The Dreamers
Fiction
Random House
January 15, 2019
Advance reader copy
320
Publisher via BEA
In an isolated college town in the hills of Southern California, a freshman girl stumbles into her dorm room, falls asleep—and doesn’t wake up. She sleeps through the morning, into the evening. Her roommate, Mei, cannot rouse her. Neither can the paramedics who carry her away, nor the perplexed doctors at the hospital. Then a second girl falls asleep, and then another, and panic takes hold of the college and spreads to the town. As the number of cases multiplies, classes are canceled, and stores begin to run out of supplies. A quarantine is established. The National Guard is summoned.
Mei, an outsider in the cliquish hierarchy of dorm life, finds herself thrust together with an eccentric, idealistic classmate. Two visiting professors try to protect their newborn baby as the once-quiet streets descend into chaos. A father succumbs to the illness, leaving his daughters to fend for themselves. And at the hospital, a new life grows within a college girl, unbeknownst to her—even as she sleeps. A psychiatrist, summoned from Los Angeles, attempts to make sense of the illness as it spreads through the town. Those infected are displaying unusual levels of brain activity, more than has ever been recorded. They are dreaming heightened dreams—but of what?
My review:
This was a book that was languishing on my shelf since 2018 (eek!). I adored this author's book The Age of Miracles, so I have no idea why I didn't read this sooner. However, in a way I'm glad that I did not, because the fact that this so eerily reflected so many things that happened during the COVID pandemic made it even more fascinating (keep in mind it was written in 2018). The premise for the disease was not at all the same, it was a sort of sleeping sickness that started in a college dorm, but the rate of spread and panic that ensued was eerily familiar! While the scope of the disease grows larger, you mainly follow a few people and what ultimately happens in their lives. I'm not going to offer any spoilers as to what happens, but I did find the ending satisfying and not too neatly tied up. The way people reacted to the outbreak was so reminiscent of 2020, and the ongoing problem of treating all these patients was as well. It was well scripted and written, without any parts that lagged. I was engaged all the way from beginning to end. It was a bit frustrating that not all answers regarding the disease were given, but this is science fiction so none should have necessarily been expected.
A wild ride through a made up pandemic written almost like the author had a premonition of what was to come. I loved this one!
Isn't it crazy how many books written before COVID seem all the more pertinent in the wake of it?
It's both amazing and kind of scary at the same time!