Review: The Rule of Mirrors (The Vault of Dreamers #2) by Caragh M. O'Brien

First, thanks to Roaring Brook Press and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this book.  I was lucky enough to get an ARC  of the first book, The Vault of Dreamers, and meet the author when I went to BEA in 2014.  So unfortunately I won't have matching ARCs since I only had an egalley of this, but hey, that's life!  I had skimmed a few reviews before I got around to reading this myself, and one or two of them made me a little concerned I wouldn't enjoy this one.  But actually, there were several things in this that I did like even a little better than the first book.  Now, obviously if you haven't read the first book, you need to stop reading my review now, because I can't keep from any spoilers for that book.  Go click the link above and read the review of the first book if you think you might be interested in this series.

We pick up with Rosie, but Rosie in two different places.  One of those places is back in a dream vault, like where we left off in the last book.  In the place where she still sleeps most of the time, there is a creepy guy who works there.  And this guy seems to be in love with her.  So she chooses to use this obsession of his to get him to help her get awake more often. To learn things about where she is and what is going on.  And eventually, hopefully, she can get him to help her escape. 

The "other" Rosie is waking up in another girl's body, a pregnant girl's body.  Thea has been in a coma, and her parents have used the dream seeds suggested by the doctor to bring their daughter back, really they've wanted to keep her alive even with no hope, just to save the baby.  But when Thea wakes up, she's not Thea, she's Rosie.  The doctor has told the family that this happens sometimes, and that she will need to keep her in the hospital until it stops.  But Thea/Rosie is able to convince her parents that she will do better at home.  Before she leaves though, she is able to get back into the lab, and find lots of her dream seeds in jars.  And she meets someone else, someone she recognizes from her past, that now lends a whole other aspect to the story.  When she goes home with her family, to Texas, she meets the father of Thea's baby, and there is just an instant connection, seemingly out of nowhere.  Many other relatives are there as well, including her grandparents.  But Rosie wants to know about Linus, the boy she was in love with before, who also betrayed her.  She calls to try to talk to him, but of course she doesn't have Rosie's voice, it is Thea's voice, making him not believe it is her, even with the things she tells him that only the two of them would know.  She tries calling her mom and stepdad and little sister, but same issue, they don't believe her.

The "real" Rosie is able to escape when some things do happen that lead her to be able to sneak out.  At first she is able to get away with it, and the creepy guy doesn't find her.  She jumps into the back of a truck with two young women, and they promise to keep her at their home in secret for awhile, with the promise that she will let them claim the reward when she is ready to come out.  She also tries to contact Linus and others, and they do believe her.  But then Berg, the head of the school, contacts her.  And now she feels like she is no longer safe.  This is about the time she realizes that the creepy guy is out in his truck outside the house where she is hiding.  So she leaves, and goes with the creepy guy to try to get back to her family.  She finds that he has been stealing the sleep vials from the vault, and she steals some herself, to save to use for when they might be able to help her out.  Of course she must escape from him, but she doesn't trust Linus, not after his betrayal.  So she goes to another of her friends from the Forge school, Burnham.  Burnham lives in a very nice house, his parents being the ones who own the company that makes the drugs the Forge school was using.  Burnham wants to find out what exactly is being done, for his parents' company's sake at least.  So Rosie uses Burnham's computer hacking skills to try to figure more out as well as get help to get back to take her revenge on Berg. 

I won't tell you anymore.  Just that Rosie will have to meet up with Linus, she will need him to do what she wants to do, plus, she still loves him, and can't resist going to him.  But will all of it be worked out?  Even if she can get in and get the proof, does Rosie now exist in two places?  Or will Thea ever be able to come back out and take her life back?  All I can tell you is that this isn't the end, there is going to be one more book.  And I need to know more!  I need to know how everything can be wrapped up.  It gets close in this book, but not all the details are wrapped up, and there is so much more to happen. 

Waiting on Wednesday - The Rule of Mirrors (The Vault of Dreamers #2) by Caragh M. O'Brien

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases that we're eagerly awaiting.  My choice this week is the sequel to a book I got at BEA back in the summer of 2014, The Vault of Dreamers.  It was an interesting story, even if it wasn't quite what I'd expected, and I'd really like to see where the story goes next.  Here is the blurb from Goodreads:

The fast-paced, psychologically thrilling sequel to The Vault of Dreamers follows Rosie after her consciousness has been split in two.

