is But a Dream was just okay. The pace was just way to slow for me and it didn't get terribly interesting until the last 50 pages or so. I just think that Sabrina, while a sympathetic character, failed to hook me into her ordeal.
Life is But a Dream wasn't a bad book, but for some reason, every single time I started reading it, my mind would wander and I would start daydreaming instead of focusing on the book. When I put the book down, I wasn't at all interested in picking it back up. When I did pick it up, I kept thinking "Uggh, time to continue reading Life is But a Dream." I feel bad for thinking this since like I mentioned, this isn't a bad book at all. It just failed to captivate me and due to that, this book dragged. I just couldn't connect with Sabrina. Don't get me wrong, I was sympathetic to her plight and felt bad for what she has to endure, but I just didn't get a deep read on her. I expected that I would get to know Sabrina and her problems on a more deeper level than I did. I also felt very aggravated by Alec. I don't buy the whole thing with him not knowing how fragile Sabrina was at that point in her life. She's in a mental hospital. Most people don't get there by being the most mentally healthiest person in the world. While he redeemed himself a bit towards the end, by that time, I started feeling like his redemption didn't mesh with the way his character was initially introduced and found that it rang a bit...fake. Feeling disconnected from one of the main characters and feeling aggravated by the second really isn't the best way for a novel to win me over (and yes I'm fully aware that novels don't solely exist to please me, this is just my opinion)
One good thing about Life is But a Dream was that it was amazingly written. It was descriptive and the writing just flowed instead of being stilted. The author contrased Sabrina's reality with her delusions so well, that I felt that the book was only confusing when the author intended it to be confusing so the readers could get an insight into the confusion that schizophrenics tend to feel, particularly when they're not on their medication. But again, beautiful writing couldn't really save the book for me.
In the end, I thought that Life is But a Dream was just okay. The pace was just way to slow for me and it didn't get terribly interesting until the last 50 pages or so. I just think that Sabrina, while a sympathetic character, failed to hook me into her ordeal.