{My Thoughts} – Alex is a teenage girl that is going through a rough point in her life. Things at school seem to be picking up and turning into something more. She has a date to homecoming with one of the hottest guys in her class and she has one of the greatest friends a girl could ask for named Natalie.

Alex and her family are getting ready to move because her dad got a new job. Alex doesn’t want to move and for the past few months has made it very clear to her mother. She has made life difficult with her teenage angst. However, the date for moving has been moved closer then expected and while Alex is throwing a tantrum about the unfairness of it all her best friend Natalie is waiting downstairs outside the door to be let in. It appears that Natalie already knows they are moving and she decided to come over to help Alex pack and have one last sleep over.

While they are packing up Alex’s closet they run across a game called DreamScape that they use to play all the time when they were younger at their sleepovers. Apparently they’d played it hundreds of times and knew the game inside and out, which I must say is quite a feat. Anyways, they play the game they beat the game and Natalie goes to sleep. Alex has problems trying to fall asleep and she decides to play the game again. Only this time it isn’t like when she was playing with Natalie. This time everything is different.

I really enjoyed this book a lot. I am a gamer girl myself and I have often wondered what it would be like to be in the same kind of position or situation that Alex had found herself in. I also enjoyed the fact that there was so much more to take back from this book then just the initial adventure. It was more a book of a girl finding herself in a world where she was lost and unsure of what she really wanted or who she really was. I think that it was creatively and strategically written and that it is well worth the read. I look forward to reading more work by this author in the future. ( )

{My Thoughts} – Alex is a teenage girl that is going through a rough point in her life. Things at school seem to be picking up and turning into something more. She has a date to homecoming with one of the hottest guys in her class and she has one of the greatest friends a girl could ask for named Natalie.

Alex and her family are getting ready to move because her dad got a new job. Alex doesn’t want to move and for the past few months has made it very clear to her mother. She has made life difficult with her teenage angst. However, the date for moving has been moved closer then expected and while Alex is throwing a tantrum about the unfairness of it all her best friend Natalie is waiting downstairs outside the door to be let in. It appears that Natalie already knows they are moving and she decided to come over to help Alex pack and have one last sleep over.

While they are packing up Alex’s closet they run across a game called DreamScape that they use to play all the time when they were younger at their sleepovers. Apparently they’d played it hundreds of times and knew the game inside and out, which I must say is quite a feat. Anyways, they play the game they beat the game and Natalie goes to sleep. Alex has problems trying to fall asleep and she decides to play the game again. Only this time it isn’t like when she was playing with Natalie. This time everything is different.

I really enjoyed this book a lot. I am a gamer girl myself and I have often wondered what it would be like to be in the same kind of position or situation that Alex had found herself in. I also enjoyed the fact that there was so much more to take back from this book then just the initial adventure. It was more a book of a girl finding herself in a world where she was lost and unsure of what she really wanted or who she really was. I think that it was creatively and strategically written and that it is well worth the read. I look forward to reading more work by this author in the future. ( )

I received an ARC ebook from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

Excellent — 4.5 out of 5 stars.

A sci-fi/fantasy combo, "Dreamscape: Saving Alex" relies heavily on fantasy elements to tell a compelling adventure between Alex--a real person--and the game's characters.

In summary, "Dreamscape: Saving Alex" is a good romance/adventure novel that will appeal to the fantasy audience. ( )

“Reality, dream, or insanity, it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to die. That meant one thing. No more messing around. I had to play the game, level by level, until I saved the queen.
There was only one problem. I’d never won without my codes.”
Alexis “Alex” Stone finds herself being pulled in different directions. Her cold mother decided to move up their moving day to the weekend, her crush dumped her for another girl, oh, and she found herself stuck in her favorite childhood video game all in the same day. Like most good heroes, Alex starts out flawed and slightly annoying. She starts in the game with the mentality that nothing is real, but the deeper in the game and the closer to the people she gets the more real it becomes and the line between real and fantasy starts to blur. Alex is eventually faced with the decisions to face her role as the “Golden Hero” or to take her secret shortcuts and leave the rebellion behind and find her own way home.

Arrow is the character that brings the world to life. He’s the leader of the rebellion in Lockhorn and the campaign to save the queen. He’s also Alex’s main romantic interest. Arrow is sweet, but also a natural leader so he’s also naturally concentrating more on the rebellion, but still has time for nice moments.Melody is the strong female character of the book. She’s cheeky with the men in the army but quite deadly with her weapons. I really started to like this character and wish she had more time in the book.

The world of Lockhorn is loosely centered around the game Alex remembers, but much more vivid. The world is full of interesting creatures such as flowers with acidic pollen and birds with razor sharp feathers. Of course, what’s a game without castles with traps, guards, secret passages, and missions? There’s also some pretty standard game items: chests of gold and magic items.

There are a few complaints I have about the book. You would, of course, expect the game to be different when you’re living it, but from what Alex relays it is nearly a completely different experience. Names and places are completely unfamiliar to her even though she still has the game memorized. Also, fireworks marks the end of each level but there’s no structure or design to what a certain objective was to a “level”. Though, admittedly, Arrow states that he is real, so maybe separating Lockhorn the world from the game was part of Pulioff’s plan.

Overall, Dreamscape: Saving Alex is a good ya fantasy that I recommend to gamers and fans of quick-light romances.

www.ReadingBifrost.com ( )