Dreaming Anastasia

Title: Dreaming Anastasia

Author: Joy Preble

Year of Publication: 2009

Official Website

Synopsis: What really happened to Anastasia Romanov?

Anastasia Romanov thought she would never feel more alone than when the gunfire started and her family began to fall around her. Surely the bullets would come for her next. But they didn't. Instead, two gnarled old hands reached for her. When she wakes up she discovers that she is in the ancient hut of the witch Baba Yaga, and that some things are worse than being dead.

In modern-day Chicago, Anne doesn't know much about Russian history. She is more concerned about getting into a good college—until the dreams start. She is somewhere else. She is someone else. And she is sharing a small room with a very old woman. The vivid dreams startle her, but not until a handsome stranger offers to explain them does she realize her life is going to change forever. She is the only one who can save Anastasia. But, Anastasia is having her own dreams…

STEPH SAID

Rating: 

Review:

*This review contains spoilers*

When I read the plot of this story, I was immediately in love with it. I thought I was going to read a story worthy of five stars. While reading this book I thought I’d give it two stars, because it isn’t as great as it sounds.

It turns out Anastasia is kind of suspended in time, thanks to an enchantment, waiting to be saved. An organization run by a man nameded Viktor, was created for the task of saving Anastasia. The members of the organization will also be suspended in time, not getting old and having magical powers, until they save Anastasia. The problem is that Viktor decides to never save Anastasia and live young forever. But this is threatened by Anne, who has the power, in her blood, to save Anastasia.

I started to feel this book was going south when Anne, after bumping into a total stranger a few times (three to be exact), goes full out accusing him of following her. I mean he was, but bumping into a guy three times, two of which were school related, and the third one was at the teens' hangout place, is not a big deal and definitely doesn’t prove someone’s a stalker. She said Ethan looked like a psycho, so she shouldn’t have confronted him. I guess the author wanted things to move along and wrote Anne confronting the guy instead of letting her see what would happen.

Something that made me like the book less was Anastasia’s journal entries. They were a total spoiler of things to come. For example, in one of her entries, Anastasia explains that Viktor is her half-brother (which I already suspected). Later, Anne and Ethan discover this truth and the author tries to present it like a big plot twist. I was bored, because I already knew it, of course.

But none of this made me give this book half a star. It was its ending, the last chapters.

After much trouble Anne and Ethan made it to Baba Yaga’s woods and found Anastasia in the hut. Outside the hut were three horses, which were the only way out of the woods. There were three humans and three horses, it was perfect. Except that Anastasia and Anne decided to ride one horse and Ethan another, leaving one horse alone. What they didn’t know was that Viktor had entered the woods too. Viktor, then, used the third horse to come to our world. Again, the author is writing things that will make the story move faster but that make no sense.

The four of them arrived at this world, and Baba Yaga came with them. She started destroying buildings demanding Romanov blood. Turns out that, according to the enchantment, she needed to have a Romanov with her at all times. Viktor most probably knew that. To make things worse, Anne’s mother died crushed by one of the buildings destroyed by Baba Yaga. Viktor, seeing all of the destruction, decided to take Anastasia’s place and went with Baba Yaga. This infuriated me for many reasons. First, all of these could’ve been prevented if Ethan, Anne and Anastasia each took a horse. That way Viktor would’ve stayed behind and Baba Yaga would have never left the woods. Second, what Viktor did is totally out of character. He was willing to abandon Anastasia and kill Anne to stay young eternally. And now, all of a sudden, he is giving his life for Anastasia’s? Not real.

After all this hardship I thought: “Well, at least Anastasia is alive and well.” Wrong again. Right in that instant Anastasia said she wanted to die and reunite with her family. I totally understand that, but this means that all the things in this book are for nothing, or well nothing good at least. I mean Anastasia died, Anne’s mother died. All Anne got from it was a boyfriend and powers, which she could have gotten without all this Anastasia mess. Anastasia is the only one that got a happy ending. I’m happy about her, but she is not the protagonist in this story. I’m not against sad endings, but this one feels forced. It feels like the author tried to give a real reason for everything that was going to happen (like Viktor changing because of all the destruction he witnessed) but, for me, it didn’t worked.

This book was a total waste of time; not worth it. I give it a half star because of the Romanov background story and that wasn’t even created by the author. I’m definitely not reading the sequel(s).