Scan barcode
A review by amberinpieces
Life is But a Dream by Brian James
3.0
Rating: 2.5
An artistic and imaginative teenage girl is out of touch with reality and after an incident at school, she meets with a doctor who diagnoses her with schizophrenia. Sabrina’s parents check her into the Wellness Center, but just as she begins to get better, she meets Alec, who tells her the world is crazy, not them. On top of that, she worries her treatment will dry out all of her creativity.
Told in the first person from Sabrina’s point-of-view, Life is But a Dream provides an interesting and disturbing fictional account of life through the eyes of a schizophrenic. There were things I liked about the book, but the majority of it was just okay for me.
The formatting was unique. Instead of quotation marks for dialogue, there were dashes throughout the whole book to indicate speech. Quite honestly, the dashes bothered me. They made it seem like everything was happening in Sabrina’s head or everything was just thoughts instead of speech, which I assumed was the point until it turned out to be constant and consistent. Additionally, Brian James wrote all of the action in the present tense despite Sabrina’s present stay at the hospital and some of the parts being her memories, but that also seemed to add to her delusional state.
Alec, the boy who falls for Sabrina and vice versa, brought up very good points about conformity and how Sabrina saw the world. I did feel bad for her and how she thought she was losing part of herself. Alec had good intentions for her that turned out disastrous because he did not see the narrower picture in this case.
Life is But a Dream did disturb me a little as I got further into the book. Sabrina’s “dreams” sometimes distracted me and made me lose my place or forget where the train of thought started but without firsthand experience with schizophrenia, I can only guess I was meant to feel that way.
Life is But a Dream had a slow pace, but it really sped up at the end and I became more interested. I did like the ending, but I felt like the interaction between Alec and Sabrina’s parents was unrealistic, and the majority of the book was okay for me.
Recommended for young adult readers sixteen and older who are interested in reading about mental illness.
Read this review in its original format here.
An artistic and imaginative teenage girl is out of touch with reality and after an incident at school, she meets with a doctor who diagnoses her with schizophrenia. Sabrina’s parents check her into the Wellness Center, but just as she begins to get better, she meets Alec, who tells her the world is crazy, not them. On top of that, she worries her treatment will dry out all of her creativity.
Told in the first person from Sabrina’s point-of-view, Life is But a Dream provides an interesting and disturbing fictional account of life through the eyes of a schizophrenic. There were things I liked about the book, but the majority of it was just okay for me.
The formatting was unique. Instead of quotation marks for dialogue, there were dashes throughout the whole book to indicate speech. Quite honestly, the dashes bothered me. They made it seem like everything was happening in Sabrina’s head or everything was just thoughts instead of speech, which I assumed was the point until it turned out to be constant and consistent. Additionally, Brian James wrote all of the action in the present tense despite Sabrina’s present stay at the hospital and some of the parts being her memories, but that also seemed to add to her delusional state.
Alec, the boy who falls for Sabrina and vice versa, brought up very good points about conformity and how Sabrina saw the world. I did feel bad for her and how she thought she was losing part of herself. Alec had good intentions for her that turned out disastrous because he did not see the narrower picture in this case.
Life is But a Dream did disturb me a little as I got further into the book. Sabrina’s “dreams” sometimes distracted me and made me lose my place or forget where the train of thought started but without firsthand experience with schizophrenia, I can only guess I was meant to feel that way.
Life is But a Dream had a slow pace, but it really sped up at the end and I became more interested. I did like the ending, but I felt like the interaction between Alec and Sabrina’s parents was unrealistic, and the majority of the book was okay for me.
Recommended for young adult readers sixteen and older who are interested in reading about mental illness.
Read this review in its original format here.