Dreamland

First Lines Fridays: November 1, 2019

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First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

  • Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
  • Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
  • Finally… reveal the book!

First Lines:

My sister Cass ran away the morning of my sixteenth birthday. She left my present, wrapped and sitting outside my bedroom door, and stuck a note for my parents under the coffeemaker. None of us heard her leave.

Did the quote pique your interest? View this book on Goodreads!

July 2018 Reading Wrap-Up

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Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen
Rating:  ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review:  No
Format:  eBook
Reading Dates:  June 26 – July 1
Read Count:  2
Favorite Thing:  Halley being like “she has my eyes” to that completely unrelated-to-her baby. Perfect.
Least Favorite Thing:  Pushy boyfriend is pushy…

I’m actually starting to worry that I don’t like these books as much as I used to. Not that they aren’t the same quality, just that I think I’ve aged out of them.

My Posts About Someone Like You

Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen
Rating:  ★★★★☆ – really liked it
Review:  No
Format:  Print
Reading Dates:  July 2 – 3
Read Count:  3
Favorite Thing:  Norman’s art cave.
Least Favorite Thing:  Mark, obviously.

Oh I’m so relieved that I still liked this book. After the first two of my Sarah Dessen reread that I didn’t like as much, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to enjoy any of them as much as I used to. I’d say I can see some differences by being older when I reread this one, but it was just as good as it used to be. Plus there was a whole nostalgia factor.

My Posts About Keeping the Moon

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen
Rating:  ★★★★☆ – really liked it
Review:  No
Format:  eBook
Reading Dates:  July 3 – 9
Read Count:  3
Favorite Thing:  The fact that no one ever blames Caitlin or questions that she needs professional help after what happens to her.
Least Favorite Thing:  I mean, I should probably say Rogerson, but honestly it’s the mean girls on the cheerleading squad…

So far so good on the Dessen Reread front! I am relieved to find I still like this one as well. Once again I found myself seeing things from a different perspective now that I’m older and have more life experience.

My Posts About Dreamland

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen
Rating:  ★★★☆☆ – liked it
Review:  No
Format:  eBook
Reading Dates:  July 9 – July 14
Read Count:  3
Favorite Thing:  Remy’s constant planning and sorting things out was somehow fun to experience.
Least Favorite Thing:  A weird amount of fat shaming in this book…

I think I like this one a little less than I used to. Not the story itself, that’s pretty much the same as I remember, but because of the constant fat shaming. The second anyone was the least bit bigger in this book there was some weird comment about it.

My Posts About This Lullaby

Locked in Time by Lois Duncan
Rating:  ★★☆☆☆ – it was ok
Review:  No
Format:  Print
Reading Dates:  July 23 – 28
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  There’s a little bit at the end that I like but it’s majorly spoilery…
Least Favorite Thing:  Oblivious Protagonist Syndrome

My problem with this book wasn’t so much that it was bad, just that it was a little boring to me. I think it’s just not my style. And as with all Duncan’s books it’s a little slow till three quarters through then it all wraps up quite quickly.

My Posts About Locked in Time

Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
(Enchanted Forest Chronicles, book 1)
Rating:  ★★★★★ – loved it
Review:  No
Format:  Print
Reading Dates:  July 28 – 31
Read Count:  1
Favorite Thing:  HOW CAN I PICK JUST ONE, no I’m lying it’s the female friendships in this book.
Least Favorite Thing:  Um…. There is no least favorite thing. I loved this book.

Oh man guys I loved this book so much! Thank you, tumblr, for recommending this to me! I can’t wait to get the next book!

My Posts About Dealing with Dragons

In Progress

QuoteLeeLeave a comment
I’d spent so many months feeling like I was underwater, half in dreamland with those mermaids, hearing all the voices from up above. And since I’d been at Evergreen I felt like I’d been swimming so hard, the water growing warmer and warmer the closer I got to the top. I wasn’t there yet, but now I could see the surface, rippling just beyond my fingers.

– Sarah Dessen, Dreamland, Chapter 12

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I was worn out, broken: He had taken almost everything. But he had been all I’d had, all this time. And when the police led him away, I pulled out of the hands of all these loved ones, sobbing, screaming, everything hurting, to try and make him stay.

– Sarah Dessen, Dreamland, Chapter 12

QuoteLeeLeave a comment
And I listened to them talking in the hallway, my mother explaining the best way to serve the tuna salad, on lettuce, while Rina made listening noises and popped her gum. And Rogerson’s phone rang, on and on. No answer.

– Sarah Dessen, Dreamland, Chapter 12

QuoteLeeLeave a comment
I looked up and Rina was standing in the doorway of my room, her arms crossed over her chest. She had on a short, pink dress and strappy high-heeled sandals, and her skin — thanks to her mother’s tanning bed — was already a deep brown. Her blond hair was down, curling over her shoulders, a pair of white sunglasses parked on top of her head. She looked so healthy and alive it was like she was almost sparking, right there in front of me.

– Sarah Dessen, Dreamland, Chapter 12

QuoteLeeLeave a comment
But something had changed in me, even if I didn’t know what it was just yet. All I could think was that I felt alive for the first time since my birthday. From wherever she was, Cass had finally spoken to me, reaching out from dreamland to where I stood in this waking world, half-asleep and wobbly, under those bright, bright stars.

– Sarah Dessen, Dreamland, Chapter 4