Wake (Wake Trilogy Series #1)

December 9, 2005, 12:55 p.m.\ Janie Hannagan's math book slips from her fingers. She grips the edge of the table in the school library. Everything goes black and silent. She sighs and rests her head on the table. Tries to pull herself out of it, but fails miserably. She's too tired today. Too hungry. She really doesn't have time for this.\ And then.\ She's sitting in the bleachers in the football stadium, blinking under the lights, silent among the roars of the crowd.\ She glances at the people sitting in the bleachers around her — fellow classmates, parents — trying to spot the dreamer. She can tell this dreamer is afraid, but where is he? Then she looks to the football field. Finds him. Rolls her eyes.\ It's Luke Drake. No question about it. He is, after all, the only naked player on the field for the homecoming game.\ Nobody seems to notice or care. Except him. The ball is snapped and the lines collide, but Luke is covering himself with his hands, hopping from one foot to the other. She can feel his panic increasing. Janie's fingers tingle and go numb.\ Luke looks over at Janie, eyes pleading, as the football moves toward him, a bullet in slow motion. "Help," he says.\ She thinks about helping him. Wonders what it would take to change the course of Luke's dream. She even considers that a boost of confidence to the star receiver the day before the big game could put Fieldridge High in the running for the Regional Class A Championship.\ But Luke's really a jerk. He won't appreciate it. So she resigns herself to watching the debacle. She wonders if he'll choose pride or glory.\ He's not as big as he thinks he is.\ That's for damn sure.\ The football nearly reaches Luke when the dream starts over again. Oh, get ON with it already, Janie thinks. She concentrates in her seat on the bleachers and slowly manages to stand. She tries to walk back under the bleachers for the rest of the dream so she doesn't have to watch, and surprisingly, this time, she is able.\ That's a bonus.\ 1:01 p.m.\ Janie's mind catapults back inside her body, still sitting at her usual remote corner table in the library. She flexes her fingers painfully, lifts her head and, when her sight returns, she scours the library.\ She spies the culprit at a table about fifteen feet away. He's awake now. Rubbing his eyes and grinning sheepishly at the two other football players who stand around him, laughing. Shoving him. Whapping him on the head.\ Janie shakes her head to clear it and she lifts up her math book, which sits open and facedown on the table where she dropped it. Under it, she finds a fun-size Snickers bar. She smiles to herself and peers to the left, between rows of bookshelves.\ But no one is there for her to thank.\ Evening, December 23, 1996\ Janie Hannagan is eight. She wears a thin, faded red-print dress with too-short sleeves, off-white tights that sag between her thighs, gray moon boots, and a brown, nappy coat with two missing buttons. Her long, dirty-blond hair stands up with static. She rides on an Amtrak train with her mother from their home in Fieldridge, Michigan, to Chicago to visit her grandmother. Mother reads the Globe across from her. There is a picture on the cover of an enormous man wearing a powder-blue tuxedo. Janie rests her head against the window, watching her breath make a cloud on it.\ The cloud blurs Janie's vision so slowly that she doesn't realize what is happening. She floats in the fog for a moment, and then she is in a large room, sitting at a conference table with five men and three women. At the front of the room is a tall, balding man with a briefcase. He stands in his underwear, giving a presentation, and he is flustered. He tries to speak but he can't get his mouth around the words. The other adults are all wearing crisp suits. They laugh and point at the bald man in his underwear.\ The bald man looks at Janie.\ And then he looks at the people who are laughing at him.\ His face crumples in defeat.\ He holds his briefcase in front of his privates, and that makes the others laugh harder. He runs to the door of the conference room, but the handle is slippery — something slimy drips from it. He can't get it open; it squeaks and rattles loudly in his hand, and the people at the table double over. The man's underwear is grayish-white, sagging. He turns to Janie again, with a look of panic and pleading.\ Janie doesn't know what to do.\ She freezes.\ The train's brakes whine.\ And the scene grows cloudy and is lost in fog.\ "Janie!" Janie's mother is leaning toward Janie. Her breath smells like gin, and her straggly hair falls over one eye. "Janie, I said, maybe Grandma will take you to that big fancy doll store. I thought you would be excited about that, but I guess not." Janie's mother sips from a flask in her ratty old purse.\ Janie focuses on her mother and smiles. "That sounds fun," she says, even though she doesn't like dolls. She would rather have new tights. She wriggles on the seat, trying to adjust them. The crotch stretches tight at mid-thigh. She thinks about the bald man and scrunches her eyes. Weird.\ When the train stops, they take their bags and step into the aisle. In front of Janie's mother, a disheveled, bald businessman emerges from his compartment.\ He wipes his face with a handkerchief.\ Janie stares at him.\ Her jaw drops. "Whoa," she whispers.\ The man gives her a bland look when he sees her staring, and turns to exit the train.\ Copyright © 2008 by Lisa McMann

