Dreaming Anastasia , by Joy Preble

Paperback, 310 pages

Published September 1st 2009 by Sourcebooks

ISBN

1402218176 (ISBN13: 9781402218170)

edition language

English

original title

Dreaming Anastasia: A Novel of Love, Magic, and the Power of Dreams

series

Dreaming Anastasia #1

 

What really happened to Anastasia Romanov?

Anastasia Romanov thought she would never feel more alone than when the gunfire started and her family began to fall around her. Surely the bullets would come for her next. But they didn't. Instead, two gnarled old hands reached for her. When she wakes up she discovers that she is in the ancient hut of the witch Baba Yaga, and that some things are worse than being dead.

In modern-day Chicago, Anne doesn't know much about Russian history. She is more concerned about getting into a good college--until the dreams start. She is somewhere else. She is someone else. And she is sharing a small room with a very old woman. The vivid dreams startle her, but not until a handsome stranger offers to explain them does she realize her life is going to change forever. She is the only one who can save Anastasia. But, Anastasia is having her own dreams..

 

My Review

Its the same cliche method of writing that comes from most books, where there is a fairytale that has been extended into the modern society and has to be uncovered and untwisted so that we can get the write order of details. None the less, I still seemed to enjoy the fact that the novel was written with this sense of boy meets the girl who he needs help from but then somehow falls in love with. However...the book was rushed!. Everything seemed to move so fast and that was really annoying because it just felt like there was not concept to the novel what so ever. It was like we had the plot and we had the meaning and the context of it all, but we didnt have the depth, the full emotional concept of the characters and what it was that they were feeling. I just felt that the book lacked care and attention to it, and that there wasn't that much affection put into the book.

 

I did like the whole plot of the story though because it seemed to show to me that sometimes the only way to fix what was wrong is to let go of the very thing that we saved. It seemed to represent to me that not everything is what it appears to be and that sometimes we forget to open our eyes and truly take in the full contrast and concept of the story and the situation. I do like the story though and do feel that it actually has a lot of potential to it because it represented that fairytales are not all happy endings and that everything has a sad ending sometimes, and that we just have to deal with it and get on with it.

 

I was a little disappointed with the book therefore, especially when it seemed to be a book that everyone was raving about and everyone wanted to get a hold of before it came out. But now I am kind of wondering why. I didn't miss the book when I finished writing it, I don't really remember the book from page to page and yet I still kind of want to read on to see how the story plays out and to see how there even going to make it a series. Perhaps I am just being blind to the whole environment of the story but it just seemed like every other modern day fairytale. Girl meets boy, boy needs help or girl needs help, girl and boy unexpectably fall in love.

 

There were things that made it stand out, like the fact that there is clearly history in annas past that connects her to what has happened there and then and that of course means that there is this sense of mystery there that relates you to everything in that novel and does in fact have you a little more connected to it. therefore I can not say it was a bad book, just perhaps a neutral book. it left me neither hating it or loving it. it was just something that I had read and something that I would perhaps think about over time and give another write. I do think that there is so much potential in this book though, its just not my top ten novel.

 

My rating