Review: Todd the Dreamer by Bonnie Rozanski

Title: Todd the Dreamer

Author: Bonnie Rozanski

Genre: Paranormal

Published: November 10th 2010 by Amazon Digital Services

Blurb:

“Lucid dreaming (def): The rare state in which a dreamer knows it’s a dream.
In lucid dreams, you can change the storyline to whatever you want.
- Like to fly over the rooftops? Go right ahead.
- Kill off your demanding boss? Do so with impunity.
- Enjoy awe-inspiring sex with a gorgeous someone who in real life doesn’t even know you exist? Do I even need to ask?
Todd Goldman is an ordinary young man. He has tried his hand at various low-level jobs and succeeded at nothing. All his life, he has let life lead him, not the other way around…until the day he answers an advertisement for a sleep lab, and enrolls in a study of lucid dreams.
Todd finds he is a quick study at lucidity, and increasingly learns to control the content of his dreams. In contrast, unfortunately, his life is an uncontrollable mess. He fights with his girl friend and struggles to gain some independence from his parents. He loses his day job. The beautiful technician at the sleep lab thinks he’s a jerk.
However, in his lucid dreams, and in the out-of-body experiences that follow, Todd is able to create the life he wants, a situation so seductive that his dreams begin to take over his life.
But then, of course, what is the reader to believe? Is Todd indeed out-of-body despite the doctors’ insistence it is just an unusual dream? Is the chief researcher truly willing to forfeit Todd’s life if it means getting good pictures of his brain? And do the sleep doctors in fact plan to lock him away in a psychiatric ward?
Both a fast-paced psychological thriller with a solid grounding in science and a darkly comic novel with a cast of exuberant, funny characters, TODD THE DREAMER is, above all, a story of where reality ends and dreams begin.”

*I was given my copy in exchange for a honest review*

Todd the Dreamer was unlike anything I had expected. I have to admit that at first, I had a few problems warming up with the story as the were many medical terms concerning the brain, sleep and stuff like that which gave me as someone whose native language is not English a hard time. But I can be pretty persistent when it comes to books and I seldomly stop reading one once I´ve started. It would have been a shame If I had stopped reading Todd the Dreamer.

Todd, the main character is a loser. I don´t know how to put it in a different way. He´s not good looking, working in a library, he´s together with his high school girlfriend more out of  habit than love and his family is a nightmare. To finance the upcoming wedding, he decides to take a job in a sleep lab, which seems like the perfect thing for him, as sleeping is the only thing he is really good at (or so he thinks).

In the sleep lab, he meets Mary Beth, a beautiful technician he falls in love or lust with, but has absolutly no interest in him.

As it turns out, Todd is really one of the best study subjects for lucid dreaming and the doctors are beyond excited about the results. But the more time he spends in the sleep lab, the more his life, day job and relationship start to get out of control.

I really enjoyed the characters in Todd the Dreamer, they were far from what I´m used to. I actually felt sorry for Todd from time to time while reading the story.

Todd the Dreamer is more then a story about dreaming and reality. While I found the dream episodes very interesting (especially as psychology student), it was Todd´s real life that fascinated me the most. The story is fast-paced, full of surprises and far from ordinary. I would have enjoyed it even more if it weren´t for thr ( for me at least) slow beginning.

Todd the Dreamer gets solid 3 and a half stars from me.