Wakeworld (A Book of the Between)

Wakeworld is Kerry Schafer’s newest installment of her Between series. It follows Vivian, a dreamshifter, and her lover Zee, a warrior, as they search for a key and some dreamspheres. What these things do were not really detailed in the book through exposition. The narrative assumed the reader had read the first book in the series, and wasn’t just picking up Wakeworld to read on its own, so the story was a little difficult to follow.

The book’s setting and descriptiveness were on point, but Shafer’s characters were a bit flat. The dream world and the creatures in it were explained in extreme detail. I could see the fantastical landscape Shafer had imagined very clearly. Had I read the first book, Between, I probably would have had a better idea of what Vivian’s personality was like and would have better been able to apply it to the situations she faced in Wakeworld. While Vivian and Zee were lovers, I felt like they lacked chemistry. Before picking up Wakeworld, readers should probably check out Between first for a crash course on Shafer’s imagination.