Kirkus Reviews

Jaime Salvator, a top pre-med student at Yale, witnesses an unprecedented sleep experiment involving teenagers who suffer from insomnia—and how it goes dreadfully wrong. At the beginning of the experiment, an earthquake occurs that disrupts the Tower, an electrical output system that is attached to the seven subjects, who have been induced into REM sleep. Each of the sleepers has been catapulted into a shared dreamlike state filled with monsters, slime, and like scenarios based upon some of their worst nightmares. Narrative perspective alternates among the teens as they rely on one another to evade the horrors of their collective nightmare. In the experiment lab, Jaime secretly engages a hacker friend to help find information in an attempt to learn more about the patients' backgrounds. The frame story takes a wildly unrealistic turn when, after a horrific fatality occurs in the lab, the doctors conducting the experiment actually leave Jaime alone in the lab with the remaining six comatose patients. With plotting reminiscent of a teen B-movie, the author relies upon a cast of stereotypical characters that in one case borders on xenophobic, as one of the narrating subjects describes Remi, a refugee from a fictional, war-torn country in Africa, as a kid who "looks out of place in a way only a foreigner can." Jaime is probably black, implied by references to affirmative action and her origins in "one of Detroit's worst neighborhoods." Falling in line with the trend of the multivolume series, the abrupt ending to this book is not an innovative cliffhanger but a shallow contrivance to sell the next book. In this case, as each chapter is predictable, the sequel will be more of the same. (Science fiction. 14-18)

ALA Booklist (Sat Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2017)

While undergoing an experimental electroconvulsive procedure designed to cure crippling insomnia, seven teenagers enter a shared dream world when an earthquake causes a brief power outage. To the doctors pioneering the treatment, the sleepers appear to be comatose, but they are actually trapped in a series of nightmares, each one springing from their deepest fears and secrets. Only a premed student named Jaime, there to observe, thinks something else is happening and researches the patients' lives, a contrived way to provide necessary backstory. Inside the dream world, Cata, an abuse survivor with PTSD, and Fergus, a narcoleptic, alternate first-person narratives, while outside, Jaime is the focal character. The situation takes another dark turn when the teens learn that they can die for real, and when Jaime learns that one of them is a killer. Light on character, story, and credibility, this first in a duology will nonetheless appeal to fans of nightmarish fiction looking for an easy, but scary, read with a relatable premise. After all, who hasn't had a nightmare?

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

The premise of Plum-s thriller is intriguing, if not entirely original: seven teenagers struggling with debilitating insomnia are chosen for an experimental program that hopes to cure them; instead, it plunges them into dreamscapes that represent their nightmares. Observing the procedure is Jaime, a Yale premed student who plans to write a paper on the project. Plum (the After the End series) alternates among the perspectives of Jaime, 16-year-old Catalina Cordova, and 18-year-old college student Fergus Willson, maintaining a quick pace as the teens bounce through each other-s nightmares, facing off against their fears, while Jaime digs into their backgrounds. However, the scientists- actions after the death of one of the participants in the project is head scratching, and while the nightmares are mildly scary, the gore (of which there is a fair amount) seems forced. Overly familiar character types don-t help (Catalina is a token -stubborn- girl, while another teen, Ant, harbors a secret that won-t surprise anyone), and the jarring cliffhanger ending may leave readers more irritated than anxious to learn what happens next. Ages 14-up. Agent: Stacey Glick, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret. (May)

Horn Book (Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2018)

An experimental treatment for extreme insomnia goes very wrong in seven teens, plunging each into a shared nightmare environment they dub the "Dreamfall." Meanwhile, premed student Jaime and a team of doctors research what went wrong. The horrific dream scenes go for shock value with over-the-top graphic imagery; an abrupt ending without resolution sets the stage for a sequel.

Voice of Youth Advocates (Thu Apr 28 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Sixteen-year-old Catalina—called Cata— cannot sleep, not since the horrible event that left her orphaned at age nine. Cata’s PTSD-induced insomnia is severe enough to qualify for an experimental new treatment for young insomniacs; she and six other teens are treated by Doctors Zhu and Vesper in a trial meant to last about six hours. Cata, Fergus, George, Remi, Sinclair, Ant, and BethAnn are hopeful but leery as they prepare to be treated by electroshock therapy to induce normal sleep patterns. The test subjects respond well at first, but an earthquake disturbs the electrical flow, causing the patients to stall in sleep-like trances and be declared comatose, possibly forever. Unbeknownst to the doctors, the teens have converged in shared nightmares where the gore is tangible and death is real, and they must find a way back to consciousness or die.