Dreamland

From Barnes & Noble

Our Review
Living a Nightmare
Sarah Dessen's novels are known for being unerringly polished, for possessing the quintessential young adult voice, and for tackling tough but important subjects. In her latest, Dreamland, Dessen deals with the specter of physical abuse and the cycle of intimidation that can catch female victims of all ages. The victim in this case is young Caitlin O'Koren, whose new boyfriend, Rogerson, seems like a dream come true. However, it doesn't take long for the dream to become a nightmare that threatens to rob Caitlin of everything she holds dear.

Used to living in the shadow of her overachieving older sister, Caitlin has always been something of a loner. When the older sister runs away to be with a boyfriend, Caitlin is left behind to deal with her mother's anguish and her father's seeming indifference. While searching for her own identity and some sense of self-worth, Caitlin hooks up with Rogerson Biscoe. Rogerson is a mixed package: He comes from a wealthy, upper-class family, but he also comes with a reputation for being a troublemaker and a rebel. His rebellious lifestyle strikes Caitlin as refreshingly different. Rogerson is different in other ways, too, with his intense demeanor and dreadlock hair.

Though Rogerson doesn't fit in with any of Caitlin's friends, Caitlin is happy to tag along and meet his friends. While she may not always like them, she likes what Rogerson brings out in her, a side of herself that she's never explored. When she learns a terrible secret about Rogerson's life, it brings them closer, and Caitlin finds Rogerson to be an intelligent, sensitive, and caring boyfriend. But that same secret comes back to haunt Caitlin when she sees a side of Rogerson he's never revealed before. Deeply in love and caught in a cycle of abuse she doesn't know how to escape, Caitlin is desperate for someone to notice and help her. Because she can't seem to help herself.

Dessen's dead-on handling of the psychological maelstrom that accompanies an abusive relationship is vivid, heartbreaking, and honest. This is intelligent fiction that takes a hard but realistic look at many of the pressures teens must face as they enter adulthood, including that first brush with true love. Dessen gets her message across loud and clear without any spoon-feeding or preaching, and the sweetly naive but wry voice of Caitlin is captivating, funny, and entertaining.

--Beth Amos

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Caitlin O'Koren has always had to follow in the footsteps of her perfect older sister, Cassandra (homecoming queen, soccer star, student body president, soup kitchen volunteer). When Cassandra runs away from home, Caitlin finds herself trying to fill the gap Cass's absence creates. Shortly after, when she meets mysterious Rogerson Biscoe (a bad boy of the type Dessen hinted at in Someone Like You), Caitlin sees a way to forge a path for herself, away from Cass's shadow and the expectations weighing on her. Rogerson seems vaguely ominous, but Caitlin is taken by surprise when he first gets violent with her. Unwilling to give up the freedom she thinks her relationship gives her, she withdraws from her friends, starts failing in school and drifts into confusion. Her parents, the stereotypically meddling mom and stiff, emotionally distant father, and her close neighbors, two touchy-feely ex-hippies, are so caught up in their own concerns, and particularly in Cassandra's disappearance, that they fail to notice the difference in Caitlin (including what seems to be alarming physical evidence), pushing the limits of plausibility. For all these shortcuts, however, the characterizations have an unmistakable depth; readers may grow impatient with Caitlin and the obliviousness of her nearest and dearest, but they will believe she is real. Ages 12-up. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Publishers Weekly

Caitlin's perfect sister runs away from home and she finds herself trying to fill the gap the absence creates. "The characterizations have an unmistakable depth," said PW. Ages 12-up. (Feb.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

From The Critics

When sixteen-year-old Caitlin's older sister Cass runs away, Caitlin feels a great void in her life. She's lost the person in her life with whom she's been closet. Deciding she needs a major change, Caitlin enters into her first serious, romantic relationship. Rogerson who is brilliant and charming, but also dangerous. He sells drugs and, as Caitlin soon learns, he is physically abusive to her — the legacy of the abuse he receives from his own father. Not having Cass around for the advice and support she needs, Caitlin retreats into "Dreamland," a half-sleep state where she can keep aloof her problems at a safe distance. In her fifth novel, Dessen again demonstrates her astonishing talent at creating memorable characters with authentic voices and psychological depth, and her remarkable ability to craft subtle but riveting stories, exploring rich themes which young adult readers are sure to find compelling. Genre: Death and Drugs. 2000, Viking, 250 pp., $15.99. Ages 12 up. Reviewer: Ed Sullivan; Oak Ridge, Tennessee

KLIATT

To quote KLIATT's January 2001 review of the hardcover edition: When Caitlin's "perfect" older sister unexpectedly runs away with her boyfriend on the morning of Caitlin's 16th birthday, it hits everyone in the family hard. "I'd always counted on Cass to lead me," Caitlin muses, and without her Caitlin drifts into a dreamlike state. Her best friend Rita convinces her to try out for the cheerleading squad, and Caitlin goes along. Instead of dating a football player, however, she starts to go out with sexy, dangerous Rogerson. He deals drugs and trashes her friends, but even when he starts hitting her Caitlin doesn't end the relationship. She writes in her journal, "There's just so much wrong that I can't imagine the shame in admitting even the tiniest part of it." Her mother finally catches him about to beat her again, and Caitlin ends up in a residential treatment facility, finally able to deal with some of her conflicted feelings and put herself back together again. Dessen, the author of That Summer, Someone Like You, and Keeping the Moon, convincingly portrays Caitlin's emotional turmoil, making her appalling situation believable to readers. KLIATT Codes: S—Recommended for senior high school students. 2000, Penguin, Puffin, 250p.,
— Paula Rohrlick

