Book Review: The Girl Who Could Not Dream

Book: The Girl Who Could Not Dream by Sarah Beth Durst

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication Date: Available now

Description:

Sophie loves the hidden shop below her parents' bookstore, where dreams are secretly bought and sold. When the dream shop is robbed and her parents go missing, Sophie must unravel the truth to save them. Together with her best friend—a wisecracking and fanatically loyal monster named Monster—she must decide whom to trust with her family’s carefully guarded secrets. Who will help them, and who will betray them?


Rating: 4 stars

Review:

Imagine going to sleep and never having a dream. But what if the only time you ever experienced a dream was when you drank one and then accidentally bringing out a monster from it. Well, that's only the beginning to this story.

In The Girl Who Could Not Dream, Sophie was used to feeling different, never having dreams for one but her only friend was a monster named Monster. Her family lives above her parents' bookstore the Dreamcatcher Bookshop but below that they run another business, a more secret business where they sell dreams. They distill the dreams that are caught in dreamcatchers and then place them in bottles to be sold.

After Sophie's first experience with drinking a dream at age six and bringing out Monster from it, her parents stressed to her the importance of never doing that again. They worried that if the Night Watchmen ever found out about Sophie and what she could do, they would take her away from them.

Other than Monster, her parents and their neighbor Ms. Lee, Sophie doesn't have any friends. Even with Monster as her best friend, she is a little lonely but since she's never felt like a normal kid she's used to the loneliness. The closest thing resembling friendship at school is when she gives new dreamcatchers to Madison, a mean girl at her school and taking one to Lucy, a young girl who attends the nearby elementary school. Both have terrorizing dreams and the dreamcatchers help with soothing some of their nightmares. Sophie always takes the used dreamcatchers back to her parents.

Sophie's 12th birthday should have been a fun day but when she made the mistake of running into one her parents' dream buying customer Mr. Nightmare, her life became a nightmare. She got a scare at school after she gave the popular new boy at school Ethan a dreamcather and went back to her locker she not only found a note from Mr. Nightmare but the two dreamcatchers she got from Madison and Lucy were gone. She was scared because obviously Mr. Nightmare had followed her to school and then took the dreamcatchers from her locker.

Her parents were not happy about Mr. Nightmare and plan to speak with him the next day but they were also very nervous and told Monster to go to school with Sophie. Monster was to keep and eye on her and make sure nothing happened. At the end of the day it was not Sophie who needed protection, it was Ethan. A strange gray giraffe like man tried to capture Ethan from an empty classroom but Monster and Sophie were able to halt its attack before it could grab Ethan.

Sophie knew only her parents could figure out what was going on so she took Ethan to her house to speak with them. However, once they got home she found her parents weren't there. The bookstore was empty and the upstairs as well. They even checked the basement but her parents weren't there but she did find another horrifying surprise, all of the monster dreams were gone and the equipment her parents used to process the dreams.

Sophie and Monster realized that Mr. Nightmare must be behind the disappearance of her parents but what can two kids and a monster to do to find them. Things become even more complicated when she found out that Lucy and Madison had gone missing and it may have something to do with Mr. Nightmare. While the trio were checking out Mr. Nightmare's home, Sophie, Monster and Ethan stumble into more than the could handle as they found themselves dealing with monsters and shady dealings. Sophie was starting to wonder if she would ever find her parents?

The Girl Who Could Not Dream was an interesting and creative fantasy adventure that had Sophie and her friends dealing with some of their worst nightmares. Frightening, fast-paced and surprisingly funny, this started out a little slow but then kicked into gear as soon as Mr. Nightmare appeared in the story. This was well-written and had a good story but I do have one issue with it. I wish the author had done a better job of actually showing Madison apologizing or feeling sorry for being a bully to Sophie. Even though the reader does find out the reason for Madison's behavior, it's still a bit far fetched that Sophie and Madison would end up being friends even after everything they went through in this story especially since she never even apologized.

That little issue aside, this was a good book and with the ending sort of left open there is room for a sequel. I certainly wouldn't mind reading more from this story.