Jake, Lucid Dreamer Review

Title: Jake, Lucid Dreamer
Author: David J. Naiman
Genre: Middle Grade, Magical Realism, Fantasy
Trigger Warnings: Death of a parent, bullying
My Rating: 3 Stars

Synopsis

12-year-old Jake has been suppressing his heartbreak over the loss of his mother for the past four years. But his emotions have a way of haunting his dreams and bubbling to the surface when he least expects it. When Jake learns how to take control in his dreams, he becomes a lucid dreamer, and that’s when the battle really heats up.

Using his wits to dodge bullies by day and a nefarious kangaroo hopping ever closer by night, Jake learns about loss, bravery, the power of love, and how you cannot fully heal until you face your greatest fear. This uncompromising novel is a magical yet honest exploration of emotional healing after a devastating loss.

Review

A special thank you to Netgalley and Kwill Books for a free digital copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

David J Naiman's Jake, Lucid Dreamer features Jake, his little sister, and his dad four years after his mom died. Jake is just now coping with his mother's death and moving on from the emotions he has kept bottled up about it through his dreams.

I thought the plots concerning Jake at school were really interesting, and I definitely enjoyed them. His interactions with other characters really portray his wittiness, especially when he is dealing with the school bullies. He is quick on his feet and a great problem solver. I really enjoyed Jake's character. He was sarcastic and had a lot of zingers, but also is able to grow and recognize some of his flaws by the end of the book. His conversations with Aiden, which only happen a few times, are absolutely fascinating as Jake begins to realize ways that he can change for the better.

Jake reminds me a lot of a friend of mine who lost his mom when he was in fourth grade in terms of behaviors, especially that towards the father beginning to date again. Jake's grief is really well written and many of his choices that he later realizes he should try to change are still realistic. It was a really powerful book about grief and authentic to the middle school experience as a whole.

However, I really did not like the dreams. A couple of them were amusing, but for the most part, they just annoyed me, took me out of what was going on, and seemed to contribute nothing major to the rest of the book, especially when Jake and his dad have a conversation that explains why certain things in the dreams were popping up. Sure, I guess that these dreams start Jake down the right path, but I feel like there should have been something else. I found myself wishing that the dream would be over so that I could get back to the rest of the plot. The idea was good but the two plots just seemed disjointed and this one was unable to go all the way through.

There is a lot of representation within this book, which is always nice. Jake is half Korean, and Jessica is half black. But some of it just really seemed forced. At one point, the bullies are talking crap about Will and Jake, saying that they are gay and Jake says something about how he went to a wedding between two men last summer. The sentence just seemed really out of place and did not belong in the context of that scene at all.

It was an alright read and if you like this type of thing, then this book would definitely be worth your time, even if you don't typically read middle grade. But for me, I just wanted some more consistency. I really did like some of the plots though, enough to want to finish this book. I liked parts of it, but apparently, this book just was not for me.

⭐⭐⭐

This book was weird, but a decent read overall. Apparently this book is labeled as magical realism, but I found the realistic fiction elements more enjoyable. What books have you read that are hard to pin down the genre?


Thanks for reading!
Alyssa