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Shadow Dream Girl
Ian's life is a living hell... or at least it feels like it. His dead-end job has him living the same series of days over and over again, made worse by his crippling narcolepsy. His well-meaning therapist can't reach him, his co-worker couldn't care less what happens to him, and he is haunted by recurring, fiery nightmares.
One day, a chance encounter with a young woman gives Ian the hope that his life can be given a reprieve. But why does she seem so familiar? How can she be so perfect? And why does she appear in his life now, of all times?
Shadow Dream Girl is an intense, raw, and emotional debut novel by Bennett White that seamlessly blends surreal, psychological horror with cutting dialog and film savvy.
One day, a chance encounter with a young woman gives Ian the hope that his life can be given a reprieve. But why does she seem so familiar? How can she be so perfect? And why does she appear in his life now, of all times?
Shadow Dream Girl is an intense, raw, and emotional debut novel by Bennett White that seamlessly blends surreal, psychological horror with cutting dialog and film savvy.
- GenresHorror
251 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 13, 2024
9 people are currently reading
142 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 2, 2024
It’s always interesting when a YouTuber releases a book, especially when they review media. Just because you think you know how to break a story down doesn’t mean you know how to build one. Too many content creators will just churn out a book in one draft and release it, hoping their fanbase doesn’t care about quality and will just fork over some cash. But Bennett White, also known online as Bennett the Sage (host of Anime Abandon), didn’t do that.
In White’s case, he provides a story that seems harmless at first to get your guard down, only to have you grasping at every word by the ending chapters because god dammit, you NEED to know exactly how this ends!
Shadow Dream Girl is about Ian. Ian's life is hell, the kind that would make Jean Paul Sartre offer a cookie and a hug. Stuck in a dead end job with customers he can barely stand, just to go home to pass out in an empty apartment all alone, Ian feels trapped in a dismal life that he doesn’t know how to navigate out of. Ian's life is so boring that he loses track of what month it is, stuck in a worsening spiral of depression, narcolepsy, and fervent self-loathing. And all that changes when fate tosses him a bone as a magnetic redhead walks into the movie rental store Ian works at and starts to change his life... but not for the better.
As a character, Ian is something of an acquired taste. He puts the “pathetic” in “sympathetic”, but he’s not a bad person. He’s just someone with no real direction or drive in life, as if he’s waiting for someone to magically pull him out of his funk. He lives alone in a small apartment. He works in the dying industry of DVD rentals. He has no love life to speak of and even he knows he’s undesirable. He’s somewhat relatable in this way, since I think we’ve all hit that low point where we’re tired of trying and we just need someone to give us a helping hand. But sometimes, as in Ian’s case, that help never arrives.
Surrounding Ian is a small, but thoughtfully crafted set of characters that are all used effectively. Stan is Ian’s movie-loving coworker, something of a movie snob, but very much a realist. The “Brians” are two friendly slackers who laugh and smile a lot, even though they don’t know the alphabet well enough to put DVDs back in order. Luke is a well-meaning, but impatient psychiatrist that Luke sees for his narcolepsy, and chats with about his depression. All these characters are fantastic because in a short amount of time, they each get enough definition to stand on their own AND they are used as reflections of Ian’s life. Stan likes his job and even though it’s a dead end job, he shows that it doesn’t have to be a prison sentence. The Brians live in squalor and should be miserable, but they aren’t. They’re a kind of happy that Ian both can’t understand and can’t achieve without confronting himself. Luke is reality staring Ian in the face, ready with answers that he can’t spell out. Ian has to reach those solutions by himself for them to mean anything.
And then there’s Lisa.
Lisa is the perfect girl, in Ian’s eyes. She’s a beautiful redhead, she makes the first move, she’s open about watching porn, she’s bisexual, and most importantly, without much effort on his part, she thinks Ian is cute. She’s too good to be too. Suspiciously too good to be true. It also doesn’t help that this fiery redhead gets associated with literal fire more than once. She’s where a lot of the plot really starts to turn. And oh man, when you find out what she’s really about…
The book is described as a psychological horror, and it fits as one, but it takes a while for it to build to that point. So much so that for a long while, I was going to claim the book was mislabeled. You’re not gonna get some Evil Within vibes right off the bat, but if you’re patient, the end of the book will have you at the edge of your seat. It’s a lot of setup, but when the reveals start hitting one after the other, you’ll be saying, “Oh, that makes sense,” every few pages.
The town Ian lives in doesn’t have a lot of definition, so the whole place feels like it’s encompassed by a fog, just outside of Ian’s reach. Everything the fog touches is muted. Normally, this would be a problem since you’d want a world to feel lived in, even without the protagonist. However, the psychological aspect of the story shines here, driving home how isolated Ian is. Compounded with his repetitive life, the world should feel dreary. It’s like Silent Hill, but without the monsters.
This is definitely an above average debut novel. A lot of care and attention went into shaping the characters and carving out the plot in just the right way. It even has a verbose lexicon sprinkled throughout the prose, done in such a way that doesn’t sound like the author whipped out a thesaurus for only a chapter or two.
However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out some of the issues of the book, minor as they are. There are some formatting issues with misaligned indentations, and some sloppy prose now and then. At one point, a sentence reads, “He grabbed his shoulders and shoved,” where “he” and “his” refer to two different people. It isn’t a huge or prevalent problem, but it is a stumble.
And while I didn’t see this as a mistake, some people might be turned off by how long it takes for the plot to get going. Shadow Dream Girl required a lot of setup, showing us Ian’s routines for the first quarter of the book when things really start to escalate. Some people might want something with a faster pace, but I would argue that all the setup is necessary for the payoff in the climax.
In conclusion, this is a daring book. It breaks a few writing conventions that I don’t want to spoil, but the way White is able to utilize repetition and make Ian’s tedium palpable was a high risk/high reward stylistic choice. It reads like it started as a tongue-in-cheek love letter to retail workers, but it ended in a surprisingly gripping adventure, one I’m damn glad I took.
This book gets an 8/10 from me.
In White’s case, he provides a story that seems harmless at first to get your guard down, only to have you grasping at every word by the ending chapters because god dammit, you NEED to know exactly how this ends!
Shadow Dream Girl is about Ian. Ian's life is hell, the kind that would make Jean Paul Sartre offer a cookie and a hug. Stuck in a dead end job with customers he can barely stand, just to go home to pass out in an empty apartment all alone, Ian feels trapped in a dismal life that he doesn’t know how to navigate out of. Ian's life is so boring that he loses track of what month it is, stuck in a worsening spiral of depression, narcolepsy, and fervent self-loathing. And all that changes when fate tosses him a bone as a magnetic redhead walks into the movie rental store Ian works at and starts to change his life... but not for the better.
As a character, Ian is something of an acquired taste. He puts the “pathetic” in “sympathetic”, but he’s not a bad person. He’s just someone with no real direction or drive in life, as if he’s waiting for someone to magically pull him out of his funk. He lives alone in a small apartment. He works in the dying industry of DVD rentals. He has no love life to speak of and even he knows he’s undesirable. He’s somewhat relatable in this way, since I think we’ve all hit that low point where we’re tired of trying and we just need someone to give us a helping hand. But sometimes, as in Ian’s case, that help never arrives.
Surrounding Ian is a small, but thoughtfully crafted set of characters that are all used effectively. Stan is Ian’s movie-loving coworker, something of a movie snob, but very much a realist. The “Brians” are two friendly slackers who laugh and smile a lot, even though they don’t know the alphabet well enough to put DVDs back in order. Luke is a well-meaning, but impatient psychiatrist that Luke sees for his narcolepsy, and chats with about his depression. All these characters are fantastic because in a short amount of time, they each get enough definition to stand on their own AND they are used as reflections of Ian’s life. Stan likes his job and even though it’s a dead end job, he shows that it doesn’t have to be a prison sentence. The Brians live in squalor and should be miserable, but they aren’t. They’re a kind of happy that Ian both can’t understand and can’t achieve without confronting himself. Luke is reality staring Ian in the face, ready with answers that he can’t spell out. Ian has to reach those solutions by himself for them to mean anything.
