Well, they can’t all be perfect. I’ve been on a roll with books lately, devouring one right after the other in both print and audio format.
I chose The Anatomy of Dreams because I loved The Immortalists, and while the writing style was just as fluid and lovely in both books, the plot in Anatomy fell short for me.
Sylvie Patterson is a student at a boarding school in Northern California when she meets the handsome, curious Gabe, a mentee of their peculiar headmaster, Dr. Adrian Keller. Eventually, Sylvie gets sucked into their experimental work in lucid dreaming – teaching patients how to become conscious in the midst of a dream. Gabe and Sylvie follow Dr. Keller for five or so years as they work with people who act out during dreaming – committing crimes, even. It’s bizarre but meaningful work in their eyes, but it all starts to boil when Sylvie and Gabe follow Dr. Keller to Madison, Wisconsin, and meet their mysterious, magnetic neighbors.
While I’m not particularly interested in sleep therapy or lucid dreaming, I was sure I’d be drawn into the characters’ strange work and even stranger relationship with Dr. Keller. Alas, it took me weeks to finish the book because I never arrived at a place of fully caring what happened. I only finished because I was sure there’d be a twist – and there was – but by then I was ready to be done.
I admit that I’m in a phase of loving thrillers right now, and The Anatomy of Dreams is not a thriller. So, perhaps I wasn’t in the headspace for literary fiction, and in another time and place, I might have