Book Review: Bearly Awake by D.R. Perry
Spolier Free Summary: Bearly Awake by D.R. Perry is about Bobby Tremain and Lynn Frampton. Bobby needs to pass a test in order to stay in school. Lynn, Bobby’s instructor-selected study partner, needs Bobby to do well in order to elevate her GPA. Oh, and Bobby is a bear shifter who’s in danger of falling under a weather-related hibernation period. They’ll have to stay awake while unraveling the mystery of Bobby’s condition. I met D.R. at AwesomeCon last year. She was such a cool person to meet, I decided to try one of her books.
Character: Bobby and Lynn are typical characters in the high-school romance story area. They’re sympathetic. What I like best is the lack of the “misunderstood bad-boy” motif I hear too much about and see to much of in commercials for movies I’ll never watch. Bobby’s honestly a good, well-mannered kid. Now, this takes out some of the conflict people might like. But is it too much to ask for a likable MC these days? Some may say so. No, this book is not filled with angst, frustration, and pages of deep, brooding conflict. Honestly I think I could see this play on Nickelodeon or whatever the CW (or whatever they’re calling that channel these days). Note: This book is written in first person narrative, but it switches between the MCs.
Exposition: No more than the usually necessary amount of Exposition when working with first person narrative. Honestly, I’d say this was better than most. I only finished this book a few days ago, and I already can’t remember any expositional monologues from either MC.
World building: This world has a lot to it to be honest. I was a little disappointed I didn’t have more scope, but that probably would have meant more exposition. I certainly understood what I needed to understand, but I would have liked a bit more world building.
[image error]Image of D.R. taken from her Goodreads profile for review purposes under fair use doctrine.
Dialogue: Pretty fun in an I liked “Saved By The Bell” sort of way. The dialogue felt a lot like that to me. This book had a lot of fun “nerd” easter eggs (which were a bit undercut by the characters stating the movie or book of origin). It wasn’t very snappy or fresh, but it was realistic and flowed well.
Description: If I didn’t really notice it, I think most would say there wasn’t enough. I wasn’t lost, and the book has description, but the movie director in my head didn’t take off and start an I-MAX production either.
Overall: Honestly, if I had to use one word to describe it, I’d have to say, “solid.” It wasn’t amazing for any particular reason, but it wasn’t bad at all. I will say it was fun. I was under the impression this was a spoof on paranormal romance, but I didn’t think that at all. However, I don’t think this is the sort of paranormal romance most readers are thinking of when they use those words. I say I was “under the impression” because I thought that’s what it was when I listened to D.R. talk about it, but it’s possible I didn’t quite infer what she implied. That said, it’s not a typical PR. This felt like a sweet love story with a lot of fun. It’s cute and enjoyable.
Thanks for reading,
Matt
