{Review} Awoken (The Lucidites #1) by Sarah Noffke

Posted by Melanie
Release Date: November 24th, 2014
Finished Date: March 16th, 2015

Publishers: One-Twenty-Six Press
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Source: For Review
Format: eBook

Pages: 312

Buy: Amazon UK / Amazon US

Around the world humans are hallucinating after sleepless nights. 

In a sterile, underground institute the forecasters keep reporting the same events.

And in the backwoods of Texas, a sixteen-year-old girl is about to be caught up in a fierce, ethereal battle.

Meet Roya Stark. She drowns every night in her dreams, spends her hours reading classic literature to avoid her family’s ridicule, and is prone to premonitions—which are becoming more frequent. And now her dreams are filled with strangers offering to reveal what she has always wanted to know: Who is she? That’s the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out. But will Roya live to regret learning the truth?

The Review: What can I say? This really didn’t do it for me and it wasn’t because of the writing or the world or even the story…. It all boiled down to pacing and personal preference. I’m just going to do a like and dislike review with a little explanation so you can understand my thinking.
LIKES
I really liked the idea behind the book about people with the power to dream travel, it holds infinite possibilities and realities that I could become involved in. I liked the descriptions of how it was achieved and what the dreamscape was like, I was interested in it and what they were about.
I liked the characters too, most weren’t developed enough where you could emphasise with them and the only person I was interested in was Roya, she seemed to have an interesting story and what came out about her later in the book was good but could have been better.
I liked the institute and what it stood for and did for the young adults with the ability to dream travel, they train them up, hone their gifts and teach them about what they’re going into.
There is a prophecy of sorts that drew me into the story, a dream traveller who will conquer their ageless foe and change things for those who dream. The enemy has steadily been taking over peoples minds so that they are mindless puppets to do his bidding.
I also liked the science part about regenerating in a different place etc.
The end confrontation was awesome, exciting and gripping with lots of action, twists and turns – it was no holds barred, take no prisoners kind of fight that also had a lot of mental strategy going on that would outwit the opponent and it was executed very well and made me think that I would read a sequel in the hopes that it was just first book, getting to know you boredom……. So, all good stuff……but….
DISLIKES
My big problem was the pacing, the book was bogged down with all of the training and lessons. Yes, I know that it was vital to the story and helped us understand a lot of the ins and outs of their capabilities; but it bored me and nothing happened to keep me interested. I like medium to fast paced plots but this was so slow that I ended up forcing myself to finish it, I wanted more action, I had thought with the enemy having infiltrated the minds of most of the world that they would have enemies popping up all over the place but no, they were in the institute for most of the time. There is some interference in the prophecy about a third of the way through the book and I thought we would get some action there but it just fizzled out – where were the fights, the enemies, the action? That would of kept me excited and wanting to turn the next page, I was just disappointed.
Another problem I had was instalove – Roya could have had two men, one she felt an instant connection to and the other seemed to have a more natural flow to it where they had spent time together and gotten to know each other. Obviously with this being instalove, she goes for the one she feels an instant connection to and loves him in an instant. I can see how the author tried to give them some little moments together so that you could get the feel for them together but it didn’t work for me, they needed to spend more time together, share a lot of dialogue, stolen glances etc. with him being a superior this had a chance to be an all consuming thing for a reader; there is nothing I love more than forbidden love and soul mates but I really wasn’t feeling this at all.
 I also thought that the enemy was underused, he could have been really sinister, invading her dreams, stalking them and scaring her – at some point I thought he was going to be her real father, but no…. nothing. The same with Roya’s history/heritage, I thought it was good and it did draw me in but a couple of secrets and it was over – it had so much more leeway to become thoroughly embedded in the prophecy but that fell flat too.
So, to sum it up; there are a lot of likable things about this story, the writing was good as were the characters but it just failed to excite me in the way I’m accustomed to, it left me bored and it very nearly got put on my DNF shelf BUT saying that, the ending was great and redeemed some of the story and my opinion so maybe I would give the sequel a go – I just won’t be in a hurry to do so. 

2.5 flowers!

Thank you to Sarah Noffke giving me the opportunity to review this book in exchange for an honest review.