The entire country was watching when Rosie Sinclair was expelled from Forge, the prestigious arts school that doubles as a reality TV show. But few know how Dean Berg was mining students' dreams in laboratories deep below the school. And no one, least of all the Dean himself, knows that when Rosie's dreams were seeded into the mind of another patient, Rosie's consciousness woke up in that body--a girl far from Forge, a girl with a completely different life from Rosie, a girl who is pregnant.

Told from alternating points of view between Rosie as she makes sense of her new identity and the shattered subconscious that still exists in her old body, this sequel to The Vault of Dreamers will keep readers on the edge of their seats and leave them hungry for more.

I'm really excited to see just how this story will go on.  Because it seemed as if Rosie was gone at the end, yet here it seems like she will get a new chance, even if not as herself really, or at least not in her own body.  

So, what book are you eagerly awaiting this week?

Review: The Vault of Dreamers by Caragh M. O'Brien

This is another of the ARCs I got at BEA this summer.  I haven't read the Birthmarked trilogy by this author, but one of my really good friends has read it and liked it, so I figured I had to get a copy of this when I was at BEA.  And actually, I did really enjoy it.  The story was really interesting, and there was even a little bit of a twist at the end, that I didn't really get until probably the very same page when they started to allude to it in the story.  I don't know how satisfied I am with the ending, though.  I kind of want more, even though I do get it, and it is a good ending, maybe just not where I wanted it to end.

The main character is Rosie Sinclair.  She wants to be a filmmaker.  But in this future society, it is very hard to get jobs like this, unless you are chosen to go to the Forge School of the Arts.  But getting selected to go to this school is only the first step.  It doesn't mean you're guaranteed to graduate from the school.  You see this school is part of a reality tv show.  The students are taped all day long, and then after a certain amount of time there is a cut, half of the 100 students will be sent home based on their popularity.  Rosie has hovered up in the 90s as she's kind of kept to herself mostly and just tried to learn all that she can. Then one day she meets a boy named Linus, who is one of the people who work at the school.  And while at first he is kind of rude to her, as you normally see the staff treating the ones they think are being treated special, he gives her ideas on how to get her number into the top 50 so that she can stay.  She doesn't want to go home.  Her stepfather is a not so great guy.  And her mother works all the time to support him and her sister.  Going to Forge School is also all that kept her off the path of going to jail.  So she starts trying the suggestions that Linus gave her.  Beginning with making some friends, Burnham and Janice are the first two.  And they even help her try a couple things that increase her standing. One of Linus's suggestions is to meet him and kiss him.  Which she even gives into that in an emotional fit the night of the final numbers.

She makes it through the cuts, but then begins to wonder what is actually going on at this school.  They take pills to sleep for 12 straight hours through the night, as it is said they need that rest for all the creative things they do throughout the day.  But Rosie misses the night, so she stops taking the pill.  And sneaks out of her sleep shell to go see the rain, and to just see the night.  But she sees things that make her wonder what is really going on, as well as what she hears.  The doctors and dean are doing things called Seeding and Mining, and it happens when the students are asleep.  Rosie even notices a spot on her arm where it is obvious there was an IV at some point that she doesn't remember.  As she sets up her project to place cameras around the school in order to look for "ghosts" she is actually searching to find out what is really going on.  And she sees things, but then her camera doesn't seem to have the evidence in the morning.  As her friends try to help without knowing maybe what they're helping with, they also put themselves in danger.  The mining has to do with taking their dreams, and the seeding with giving them to other people.  But Rosie is unsure from all that she finds if this is a good or bad thing, it just seems if it is kept secret, then it must be sinister.

I liked the storyline, and the way that all of the secrets were found was definitely exciting.  We are kept almost guessing throughout the whole book on whether her friends are really doing things to help her, or are they in on the secrets that Rosie if finding.  And this includes Linus.  At times he seems like a guy who is really in love with her, her only friend.  But other times he seems as if maybe he is leading her to some things, and keeping her away from others by the instructions of the Dean.  And when one of her friends gets critically injured while helping her, things take a turn for the worse, or maybe it all just keeps adding up and more and more things happen.

Really the story was full of all kinds of exciting things, and lots of points that made you have to keep reading so that you could find out if what Rosie thought was going to turn out to be true, and if it did, was it for the good or the bad.  A very interesting dystopian story.  I have to say I was left wondering things about when they mined the dreams, and if they would ever be able to use them to do what they'd really hoped would happen some day.  Or what the Dean and Dr. Ash say they hope will happen.

Me with Caragh M. O'Brien

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