Review: Experience a waking dream / nightmare for yourself.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 21, 2014
Full disclosure: a copy was provided to me in return for an honest review.We meet Frank in the first sentence of the book, and establish right away that he has numb, “dead” spots of no feeling at five different places on his body. With this fact established, it becomes difficult to trust anything that happens after, as Frank seems to drift from event to event. His doctor and psychotherapist act in ways that are almost completely unbelievable, but still stays just within the bounds of reality, which is really the first hint that something is not right.As the story continues, things get weirder and weirder, and when Frank becomes obsessed with a recurring, disturbing, "Eyes Wide Shut" type dream, things really get crazy.At first, I was a little put off by the detachment and unrealistic portrayals of some of the characters. Frank himself is defined by his increasingly erratic behaviour, but we really never get a lot of insight into his thoughts, and he doesn’t change much through the course of the story. However, once it becomes clear that the ENTIRE story is not to be fully trusted - rather treated as a shifting, changing dream in itself, it becomes a twisted, unsettling ride.There is a POV shift at just the time that Frank has become obsessed to the point that he is no longer a relatable character - losing himself in disturbing (but still strangely amusing) lucid dreams fuelled by drugs and pornography. Steve, the brother-in-law, never really becomes a real character, but serves his purpose as an outside view of Frank’s growing eccentricity.The ending was a little jarring, and perhaps a little too quick for what it was, but then, what nightmare ever let a person down easily?Read this one quickly - as it’s more powerful when you can get pulled along from scene to scene, and experience the nightmare for yourself.