And then there’s Lisa.
Lisa is the perfect girl, in Ian’s eyes. She’s a beautiful redhead, she makes the first move, she’s open about watching porn, she’s bisexual, and most importantly, without much effort on his part, she thinks Ian is cute. She’s too good to be too. Suspiciously too good to be true. It also doesn’t help that this fiery redhead gets associated with literal fire more than once. She’s where a lot of the plot really starts to turn. And oh man, when you find out what she’s really about…
The book is described as a psychological horror, and it fits as one, but it takes a while for it to build to that point. So much so that for a long while, I was going to claim the book was mislabeled. You’re not gonna get some Evil Within vibes right off the bat, but if you’re patient, the end of the book will have you at the edge of your seat. It’s a lot of setup, but when the reveals start hitting one after the other, you’ll be saying, “Oh, that makes sense,” every few pages.
The town Ian lives in doesn’t have a lot of definition, so the whole place feels like it’s encompassed by a fog, just outside of Ian’s reach. Everything the fog touches is muted. Normally, this would be a problem since you’d want a world to feel lived in, even without the protagonist. However, the psychological aspect of the story shines here, driving home how isolated Ian is. Compounded with his repetitive life, the world should feel dreary. It’s like Silent Hill, but without the monsters.
This is definitely an above average debut novel. A lot of care and attention went into shaping the characters and carving out the plot in just the right way. It even has a verbose lexicon sprinkled throughout the prose, done in such a way that doesn’t sound like the author whipped out a thesaurus for only a chapter or two.
However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out some of the issues of the book, minor as they are. There are some formatting issues with misaligned indentations, and some sloppy prose now and then. At one point, a sentence reads, “He grabbed his shoulders and shoved,” where “he” and “his” refer to two different people. It isn’t a huge or prevalent problem, but it is a stumble.
And while I didn’t see this as a mistake, some people might be turned off by how long it takes for the plot to get going. Shadow Dream Girl required a lot of setup, showing us Ian’s routines for the first quarter of the book when things really start to escalate. Some people might want something with a faster pace, but I would argue that all the setup is necessary for the payoff in the climax.
In conclusion, this is a daring book. It breaks a few writing conventions that I don’t want to spoil, but the way White is able to utilize repetition and make Ian’s tedium palpable was a high risk/high reward stylistic choice. It reads like it started as a tongue-in-cheek love letter to retail workers, but it ended in a surprisingly gripping adventure, one I’m damn glad I took.
This book gets an 8/10 from me.
December 9, 2024
It's daunting to write a review for a book from an author mostly known for their carefully considered reviews and criticism. I can already feel their future eye critiquing this very review! So, what the heck, I'm NOT known for my carefully considered reviews and will just let it fly.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by Shadow Dream Girl, and feel that it will stick with me for some time. I wasn't expecting it to go as far into the dark as it did, or for those parts to resonate with me. While the story seemed slow at the start, being stuck in a couple of locations and with nearly all of our protagonist's mundane business described in detail, the plot soon became intriguing and the limited setting took on new meaning. Some of the structural tricks that the story plays after the facade of normalcy is dropped put a big dumb grin on my face.
The book's protagonist took awhile to grow on me, which seems to have been the point. Ian sucks. It's hard to root for him. Following him wasn't very pleasant, but it was often sadly familiar. I've been in a therapist's office, trying to run down the clock, refusing to open up to people who are trying to help me. I've been wrapped up in bad memories like barbed wire. Ian's troubles felt relatable and were a solid base on which to build up the fantastic elements of the story that reveal he is up against more than just his own crappy personality.