Children's Literature

This is the story of a family's disintegration when the older of two daughters decides that instead of going to Yale she will run off with her boyfriend. Cassandra O'Koren, champion soccer player, honor student, pride of her parents' lives, runs away with Adam in a desperate attempt to get away from her perfect life. Her younger sister, Caitlin, is devastated. No sportswoman, she tries to fill Cass's place any way she can, and becomes a cheerleader. She hates it: the regimentation, the expectation that she'll date a football player, the endless exhortation to be "peppy." When she hooks up with "bad boy" Rogerson Briscoe, though, she takes on more than she can handle. Rogerson wants Caitlin to be his girl, to be instantly available, and to be on time. If she isn't, he can be dangerous. Very, very dangerous. How will Caitlin get out of this relationship? She isn't sure she wants to—she loves Rogerson. And he loves her. Doesn't he? Although not for very young teens, this is a fascinating book. 2000, Viking Children's Books, Ages 12 up, $15.99. Reviewer: Judy Silverman

VOYA

Caitlin always had been number two. Her older sister, Cassandra, bound for Yale, was the one with the friends and the plethora of activities that kept her sparkling in the limelight. On Caitlin's sixteenth birthday, however, Cassandra abandons her golden path and runs off to New York. Caitlin is left alone with the enormity of her parents' disappointment as well as with her own inexpressible grief. Encouraged by her only friend, Rina, Caitlin tries out for the cheerleading squad and to her dismay, makes it. She despises the shallow displays of school spirit and the social pressure to date an unappealing football star. When dark, handsome Rogerson Briscoe mysteriously appears at a football party, beckoning her to leave, she follows him away from the safety of her assumed roles, into a romance both thrilling and horrifying. As Caitlin's relationship with Rogerson becomes increasingly dangerous, she begins to fade from her own life, her torment invisible to those who love her most. Author of Keeping the Moon (Viking, 1999/VOYA December 1999) and Someone Like You (Viking, 1998/VOYA August 1998), Dessen masterfully traces the evolution of an abusive relationship in yet another breathtaking novel for young adults. She evokes the various masquerades of love through the couples in the novel—the loving pair of old hippie neighbors; Caitlin's new friend who lives with a sweet but irresponsible boyfriend; Rogerson's cold, wealthy parents; and Rina's determined promiscuity with several boys. In examining the question of how much must be sacrificed to maintain a romantic relationship, Dessen has created a compassionate novel that examines how wrong love can go. This book will appeal to girlsaddicted to romance novels or to any teen struggling with an abusive situation. VOYA CODES: 5Q 4P J S (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Broad general YA appeal; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12). 2000, Penguin, 280p, $15.99. Ages 13 to 18. Reviewer: Diane Masla

SOURCE: VOYA, October 2000 (Vol. 23, No. 4)

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up-Cass, activist, athlete, and academic success, runs away to work on a TV talk show with her boyfriend. Sixteen-year-old Caitlin, always overshadowed by her older sister, feels ever more invisible as her parents single-mindedly seek to locate and bring Cass home. Caitlin's best friend convinces her to try out for cheerleading. She makes the squad and discovers that her mother begins to live vicariously through her activities, just as she had done with Cass. Then, Caitlin meets Rogerson Biscoe and falls in love with him. He's not like the jocks at Caitlin's public high school; he's rich, attractive, enigmatic, and wild. She smokes dope supplied by Rogerson, a small-time dealer, and their physical relationship is consummated. Anger drives him, and he controls Caitlin with fear and pain. Shocked and physically hurt, she lies to her parents. Rogerson's beatings escalate, and Caitlin is shattered psychologically as well as physically. Powerfully written and not soon forgotten, Dreamland is the secret story of many contemporary teen relationships. Caitlin's dependency on Rogerson is a realistic and finely drawn portrait of a young woman without a strong sense of self-esteem. Characters are well developed; even Cass comes through as a complete person. The high-school milieu is accurately depicted as is a family's reaction to an unpredictable crisis. Compelling reading with contemporary teen appeal.-Gail Richmond, San Diego Unified Schools, CA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Kirkus Reviews

A teenager opts for the bad-choice route out of her "perfect" older sister's shadow in this intense, exhausting tale from the author of Keeping the Moon (1999). Caitlin has always felt semi-invisible next to soccer star-senior class president-Homecoming Queen Cass, and that doesn't change in any important way when Cass suddenly takes off with a male friend for New York, leaving their mother Margaret, inconsolably fretful and distracted. When not even a successful bid to make the cheerleading squad earns Caitlin more than fitful parental attention, she plunges into faster waters, hooking up with Rogerson, a fifth-year senior with a police record, a BMW, and a thriving business dealing pot. At first it's an exciting ride, filled with new friends and experiences, but Caitlin's dream soon twists into nightmare. So dependent does her emotional state become on Rogerson's ups and downs that even when he starts slapping her around, she hides the bruises and retreats into numb isolation, feeling trapped but lacking the will to escape. Dessen's characters are familiar but not entirely typecast, which adds flavor to their interactions-though they are paired off into stable and unstable relationships in a rather deliberate way. Caitlin finally gets the help she needs to break free after Rogerson furiously beats her in public, and piece-by-piece she rebuilds her self-respect in rehab, with the help of a liberating letter from Cass. Her descent and recovery come in believable stages, and though Rogerson is definitely the villain here, the author gives readers reason to spare a dash (a very small dash) of sympathy for him, too. (Fiction. YA)