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

Vault of Dreamers  (Vault of Dreamers #1)
Author:  Caragh M. O'Brien
Publisher:  Roaring Book Press, 432 pages
Expected Publication Date:  September 16, 2014
*Received ARC from publisher via NetGalley

From Goodreads:
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 edges 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.

Review:

Disturbing, dark, unsettling, and creepy, Vault of Dreamers hooked me from the beginning with the mystery of what's happening at The Forge School.  It's such a strange place, an art school that believes the best way for students to reach their potential is to be on camera 24/7 so it's a popular reality TV show.  But another part of reaching their potential is that they have to sleep twelve hours in a coffin like pod and in order to sleep they take a pill.  Rosie skips her pill one night, stays awake, and finds out that certain people at the school are doing something to the students at night while they sleep.  Yeah, super creepy.  So she keeps staying awake and investigating, with the help of Linus, a seventeen year old staff member at the school.  The cameras obviously make this difficult.

I liked Rosie.  She's poor and this school is the only way for her to improve her circumstances.  Which is the only reason it's even plausible that she stays at school as things go from bad to absolutely horrific.  She should just leave, but of course she doesn't.  This is one of those books where the suspense just keeps building and building and Rosie makes such dumb decisions that I started getting frustrated.  You know those movies where you're screaming at the TV for the person to not go out in the woods alone when there's a homicidal maniac on the loose?  Yeah, it's like that.  

And then there's a certain point where you wonder what's actually happening as you find out that Rosie may not be a reliable narrator.  I was riveted, I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.  

And then it ends.  In a huge cliffhanger.  And to be honest, I'm not sure exactly what happened in those last paragraphs, it was a bit confusing.  Other than the ending, I loved it and I can't wait to find out what happens next (By the way, if anyone has read this and has an opinion regarding what happened at the end, e-mail me!)

Posted by:  Pam