TITLE: FADE
AUTHOR: Lisa McMann
RATING OVERVIEW
Writing: ★★★★★
Story: ★★★★
Characters: ★★★★★
Appearance: ★★★★
Overall: ★★★★★ (4.5)
AMAZON DESCRIPTION:
The sequel to Wake, the bestselling YA series about a girl who gets sucked into other people’s dreams.
Buy it HERE on Amazon!
BOOK BLURB:
For Janie and Cabel, real life is getting tougher than the dreams. They’re just trying to carve out a little (secret) time together, but no such luck.
Disturbing things are happening at Fieldridge High, yet nobody’s talking. When Janie taps into a classmate’s violent nightmares, the case finally breaks open – but nothing goes as planned. Not even close. Janie’s in way over her head, and Cabel’s shocking behavior has grave consequences for them both.
Worse yet, Janie learns the truth about herself and her ability – and it’s bleak. Seriously, brutally bleak. Not only is her fate as a dream catcher sealed, but what’s to come is way darker than she’d feared.
THE CRITICAL POINTS
WRITING: Like WAKE, the first book in this series, FADE is a quick read. The style is once again broken down by date and time allowing us to follow along almost as if we are voyeurs on the wall peeking into Janie’s life. This book picks up just “two weeks” in time after where the first one ended. I found these books in the YA section of a bookstore, and although the covers appear YA-ish and the reading level is YA, the content definitely is not!
STORY: In WAKE, the first book, we got to meet the main characters, learn about Janie’s “condition”, watch the relationship between Janie and Cabel develop, and of course discover Cabel’s secret identity as a narc (informant) working with the local police detectives. FADE however, dives so much deeper. The topic of drugs, partying, underage drinking, and a drug bust were Cabel’s main concern in book one, but in FADE, with Janie joining Cabel in helping the police they tackle the issue of a sexual predator who is active in the High School—a teacher. Actually, not just one teacher… three!
Although the issue of sexual predators is very scare, I do feel that it is an important one and I believe Lisa McMann handled it well. She gives a true to life, detailed description of what could happen. It isn’t pretty, it isn’t fun, it is down right scary. As a mom, it makes me want to homeschool my children and keep them locked up and protected from the outside world. Now, I know I can’t do that, but McMann does give us a glimpse into a worlds that not everyone has seen and it feels like she is writing from real life experiences even though her stories are clearly fiction.
I’m very excited to read book 3 (GONE).
APPEARANCE: There are two covers for this book. I have the cover with a photo of Cabel on the front. I think it is nice, but the image they used isn’t exactly what I had invisioned in my mind after reading the first book. I love the simplicity of the other cover – and it matches the covers I have for books 1 and 3 – but I was not able to located that copy.
MY FAVORITE QUOTE: Janie’s response to one of her teachers when he implies because she is from the wrong side of the tracks she probably won’t go to college or if she does it will be a community school:
“Well, I would, if’n I didn’t have Earl Junior on the way, and you know mamaw can’t stay alone in the trailer so good no more. I got to go find Earl Senior, so I can git me some oney, know whut I mean?”
This quote was the PERFECT slap in the face response to her teacher. It shows that women, even young girls, can AND SHOULD stand up for themselves. It doesn’t matter where you come from, how old you are, what you look like, or even your background… you can do anything you want, be anything you want, and achieve anything you want!!!
Check out my YouTube channel and the video review below… and make sure you hit subscribe so you never miss a video.
Nina Soden 