Fade by Lisa McMann

Fade by Lisa McMann
Copyright 2009
Simon Pulse - Young Adult fiction
248 pages

I bought the first book in this series, Wake, and ended up staying up so late to finish it that I just knew I had to read on. It took a week or two, but I managed to buy a copy of Fade. I don't regret it, but I will say that it was a totally different experience from Wake in that most of the secrets that tug you through Wake and, thus, make it compulsively readable have already been revealed by the end of the book.

Having said that, I like the protagonist, Janie, and the boy she falls in love with, Cabel.

Warning: This paragraph may contain some information that could spoil the reading of Wake. Please skip this part if you plan to read Wake, soon. I'll tell you when it's safe to continue reading.

In the first book, Janie's "dream-catching" has gotten totally out of hand because she's in high school and wherever she goes, there are sleeping students. If someone is sleeping nearby, she falls into their dream. By the end of Wake, Janie is learning to control her ability and she and Cabel are using her ability to help try to put a drug dealer in jail.

Okay, it's safe, now. You can come out from under the rug.

In Fade, Janie and Cabel continue onward with their on-again, off-again relationship -- a rocky one because they both have their own demons to fight, metaphorically speaking and, this time, Janie must put herself in a dangerous situation in order to discover whether or not a crime is being committed by one of the teachers at her high school. She also finds out that her dream-catching ability is causing her physical damage.

I liked this book almost as much -- but not quite as much -- as the first in the series, in spite of the fact that much had already been revealed and I thought it didn't work quite as well. I think there are a couple of reasons I like the continuation of the series. For one thing, I really like Janie, Cabel and most of the side characters. I find Cabel a little hard to believe in because he's almost too perfect and when he does tear himself a way for a time, his reasons never quite click with me. But, he's such a wonderful character that Janie and I keep forgiving him. The other reason I think I like this series so much is its uniqueness. Maybe this has been done before, but if it has, I haven't read it. I like the whole concept of dream-catching and the way it plays out in the books.

I'll wait for the next in the series, Gone, to go to paperback because I really kind of hate hardback books, but I do plan to read on.

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