Bogormen

Title: Fifteen (Dreamwalker Diaries #1)
Author: Jen Estes
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 3.5/5
# pages: 233
Date read: March, 2015

Legend has it if you die in your dreams, you die in real life. Fifteen-year-old Ashling Campbell knows that's not true because when she closes her eyes each night, she doesn't dream about public nudity or Prom dates. Instead, she's catapulted to the front row of her future self's execution - fifteen years from now - where monsters have taken control of her hometown and she, or rather, her 30-year-old counterpart, is their public enemy number one.

For three months and counting, it's been the same dream... until an encounter with an antique dreamcatcher. Ash falls asleep to discover she's no longer a mere spectator in these dreams - now she's astral-projecting into the body of her future self. Each night, she goes on the run with a ragtag group of rebels - who have no idea she's really a high school sophomore and not their noble warrior. She has to make it through each night so that she can wake up and find a way to change the future. For every action she does in the present day, she falls asleep to discover it had an equal impact fifteen years later. It's up to her to manage her two worlds and make sure she's still got a place in both.


A bit slow to start, but once it did, it really took off, and had me turning pages as fast as my eyes could keep up. I think I read the last 66% in one sitting.

This book has shades of both "The Future of Us" by Jay Asher and the movie "Inception", as 15-year-old Ash discovers that her dreams show her the future, and that she can change this future by her actions in the present.

A fascinating idea, that unfortunately suffered a bit from seeming too rushed in places, especially near the end... which came a LOT faster than I had expected! For a moment there I feared that the author would leave me hanging in the worst possible way. Fortunately that wasn't quite the case, and once I got past my frustration of the book being over, I can actually understand why Jen Estes chose to end it where she did, but it was still abrupt enough to make me subtract a star from my rating.

Both Ash and Tate seemed older than their 15 and 16 years, and I think certain aspects (trying not to spoil anything) would have seemed more believable if they had been just a couple of years older. Also, Tate's action at the end seemed really out of character for him, but I'm hoping that will be explained in the sequel.

Because yes - I will definitely be reading the sequel. Despite my (slight) complaints about "Fifteen", I was thoroughly drawn in at the end, and want to know more.