Early Review – Dream a Little Dream (Silber, Book 1) by Kerstin Gier and Anthea Bell (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Release Date: April 14, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1627790277
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Silber trilogy
Source: eGalley from NetGalley for review
Rating: 4/5 stars

I got a copy of this book to review through NetGalley. I really enjoyed Gier’s Ruby Red trilogy and was eager to read her new series. I really ended up enjoying it. The world, the characters, and story are amazing. However, it is plagued by poor translation and awkward language.

Liv and her sister have not had an easy time of it. They are constantly moving from place to place to live with one parent or the other; their only constant has been their au pair Lottie. They hope things will settle down when their mother takes a job at a University in London. Then there is some more surprising news, Liv and her sister and mother will be moving in with her mother’s boyfriend. It’s a lot to deal with on top of starting at yet another new school. However things take a turn for the strange when Liv starts having strange dreams about a green door and a graveyard and a group of boys. Oddly enough the boys in the dream end up being boys from Liv’s school. Even odder they all remember the dream the same way. As things progress Liv finds out that these aren’t normal dreams and the boys in question are involved in some potentially dangerous magical doings.

I really liked the world, story, and characters in this novel. It was a fun read. The only disappointment was that this book, like the Ruby Red trilogy, is plagued by awkward language and just not translated into English as well as it could be.

The awkwardness of the translation is something that you start to get used to as you read the book. The main problem is English sayings or colloquialisms are quoted wrong or words are out of order. It bothered me for maybe the first 25% of the book and then I got over it.

The story is pretty darn neat and I really enjoyed the characters a lot. I ended up really really liking it. Honestly this would have been a 5 star review if not for the awkward translation from German to English. Hopefully it is something they will work on and improve before the book is actually released in April.

Liv is a very down to earth girl with an inquisitive streak. She just can’t let the mystery of her dreams and the green door go. Her inquisitiveness gets her into trouble more than once and ends with her involved in a potentially life threatening mystery.

There is some magic in this story but it is mainly a mystery. The way the story is done there is never really any proof that something magical actually happens, so more magical realism than anything.

As with all YA novels there is a bit of a romance going on between Liv and one of the other boys who dreams these very realistic dreams.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. It was a creative and intriguing YA paranormal type of read. It’s mostly a mystery with some magical realism. I would definitely recommend to fans of creepy paranormal YA books even with the awkward writing. I plan on reading future books in this series, but really hope that some of the translation problems are fixed in future books.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Ebook Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge