by Lauren Mechling
ages: 12+
First sentence: “I was breezing down the airport corridor, minding my own business and thinking about the new look I’d have with the liquid eyeliner I’d picked up at the duty-free shop in Paris, when I saw it in the distance: the pink combination lock.”
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Claire Voyante has a problem (and it’s not her name). She has these dreams. Vivid, detailed… and they seem to come true. Or, at the very least, have a basis in real life. And ever since her eccentric grandmother, Kiki, gave Claire a black-and-white cameo, they’ve been in black-and-white. They’re also somehow connected to Claire’s new friend, Becca, and her ketchup-magnate family. It’s up to Claire to figure out how and why… if she can.

This book is a little bit of everything. A little bit of romance, a little bit of upper-New York fashion plate, a little bit of eccentric relatives (besides the grandma, Claire’s dad is a French professor, and Claire’s mom writes a astrology column). Stir all that together with a lot of mystery, and you pretty much have this book down. That’s not to say it isn’t a fun book; on the contrary, it is quite fun. There’s a lot to balance in the book, but I think it all works towards a cohesive whole picture: I loved Claire’s life, and I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of it. Sure, it was a bit predictable, and I guessed the ending long before Claire got there, but file it under “guilty pleasure”: this one was the right book at the right time.

Which makes me quite interested in the sequel, Dream Life. Thankfully, I won’t have to wait long!