Wake, by Lisa McMann

Lisa McMann’s debut novel Wake has a lot going for it: a great premise, an intriguingly dark atmosphere, and a plausibly screwed-up heroine. Unfortunately, it’s way too short, it’s currently only available in hardback, and we’re a solid six months away from the sequel.

17-year-old Janie Hannagan has spent her life trying to conceal a unique (and unwanted) power: she can enter into other people’s dreams. Actually, she can’t help but enter into other people’s dreams, and she’d really like to stop. (In addition to the fact that dream-entering comes with some nasty physical side effects, Janie has been stuck watching more sex dreams, falling dreams, and "naked at school but nobody's noticing" dreams than anyone should have to.) Janie is determined to keep her power a secret, but her plans are threatened by her mother’s alcoholism, her budding relationship with former-stoner-turned-high-school-heartthrob Cabel Strumheller, and the growing suspicion that she’s supposed to be doing more than passively watching other people’s dreams—she’s supposed to be shaping them.

I’m not kidding when I say this book is short. Despite loads of chapter breaks, generous spacing, and large fonts, Wake is only a hair over 200 pages. The disjointed, staccato style of the chapters is well-suited to McMann’s nightmarish premise, but readers definitely pay a premium price per word.

However, if you have to pay through the nose for a book, you could do a lot worse, 'cause Wake is straight-up awesome. We’ve seen some of these plot twists before, but McMann’s heroine is likable, her style is delectably creepy, and her story offers a fresh take on the horror genre. (Dreams make a nice change from vampires and werewolves.) It hurts my frugal soul to say this, but I’ll be there on February 10th to buy the sequel, even if it does mean shelling out another hard-earned sixteen bucks for what is essentially a mid-sized novella.