The Dreamosphere by Laura Stoddard
Published By: Sweetwater Books (@SweetwaterBooks ),
an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc (@CedarFort) 8th July, 2014
Official Author Websites: Site | Facebook | Twitter | GoodReads
Available Formats: Paperback, Ebook
Page Count: 208
Converse via: #TheDreamosphere
Acquired Book By: I am a regular tour hostess for blog tours via Cedar Fort since I participated in the “Uncovering Cobbogoth” tour. This blog tour will be my second hosting for Cedar Fort & Sweetwater Books! I received a complimentary copy of “The Dreamosphere” direct from the publisher Sweetwater Books (imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc) in exchange for an honest review. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.
A Short Excerpt:
“What do you think happens to your dreams after you wake up?”
Gwen shrugged distractedly, too disoriented by her sudden arrival in the remarkable setting to focus. “I dunno. They disappear?”
The unblinking gray eyes of her young companion flashed as she leaned forward. “Incorrect. Every dream you’ve ever had still exists. All of them. They reside in a dimension called the Dreamosphere. It’s where we are right now, as a matter of fact. Each dream basically exists as its own world, or dream-orb. There are thousands and thousands of them, connected like drops of dew on a gigantic spider web. Every dream you’ve ever had, Gwen. They’re all up here. And you can visit them any time you want.”
Tabitha, the enigmatic child who shares this information, has some even more shocking news. Gwen’s dreamosphere is in danger. Someone has been hacking into it—destroying her dream orbs, erasing pieces of her past, and affecting Gwen in more ways than she realizes. Together, Gwen and Tabitha travel through the outlandish landscape of Gwen’s dream worlds to find the person responsible. What will happen to Gwen when all her dreams are gone? What critical clues lie within the pages of her dream journal? And what does Edgar Allan Poe have to do with it all?
Book Synopsis:
What if dreams don’t disappear when we wake up? Haunted by her younger sister’s death, and her unwitting role in the incident, 11-year-old Gwenevere Stoker takes solace in the Dreamosphere—a dimension where all dreams still exist. But when someone begins destroying her dreams, Gwen must find the culprit—or risk losing all her happiness forever. Bask in the mystery and imagination of dreams in this touching, funny, mind-bending children’s tale that encompasses themes of grief, friendship, family, healing, and grand adventure!
Author Biography:
Laura Stoddard was born in Idaho and spent her formative years running amok in the great outdoors. She received her bachelors degree in English Literature from Arizona State University. After being rejected from the masters program for creative writing she decided that she didn’t need a masters degree to tell her she could write, so she started really dedicating her time to finishing the story she’d started months earlier, with the goal of writing a complete novel, and getting it published. The result is her debut novel, The Dreamosphere, for which her own vivid, bizarre, and incomprehensible dreams provided the inspiration. Laura is an adrenaline junkie and will try anything once–or twice–or maybe three times. She can already check whitewater rafting, going down in a shark cage, and skydiving (three times) off of her list. Oh, and getting Lasik. It was five minutes of terror. She enjoys hiking, rowing, reading classic literature, embarking on new adventures and hobbies, volunteering regularly, and spending time with family. She currently resides in Phoenix, Ariz.
The fabric of the dreamosphere:
The Prologue provides a bit of a cursory view into the webbed network of Gwen’s dreamosphere, a world in which nothing is quite as it appears (true to the nature of our dreamscapes!), and yet, there is a beguiling presence of a half man, half vulture bird-like entity that is starting to cause an undercurrent of primal fear. His presence is clearly laced with malice towards Gwen, and her dream world; yet what has triggered his focus and aggression on her particular dreams was not yet revealed as this merely was providing the framework for where Gwen goes whilst she’s dreaming. Her companion Tabitha is quite the hoot, a shapeshifter who is able to transform her body and language as she walks through the dream’s individual orb of existence. I presumed the dreams are contained in an orb of memory – a particular space where the entirety of a dream can exist without harm of disappearing.
As the story progresses the intricacies of how the dreamosphere and the world of dreams co-exist is explained. Part of the dream sequences reminded me of the wild imagination of Terry Pratchett from the Tiffany Aching sequences within the Discworld universe. The interesting bit for me is how Tabitha takes the shape of a squirrel in Gwen’s living reality but can be seen as a young girl (a composite of Gwen’s real-life friend from living on the farm) inside the dreamosphere adventures. She has a most curious nature and I would wager an even more curious story of origin!
My Review of The Dreamosphere:
A spunky and forthright young girl whose honesty has a bit of a faulted edge to it, is the unlikely central character of the story. Unlikely as she has such a large swallowing of guilt and sorrow laced into her heart that she can barely function past turning other people’s lives into a miserable vacuum of harsh words and cynical outbursts. Her words have become a bit venous in the years since a tragedy touched her family, and everywhere she goes from school to home, her ability to see past the angst is blinded by her desire to push everything outside of her life that she once cherished to have included.
As Gwen gives a short tour of her room, from the decor to the hand painted artwork, and the ways in which she personalised the space by including bits and bobbles of her own musings and memorabilia was a lovely pause to think back on how I used to personalise my own space as a child her age. I was always delighted that my parents gave me the freedom to spread my personality out into the visible space of my bedroom. Although, I must confess reading that she has a special reading nook (within the window seat, replete with built-in cabinets for books and food) I had a murmuring of delight, as that was always on my ‘wish list’ for what I wanted to install in my own room! Tucked into a window, whilst entombed inside a novel always felt like the best of both worlds to me – as on the one hand you can observe the natural world as it goes about its natural rhythm and at the same time you can soak into a fictional world which feels as real to you as what is outside the window! When she mentioned the ‘secret stash of food’ I had to recollect a memory of Claudia from “The Baby-Sitter’s Club” series as she was infamous for hiding candy and other naughty go-to foods throughout her bedroom too!
Gwen’s dreams take on the fantastical as each time she is either journalling her thoughts into her dream journal or experiencing a dream for the first time, there is a sense of vivid world-building that a highly creative mind could populate inside one’s dreams. She has the kind of dream life that requires not only attention to detail but a keen open mind about what her dreams might be attempting to tell her or disclose to her rather. One of her teachers, fondly referred to as “Tell” by the student body took an interest in helping her without actually acknowledging that he was. He was a quirk amongst his own peers, and having noted that she had enough on her young plate to deal with in regards to her younger sister, he felt that if he could be one positive voice in her life, it would make a difference. I liked how their friendship began and how he always kept an eye on her without her realising she had someone watching over her.
The most disturbing part is the power of the unknown adversary who is blinking in and out of Gwen’s dreams, destroying her dreams orbs and thereby erasing bits of her memory as each one dissolves out of existence. When it is revealed who the adversary is and who is actually behind the altering personalities and character traits of Gwen’s classmates, the story shifts a bit into new territory and makes this a bit more of an intense reading. Not to the level it pushes out of its genre, only that instead of lulling a resolution to end the mayhem, Stoddard weaves in thought-provoking passages where even children will recognise harder truths. I can foresee philosophical stimulating discussions will evolve out of their own impressions being voiced after reading the novel and I hope they are encouraged by their guardians, parents, teachers, and librarians to do so. It will add a new dimension to the story, allowing a book discussion to encompass the lines which should never be crossed and how far any one person has to decide to go in order to heal through a life moment that changes their everyday world.
The strength of the story is depicting the right and wrong approach to recovering from tragedy and unexpected circumstances that arise in our lives. To pick the path towards being a contributor amongst peers and community or taking the shadowy path towards moving between the veils of right and wrong. I appreciated seeing life lessons stitched into the undercurrent of the story as much as seeing all the characters struggling to find acceptance, understanding whilst processing their thoughts as much as their emotions. The Dreamosphere is very sociologically centered on rooting out what triggers certain behaviours and how our behaviour and attitude can have a larger effect on the well-being of others.
The artistic style of Laura Stoddard’s world of stories & dreams:
Stoddard has a way of taking her own dream life and inserting it into a fictional setting such as The Dreamosphere, in such a convincing way as to get you more motivated to reach successive chapters than when you first begin the story! I say this only as with any fantasy novel that has mind-bending & genre-bending sequences within it, sometimes I have to orient myself inside the world at large and then I am able to soak in more of the back-story as everything starts to fuse together properly. I nearly felt the Prologue should have been a flashback memory of Brooke, Gwen’s younger sister, but I admit, I appreciated it included a sequence of the dreamworld itself, in order to help us make the transition that would start to come at faster intervals.
She deals with the larger issues of childhood, from self-doubt, to self-loathing and fear of what is perceived to have happened vs what happened in actuality. The guilt, the sorrow, and the anguish wrapped inside Gwen’s character is knitted together with her unresolved issues involving the death of her younger sister. Stoddard allows Gwen the freedom to choose how she wants to interact with her peer group as much as how to give the impression of what torments Gwen the most on a psychological and emotional level of depth. The voice of Gwen never reaches too far past her actual age, except with a few keen insights that any child who has gone through such tragedy would take on knowing ahead of their own years. She writes with a believability that I think even younger readers will appreciate, as she gives a story that a reader of any age will enjoy reading.
This Blog Tour Stop is courtesy of Cedar Fort, Inc.:
Virtual Road Map of “The Dreamosphere” Blog Tour can be found here:
Earlier today I interviewed the author about this lovely novel!
The Dreamosphere Book Trailer OFFICIAL 2014 via Laura Stoddard
The half man, half vulture entity is shown in the book trailer as quite the person you’d like to avoid yourself if you were given the chance! What struck you the most about the book trailer after reading my review of the story? Did it heighten your curiosity about reading the book? What did you enjoy the most by the way in which the trailer empathsises the story-line!?
{SOURCES: Author photograph, Author Biography, Book Synopsis, Book Cover of “The Dreamosphere” and the Excerpt were provided by the author Laura Stoddard and used with permission. The Cedar Fort badge was provided by Cedar Fort, Inc. and used by permission. Blog Tour badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Post dividers badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets were embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. The Book Trailer for “The Dreamosphere” had either URL share links or coding which made it possible to embed this media portal to this post, and I thank her for the opportunity to include materials that help introduce readers to her work.}
Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.
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