Review:
From No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller Olivie Blake comes Dreamland, a hauntingly seductive gothic mystery where the glitz of Los Angeles collides with the dark shadows of the Hollywood elite.
Fame makes monsters of us all . . .
Summer winds sweep a feverish energy through Los Angeles as girls are found murdered. Yet despite wildfire warnings and the rising body count, Anya Morris finds her mind elsewhere. Her Hollywood break fell through – and after losing out, she’s ready to risk it all.
Enter actor William de Witt, an aging icon with a cryptic bargain. If Anya spends time with his son Jude, a man sequestered by mysterious health issues, William will grant her access to Hollywood’s inner circles. Yet within the de Witt estate, the air is heavy with old blood and unspoken secrets.
Drawn to Jude’s dark magnetism, Anya wonders if the house is cursed or if Jude is touched by the occult. How far will the elite go to secure their fame? And as the city burns, could Anya also sell her soul to achieve her dreams?
Review:
I’m still not sure what I just read.
I often say I would read Olivie Blake’s shopping list. This wasn’t that, but it did feel like a messy fever dream in a stylistically gripping way.
The author’s note said Olivie’s agent requested a rom-com about doo-flying and this is somehow what she got. That made me laugh.
A summer of murders. An aspiring young actress with a complicated relationship with her Filipino mother.
An opportunity to get into the industry when she’s asked to babysit the adult son of a Hollywood star who she saw get killed by a bus and then get up and run away.
This is most similar to Girl Dinner. It is hyper critical and satirical. A commentary on the film industry and privileged prestige.
The main character, Anya, is problematic and messy. She is willing to do anything to get IN. Derogate herself, endanger herself, punish herself. It is hard to follow someone with barely a moral compass and a self-interested attitude that is fuelled by ambition.
We could create our realities ourselves; we spun them into being with thoughts and words and deeds, and once they became part of the fabric of our collective truth, she couldn’t rip out the stitching.
Anya wrestles with her heritage. Should she be proud or ashamed? She doesn’t feel entirely Filipino or white and feels alienated by both.
She code-switches effortlessly. This was one of the reasons I never felt truly connected: who is Anya except someone able to change personalities like a jacket?
I wouldn’t call this is a romance. It’s dark and twisted and weird.
Maybe if I knew why he did what he did, I could fix him. I could make him domestic, docile, demure, hardly demonic at all.
The writing was stream-of-consciousness. Expect tangents galore and lots of circling back. It worked for my neurodivergent brain, but I can see people bouncing off it.To add an even more meta element, Blake breaks the medium with scripts that blur the line of fiction and reality.
You’ll always get something unique with Olivie Blake and I love that she keeps me on my toes and eager for more.
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