Book Review for The Dreamer by Travis McBee

I received this book for free. This does not impact my review in any shape or form.

The Dreamer, by Travis McBee, is a horror mystery about a young woman who innocently murders everyone around her. Sixteen-year-old Natalie Mullin lives in the small town of Oak Grove, Georgia. Although she suffers from horrific night terrors, she can’t remember them and goes about her days stroking the ego of college student Mitchell. But when she starts to remember her dreams, she begins to understand the relationship between their occurrence and the onslaught of the strange deaths around her. What starts off as some random coincidence turns into something more terrifying when she uncovers the horrifying power her dreams have, a power that she may not be able to control.

I absolutely loved Natalie’s development. She’s a reckless teenager who lives a sheltered life, not even understanding her vulnerability. She hasn’t had all the hardships people her age face, probably because she’s so sure of herself. For her to crumble under the weight of her power was heartbreaking, even though she was able to get revenge on Andrew and get back some of the independence she’d lost. I loved the little tidbit of Carrie being her favorite book and in a way, her ending was massively more destructive than hers. For Natalie, who, for all intents and purposes, is a sweet, sexy angel, it’s funny that everyone who interacted with her, negative or otherwise, had fallen prey to such violent deaths. The only one that survived was Mitchell, and that was only by the skin of his teeth. Although he was overly protective at the beginning, I can empathize his reactions at the end.

I also liked seeing the different characters affected by Natalie; they were all interesting in their own way, and personally, had their lives not been cut short, I would’ve liked to see where they would’ve ended up. It goes back to the idea of Death being the great equalizer; it doesn’t matter how kind you are, how rich, or if you’ve done everything right. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is whether or not you were mentioned in a passing conversation and if a girl just witnessed her boyfriend being violent. It’s twisted, it’s funny, and it’s horrible at the same time. The fact that McBee had demonstrated this in the finale hammers home the idea. 

It was a bit hard to follow the book at first, but nonetheless, I enjoyed reading this book. As such, I would give it a 4.5 out of 5 stars. 

You can buy the book here!