Standout Book: Dream Things True

Hello, everyone! This week is going to be a bit different than my normal weekly posts, but I think you will like it. I recently read the novel Dream Things True by Marie Marquardt, and on my normal posting schedule, I wouldn't have been able to share about this book until a much later date, well over a month from now. I felt that this was such an important and topical issue I wanted to spread the word about this phenomenal and impactful read now. While the issues the book confronts will most definitely not get resolved before it would have gotten posted, I think it is important to share the messages of empathy and understanding as loud and as soon as possible. I also wanted to give this book a chance to be spotlighted without other books in the article. These Standout Book articles will be less common as I've started tagging my five star reviews with Standout Book within the original article. If you want a list of five star book containing articles you can click on the sidebar and then the dropdown menu labels. 

Dream Things True by Marie Marwuardt 
Overview: This is a story that transcends anything a summary or details about plots or themes could say. There is no way to truly understand the magic of this book without having read it yourself. It achieves the full meaning of what a powerful book is supposed to do by crafting a beautiful story that breads empathy in anyone who reads it. It is the story of Alma, an intelligent, promising young woman who was brought to the United States as a young child from Mexico, and Evan a wealthy country club, preppy southern boy who are thrown together by random circumstances one day. Held together by a love for each other, Evan and Alma work together to fight the horrible immigration issues that comes to threaten Alma's family and friends. As Evan's eyes are opened to the harsh realities that Alma faces, so are the readers. This is a powerful story that humanizes an issue so prevalent in the news today. Overall: 5 (Is there a higher score?)

Characters: 5 Each character has a purpose and is unique. Alma represents the underprivileged immigrant community on one side of town while Evan represents the other, blissfully wrapped up in their country club life only brought together at the local public school. When their worlds mesh, they both grow to understand each other and the very different backgrounds they come from. In Alma's family, there is her father who brought them to America for a better life and runs a lawn service that works on Evan's lawn and her brother, star soccer player and Evan's teammate who was working toward college before getting caught up in the immigration issues. On Evan's side there's Whit his cousin and son of Georgia's conservative senator who struggles with addiction to cope with his family's strict, closed door policy.

Plot: 5 The path this story takes is quite compelling and entertaining. There were interesting twists that I didn't see coming, and the plot kept its integrity the entire time.

Writing: 5 I was blown away by the writing. The execution of using a duel POV in third person was amazing, a tool that is rarely successful. I was also blown away by how unique each POV was, and how accurate the portrayal of the two separate worlds were. This is definitely a book everyone needs to read as it carries such substance and importance to breeding empathy about an issue that is often desensitized.

This book is spotlighted in my article "The Ultimate Summer Reading List (For Summer or Whenever)" If you want to see others that made that list you can check it out here: http://www.readingwritingandme.com/2017/07/the-ultimate-reading-list-for-summer-or.html

If you enjoyed this article please read our others and share it with your friends. You can also follow us on Instagram (@readingwritingandme), Twitter (@readwriteandme), and Facebook. To share your thoughts/ reading suggestions you can post a comment or email me at readingwritingandme@gmail.com