This was not what i was expecting.

Having read Nina's previous two books and totally loved them, i just grabbed this with a quick glance at the cover art and title and set about reading it thinking i was going to have a similarly uplifting story about dreams.   Well that thought soon got put out to pasture.

Instead, we are taken into the intensive care ward of a coma hospital, and the dreams are those that people living in comas may, or may not, have.

Which does sound a little grim, but it turned out just as good, but in a rather different way, as Nina's last two books: so well worth reading, all three of them.

And i already have Nina's next book, The Little French Village of Book Lovers — Nina George, which i look forward to diving into in the not too distant future.

Bye for now. ( )

Jesus Christ this book. I hate-listened to it for the last 1/3, almost all of it which could have been eliminated as it just. Dragged. Shit. On. FOR NO REASON, especially given the end. The narrators did fine until the yelling and shouting parts at which point I wanted to kill them. The only reason I stuck with this to the end was because I enjoyed how Eddie wrote about henri, and figured they’d get back together and finally have a fulfilling relationship. NOPE. Just fucking devastation, and no satisfaction from learning about Sam and Maddie. Fuck off. There should be a trigger warning on this for people who think they’re getting a happy ending after slogging through weeks of grief and near death. DO NOT READ. ( )

To me, one of the best things about reading Nina George’s books is knowing that she is much younger than I am which means I can keep reading her work as long as she produces it.
I read Nina George’s The Little Paris Bookshop because I have an interest in “all things bookish,” and absolutely loved the storyline, the writing, and the entire feel of the novel. That led me to her other book, The Little French Bistro, and then to ordering The Books of Dreams in prepublication.
Her writing often feels like it is on the razor edge between prose and poetry. Her observations of human nature and human behavior reflect both empathic understanding of the people who become characters in her books and the deep capacity to speculate about them.
I have seen it said that her books are “Romance Novels,” but I have never had that feeling when I read them. They do include some wonderful portrayals of love and loving relationships, but the plots are so rich, so all-encompassing, so vibrant that the love story seems to be secondary to the life that surrounds it-just as it really is in life. While I see the romance side of her books, what I find in them more are stories of self-discovery, of moving from one form of life to another, better one, of developing and growing. Certainly that was a major theme in this book, The Book of Dreams.
What kind of book is it really? Nina George defines it herself through the words of one of its main characters, “Speculative fiction focuses on ideas that are theoretically possible: tears in the space-time continuum, time crash....” The Book of Dreams is just that. In their minds, the characters move back and forth in time, but also, characters move in and out of each other’s consciousness and gain understanding of their realities. All of this is presented and handled so beautifully in the hands of George that it seems not only plausible but likely.
Ms. George’s observations of human nature and of how we live our pasts within every moment of our “presents” came through brilliantly in this paragraph, describing a very minor character ion the book:
“Mrs. Walker has experienced a lot of sadness and she’s so preoccupied with the past that she neglects the present....Maybe when she looks at me she sees a beach and her empty hand, which nobody has held for years.” OMG, how Can a writer learn to portray so much is so few words?
This is a wonderful book, and I especially like the touches of the paranormal which I would usually eschew in reading. The idea of the mind of a person in a coma touching both life and life after death is powerful and the further idea that the mound can sense the contents of other minds is likewise compelling.
This is a great book, one that can and will be enjoyed by readers who know what it is to love, to lose someone you love, to watch someone you love suffer in a hospital while you are hopeless to help them. The book hits the emotions of the reader i just the ways that readers love to be hit.


( )

I have never loved her books after the first book ( )

Ultimately a beautiful, transcendent eulogy to the author's father. Sam, Eddie and Henri are wonderful characters. ( )