Dream boy

I would say the reason I picked this book up was because of the cover and the title. Just reading the title, I knew it was going to be about a boy that came real from someones dreams. I didn't expect that this book be really anything more than that! It had much more of a background and story that I did not expect which made it a little different.

Dream Boy by Mary Crockett is about a girl named Annabelle that dreams about a boy named Josh. She dreams about him often and he is sort of her “dream boy” (Ha, hence the title). Annabelle is a normal girl stuck in a small town in Virginia. She has a best friend named Will and lives with her mother and brother, Nick. Annabelle's father just left them a couple years ago to move to Alaska and they never really hear from him.

One day while at school, Annabelle lays eyes on her dream boy. Alive and in person as he walks into her chemistry class. She finds out that he is a new student named Martin who just got here from Philly. Although from other books, he actually knows of her and not because they are both real people on this Earth that just remember each other from dreams. No, Annabelle actually took him from the dream world and made him real.

[ WARNING THIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ]

This book was pretty interesting. It is obvious that Will has feelings for Annabelle but now he has this wall between them that is Martin. Right away Martin and Annabelle pretty much take their dreams to real life. He is a little off though since he doesn't really understand the real world and how he should act. It takes time to get to that level of understanding. I was on Will's side the entire time throughout the book. I hoped Will and Annabelle would end up together.

We learn that Annabelle has been having these dreams where a girl is present. She seems to be making her dreams into nightmares and apparently wants to kill her or be her. Annabelle is worried and tries to get Martin to help her understand her dreams. He finally tells her about the nightmares in the dreaming world. This specific girl wants to become real though. She wants Annabelle to make her real like she did with Martin.

Overtime, you find out there are a lot of people in this town that are taken from the dreaming world. Including a lot of Annabelle's friends and people she knows at her school. Annabelle finds out through a dream that this girl is going to try to come to life during Homecoming. Everyone goes to homecoming to try and get this girl to go away. During the hunt of this girl, Will finally tells Annabelle how he feels about her and she realizes that she loves him too. When getting rid of the girl, all of the dreams that Annabelle has thought of need to go away and back to where they came from. This caused some to almost get pushed back into the dream world but when Will tries to save a dog that was dreamed of.

This is when Martin finally tells Annabelle that Will was her dream. That was a twist I sort of saw coming but not really. Now Annabelle needs to get him back and the ending was kind of a closing but not really. I don't think there is going to be another book but I would of liked an ending where Annabelle and Will actually talked after he was found. I truly enjoyed this book and actually read the entire book during one slow shift at work. I would recommend this book to someone that wants a twist on dreaming books. It was a simple read. The world wasn't that complex but I wasn't expecting much complexity.