Lucid by Ron Bass and Adrienne Stoltz Audiobook Review

Lucid by Ron Bass, Adrienne Stoltz audiobook coverBook: Lucid by Ron Bass, Adrienne Stoltz, Penguin Audio, Oct. 2, 2012

Book Info: YA mystery, Audiobook received for review from Penguin Audio. Running time: 9 hrs, 46 mins. Read by: Jessica DiCicco and Emma Galvin

Rating: 4 / 5 Stars

More Info: Goodreads | Audible | Amazon | IndieBound

Lucid is the brainchild of veteran screenwriting team Adrienne Stoltz and Ron Bass, and it’s quite a crazy reading experience. You know when you go to see psychological thrillers at the movies, and you leave and your mind is blown and you are maybe more than a little confused? That’s how I felt about Lucid. I didn’t always understand what was going on but I was completely fascinated. I’m still processing this one.

This is the kind of book you want to experience with an open mind, without knowing all the twists to it, so I’m certainly not going to spoil it for you. What you need to know is Lucid is a dual POV mystery about two girls who dream each other’s lives every night. It’s the kind of book where you don’t know if you can trust the narrator or not so it’s pretty unsettling.

There are two protagonists in Lucid, and they each have their own pseudo love triangle. Maggie lives in NYC with her mother and sister. She’s very independent and dreams of making it big as an actress, and she helps take care of her little sister due to her mom’s hectic job. Sloane, meanwhile, lives in Mystic, Connecticut and has a big family and close friends. She’s very studious and wants to attend college at Columbia. Maggie leads a more glamorous life, and is kind of a unique YA character, while Sloane’s life was more familiar to me. Both girls lead interesting lives and I was caught up in both of their stories.

One of the interesting things to me is that both girls know about the dreams and question their sanity, wondering which girl is the dream and which is real. They even think about the other girl’s life and comment on things that have occurred in their own lives. As the reader I did not know whom to trust and wondered who was driving this crazy train. It’s an interesting puzzle to try to solve especially when there are several game changers. The authors do a great job with giving strong voices to the two protagonists and making them have distinct personalities. I cared about both girls and worried about how things would turn out for them.

With the authors’ screenwriting background it’s no surprise that it reads so much like a well-crafted mystery thriller. I’m not smart enough to pick up on all the clues to figure it all out, but after I finished the book I went back and listened to the last few chapters and the beginning over again. This is one book I wish I read in a read-along or book club because it would be great to talk it over with someone to make sense of it all. It starts to make you doubt your own existence after awhile!

To line up with the dual narrative of the book, the audiobook also has two narrators.  The readers do an outstanding job getting to the heart of their characters, something especially challenging when their stories are so intertwined. Jessica DiCicco reads the Maggie character, and I had to look her up because her voice is so familiar to me. (She is a voice actress famous for Adventure Time, and many other animated shows) She gives Maggie a lot of layers and I was impressed with her performance. Emma Galvin reads the more low-key Sloane character and also delivers a well-nuanced performance. Their voices are different from each other but their style meshes well.

The only thing I wasn’t too enamored of is the ending. I was so anxious to get to the end to see the big reveal and I have to say it was kind of anti-climactic. The third act of the book started getting very confusing, and like I said I had to re-listen to parts of it. The ending does have that air of mystery and I think readers are left to formulate their own conclusion. Even though I was a little under-whelmed with the ending, I thought the story was really creative and original, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Bass & Stoltz have up their sleeve next.

Ornament

9 thoughts on “Lucid by Ron Bass and Adrienne Stoltz Audiobook Review

  1. BermudaOnion says:

    That sounds rather fascinating. When I was a kid, I used to wonder if I was really alive or if I was someone else’s dream. Yeah, I was a weird kid.

  2. kay says:

    I had heard very little about this book, but your reviews makes me want to read it a.s.a.p. I love to have my mind blown, and as someone who constantly remembers her dreams, I love when fiction explores anything related to them.

  3. fishgirl182 says:

    so glad you liked this one, lucy. i haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet but it sounds trippy and kind of creepy – right up my alley! i love things involving dreams so i am really excited to read it. thanks for the review!

  4. I am definitely wanting to check this out based on this review! 🙂

  5. veganyanerds says:

    This sounds really intriguing but it’s such a shame about the ending! Glad to hear this is another good audio book for me to look out for 🙂

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  7. shelleyrae @ Book'd Out says:

    The premise sounds interesting, thanks for sharing your review!

  8. Awesome review, Lucy! I appreciate your talking about the audiobook’s merits, too–I’ve been doing a lot of audio recently (there’s just so little time to sit down with a book!) so I’ll have to add this rec to the list. 🙂

  9. bookgoonie says:

    You’ve got me very intrigued. Screenwriters writing books seem to be a trend. The Quarantine duo are screenwriters also. I bet it does add to the thriller-ness.

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