Title & Author: The Vault of Dreamers by Caragh M. O’Brien
Publisher/Year: Roaring Brook Press/2014
Genres: YA Sci-Fi, YA Romance, YA Psychological Thriller
Format: Paperback
Source: Around the World ARC Tours
Other Books by Author: Birthmarked, Prized, Promised
Rating: 
What This Book Is About
From the author of the Birthmarked trilogy comes a fast-paced, psychologically thrilling novel about what happens when your dreams are not your own.
The Forge School is the most prestigious arts school in the country. The secret to its success: every moment of the students’ lives is televised as part of the insanely popular Forge Show, and the students’ schedule includes twelve hours of induced sleep meant to enhance creativity. But when first year student Rosie Sinclair skips her sleeping pill, she discovers there is something off about Forge. In fact, she suspects that there are sinister things going on deep below the reaches of the cameras in the school. What’s worse is, she starts to notice that the edges of her consciousness do not feel quite right. And soon, she unearths the ghastly secret that the Forge School is hiding—and what it truly means to dream there.
(Summary from Goodreads)
My Thoughts on This Book
At first I was a bit skeptical because I am not a big science fiction fan and the last young adult sci-fi book I tried didn’t work out. I did however really enjoy The Vault of Dreamers. It was so incredibly original from any other futuristic situations that has been in a book before. A good amount of the characters were easily likeable and once again (yay!) it featured a strong, independent female main character. I liked the whole story line that these teenagers/students are attending a prestigious arts school but at the same time it was also a reality TV show in a way. Viewers were also able to chose specific student’s feeds to watch. Maybe real television should take notes because there is always that one extremely annoying person on a reality TV show that no one likes, yet they always last until the end.
I loved Rosie Sinclair and was rooting for her all the way. While we didn’t have a ton of things in common I did feel a connection to her because if I had been in her shoes, I’d do the same thing. I also liked Linus, Rosie’s love interest in the story. I really enjoyed seeing their relationship form and the two of them teaming up. There were a few other characters that would pop up in the story every now and then like Rosie’s friends, who were alright. As for the main antagonist of the story, you will despise him as much as you (or for those of you who read THG) despised President Snow.
At the end of the book I began to get really frustrated with what was going on. I mean you’re obviously supposed to hate/dislike/despise the main antagonist, but my goodness I felt a new type of rage. I also felt like Rosie was making careless and stupid mistakes/decisions. I was incredibly disappointed when it ended because I wanted to see what was going to happen next and still had a few questions left unanswered. I’m definitely happy to hear there is a sequel in the works and I cannot wait to see what will happen to the characters in the next book.
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