Gone

Gr 9-Up Janie Hannagan is inadvertently and unwillingly drawn into other people's dreams and nightmares. In "Fade" (S & S, 2009), she uses her unique abilities to apprehend criminals. In contrast, "Gone" is a more personal story about Janie's attempts to come to terms with her troubled family and with the ways that dream catching will affect the rest of her life. Faced with an alcoholic and irresponsible mother, the teen finds some solace in her relationship with her boyfriend but then, unexpectedly, the father she's never known enters her life. Henry Feingold is suffering from a mysterious brain disorder. When Janie is drawn into his unconscious and continuous nightmare, she discovers that he, too, is a dream catcher, and she struggles to use her power to help him find release. As she finds out more about him, Janie faces a choiceuse her abilities for the benefit of others and become blind and crippled in her '20s like her mentor, or isolate herself from other human beings, as her father did, to avoid entering their dreams. This is a fast-paced read, written in flashbacks and sentence fragments that suggest the dream state. Janie is a strong, appealing character, and the depictions of her emotional turmoil and her painful dilemma are absolutely believable. This book would make an interesting choice for a book-discussion group. However, it is necessary to have read "Wake" and "Fade" to understand everything that is occurring."Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ" Copyright 2010 Media Source Inc.