Review – The Vault of Dreamers by Caragh M. O’Brien

I received this book for free from the publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Vault of Dreamers by Caragh M. O'Brien
Narrator: Emily Woo Zeller
Series: The Vault of Dreamers #1
Published by Roaring Book Press, Tantor Audio on September 16, 2014
Genres: Young Adult Fiction / Science Fiction
Length: 10 hours 29 minutes
Format: ARC, Audiobook
Source: Library, Publisher
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From Caragh M. O'Brien, author of the Birthmarked trilogy, comes the first book in a new series, The Vault of Dreamers, 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 ridges 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.

I liked this book. I have had this book on my tbr for years but never got around to reading it for one reason or another. I happened to notice that the audiobook was available to borrow from my library and I decided to jump in. I actually really enjoyed the book a lot until the story drew to a close. This is the first book in a trilogy but I felt like this book’s ending was more of a setup for the next installment in the series than anything else. I found this to be a quick read that was rather entertaining.

Rosie is a student at Forge School of the Arts. The prestigious school films every aspect of the students’ lives to be televised. To stay at the school you have to achieve a certain ranking and the pressure to rank higher never ends. While at the school, students are filmed for 12 hours daily and then are induced to sleep for the remaining 12 hours of the day. Rosie is suspicious of what really happens during the students’ drugged sleep and starts taking steps to find out what is really going on.

I liked the characters in this book and I was really curious about what was really happening at the school. I wanted Rosie to be successful in her quest to find the truth. It was interesting to see how the students’ dealt with being on camera at all times. The more I learned the more I wanted to know.

Emily Woo Zeller did an amazing job with the narration. I honestly doubt that I would have enjoyed the book as much as I did if I had not decided to grab the audiobook. I thought that her narration added a lot of excitement and emotion to the story and I really enjoyed the character voices that she used.

I think that a lot of readers might like this one more than I did. I found the ending to be rather weak and felt like the book fizzled out more than anything. I am sure that a lot of the questions that I still have would probably be addressed in the next two books in the trilogy but I am unsure if I will ever pick those up.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group and borrowed a copy of the audiobook from my local library.

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