\ Publishers WeeklyThe trick to getting hooked on this highly satisfying first novel is to look past its disjointed opening. The initial chapters consist of flashbacks into which are woven a series of repetitive scenes wherein Janie Hannagan is unwillingly sucked into others' dreams and nightmares, and suffers debilitating side effects. But as soon as McMann establishes Janie's strange skill, she throws just the right teen-centric ingredients into the story to propel it forward and grab readers. Tough and strong Janie, now 17, seems totally independent, charting a future that will lead away from her welfare mother's alcoholism. Her turbulent relationship with Cabel, the unwashed stoner boy-turned-handsome, pulsates with sexual tension-problematized by Janie's knowledge of his insistent dreams about killing a man. But then Cabel learns to communicate his desires to Janie through lucid dreaming at just about the same time that Janie finds out that she can influence the dreams she enters. The plot twists keep coming, even if one or two are shopworn, and the writing has a Caroline Cooney-like snap that's hard to resist. Ages 14-up. (Mar.)\ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.\ \ \ \ \ School Library JournalGr 7 Up- This clever novel opens with Janie Hannagan, 17, inside the star quarterback's dream-she knows it's his dream because he's the only one naked on the football field. Janie dreams along with her fellow students when they fall asleep near her-on the bus, in study hall, in boring classes, etc. She begins to dream with loner Cabel Sturmheller and discovers both his horrific childhood abuse and longstanding feelings for her. The third-person omniscient narration sets a perfect mood; readers are, like Janie, observers. Janie and Cabel's friendship is sweetly drawn, their conversations are smooth, and their romantic tension builds naturally. The language is realistically gritty. Unfortunately, McMann uses a plot twist right out of Law and Order to doom their relationship, and an even cheaper twist to reconcile them. Still, an economy of language, swift character development, and mysterious circumstances drive the narrative to a fast and mostly satisfying conclusion. McMann also gives useful attention to the science of dreaming. This book is ideal for reluctant readers, especially girls.-Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library\ Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsDealing with an alcoholic single mother and endless hours of working at Heather Nursing Home to raise money for college, high-school senior Janie Hannagan doesn't need more problems. But inexplicably, since she was eight years old, she has been pulled in to people's dreams, witnessing their recurring fears, fantasies and secrets. Through Miss Stubin at Heather Home, Janie discovers that she is a dream catcher with the ability to help others resolve their haunting dreams. After taking an interest in former bad boy Cabel, she must distinguish between the monster she sees in his nightmares and her romantic feelings for him. And when she learns more about Cabel's covert identity, Janie just may be able to use her special dream powers to help solve crimes in a suspense-building ending with potential for a sequel. McMann lures teens in by piquing their interest in the mysteries of the unknown, and keeps them with quick-paced, gripping narration and supportive characters. (Fiction. YA)\ \ \ \ \ School Library JournalGr 9 Up—In Lisa McMann's first title (Simon Pulse, 2008) in a projected series, we are introduced to 17-year-old Janie who has a rare ability to see other people's dreams whether she wants to or not. The episodes are growing more frequent, and the dreams she falls into vary from boring to sexy to disturbing. When she is drawn into a classmate's nightmare, Janie is forced to address her ability and how it may affect her future. Although this story makes for compelling reading, it falls flat as an audiobook. The text's short, choppy phrases make the narration sound stilted. There are a number if flashbacks to various time periods in Janie's life and each one is prefaced by a date. In print this device works just fine, but it is confusing to listen to and keep track of in the recording's linear format. The narrator's voice seems disconnected from the character and her reading of emotions sounds forced. Also, the sibilant quality of the narration is distracting. Stick with the print format on this one.—Genevieve Gallagher, Charlottesville High School, VA\ \