The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters {Review & Giveaway}

The Cure for Dreaming
by Cat Winters
♦publisher: Amulet Books
♦release date: October 14th, 2014
♦hardcover, 368 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦stand-alone
♦source: ALA

Olivia Mead is a headstrong, independent girl—a suffragist—in an age that prefers its girls to be docile. It’s 1900 in Oregon, and Olivia’s father, concerned that she’s headed for trouble, convinces a stage mesmerist to try to hypnotize the rebellion out of her. But the hypnotist, an intriguing young man named Henri Reverie, gives her a terrible gift instead: she’s able to see people’s true natures, manifesting as visions of darkness and goodness, while also unable to speak her true thoughts out loud. These supernatural challenges only make Olivia more determined to speak her mind, and so she’s drawn into a dangerous relationship with the hypnotist and his mysterious motives, all while secretly fighting for the rights of women. Winters breathes new life into history once again with an atmospheric, vividly real story, including archival photos and art from the period throughout.

Review: For the second time, Cat Winters has astounded me with her breathtaking, spine-chilling writing, her ability to create a cast full of engaging characters, and her absolute death grip of a grasp on how to make a reader feel like they’ve been plopped right down into important moments in history.  In The Cure for Dreaming, she completely immerses us into the chaos and frustrations of the woman’s suffrage movement through the eyes of a young woman named Olivia.  The story opens on Halloween night, Olivia’s birthday, and she and her friends are attending a show where gifted hypnotist Henrie Reverie is about to give her an amazing mystical experience and make her the talk of the town.   At home, Olivia is in constant battle with her backward-thinking father, a horrible man who thinks woman are only good for serving their husbands and takes a little too much pleasure in the pain he inflicts as a dentist. 

What most impresses me is how terrifying this story is. In an effort to get his “wild daughter” under control, Olivia’s father hires Henrie to hypnotize her into “seeing the world the way it truly is” and the shock of what that means sinks in when she first opens her eyes and sees her father as a gaunt, red-eyed, long-fanged beast.  She sees the cruelty in people as a monstrous manifestation. She envisions downtrodden women as so drained of life you can see right through them.  It gives the story an incredibly chilling paranormal feel without anything but a psychological manipulation actually happening! Brilliantly done!
While her new way of seeing things scares her beyond words, Olivia also becomes an even stronger woman because of it.  I loved the part she played in the suffrage movement, I loved the twisting and unpredictable, not-so-much love story, but attraction and fascination that Henrie and Olivia had toward each other.  And I love that at the end, she is standing strong, following no one’s influence but her own.

So much to recommend about this addictive, mesmerizing, psychological horror story. Read it. For those of you that loved In the Shadow of Blackbirds, I dare say this was even more captivating. 

Find Cat Winters online:  Website  •  Twitter  •  Facebook

Purchase the book: BN.com  •  BookDepository  •  Indiebound

Halloween Giveaway!!

This book makes such a perfect Halloween read, I want to get it into the hands of one lucky reader by Halloween night!

Contest ends 10/27/14---Just a quick one! 

US addresses only please.
*OK, not sure why my rafflecopter was being nutty before, but it appears to be working now! Sorry about that!*

a Rafflecopter giveaway