The dialogue is sometimes annoyingly churlish, but I don't think I'd want it any other way. Maybe I shouldn't keep trying to re-contextualize things that initially bothered me as clever artistic intent, but hear me out. The creative insults hurled by various characters would be insufferable in real life, but that's not to say it's unrealistic - these guys do exist, and I'd be hard pressed to want to hang with them, which, once again, feels like *the point*. If anything, it feels a little dated, like the films of Kevin Smith and Richard Kelly the author lists as inspirations, but I for one wouldn't want the banter around 'how does one suck a f-' removed from Donnie Darko.
A diversion - The 'Space Mutiny' name-game bit stands out for its weird complexity. On one hand, it felt patronizing to have such a familiar cultural reference served up to me. But, of course, this isn't a common cultural reference at all, Bennett just knows his audience really well. The situation that Ian faces of trying to explain to his psychiatrist why he was annoyed by this esoteric joke that he, the Brians, and hopefully the reader are in on, is relatable, yet feels odd when I try to break it down. The book relies on me having the same obscure culture references as its characters, but also the same annoyance at the overuse of these references. It's like one of those magic tricks where a magician on TV knows which card I've mentally selected from my couch.
Regarding the ending,
I'm glad I stuck with this book long enough for it to blossom into something really interesting and twisty, but I wouldn't be surprised if other readers bounce off in the first couple of chapters, where actions like taking out the trash are described in lengthy (but eloquent) detail. I don't typically seek out books about characters who are dealing with mental health crises, but this one really spoke to me as someone who has been in a bad spot.
I don't like assigning numbers to reviews, so I'll simply say read it, and give it a minute to get rolling.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by Shadow Dream Girl, and feel that it will stick with me for some time. I wasn't expecting it to go as far into the dark as it did, or for those parts to resonate with me. While the story seemed slow at the start, being stuck in a couple of locations and with nearly all of our protagonist's mundane business described in detail, the plot soon became intriguing and the limited setting took on new meaning. Some of the structural tricks that the story plays after the facade of normalcy is dropped put a big dumb grin on my face.
The book's protagonist took awhile to grow on me, which seems to have been the point. Ian sucks. It's hard to root for him. Following him wasn't very pleasant, but it was often sadly familiar. I've been in a therapist's office, trying to run down the clock, refusing to open up to people who are trying to help me. I've been wrapped up in bad memories like barbed wire. Ian's troubles felt relatable and were a solid base on which to build up the fantastic elements of the story that reveal he is up against more than just his own crappy personality.
The dialogue is sometimes annoyingly churlish, but I don't think I'd want it any other way. Maybe I shouldn't keep trying to re-contextualize things that initially bothered me as clever artistic intent, but hear me out. The creative insults hurled by various characters would be insufferable in real life, but that's not to say it's unrealistic - these guys do exist, and I'd be hard pressed to want to hang with them, which, once again, feels like *the point*. If anything, it feels a little dated, like the films of Kevin Smith and Richard Kelly the author lists as inspirations, but I for one wouldn't want the banter around 'how does one suck a f-' removed from Donnie Darko.
A diversion - The 'Space Mutiny' name-game bit stands out for its weird complexity. On one hand, it felt patronizing to have such a familiar cultural reference served up to me. But, of course, this isn't a common cultural reference at all, Bennett just knows his audience really well. The situation that Ian faces of trying to explain to his psychiatrist why he was annoyed by this esoteric joke that he, the Brians, and hopefully the reader are in on, is relatable, yet feels odd when I try to break it down. The book relies on me having the same obscure culture references as its characters, but also the same annoyance at the overuse of these references. It's like one of those magic tricks where a magician on TV knows which card I've mentally selected from my couch.
Regarding the ending,
I'm glad I stuck with this book long enough for it to blossom into something really interesting and twisty, but I wouldn't be surprised if other readers bounce off in the first couple of chapters, where actions like taking out the trash are described in lengthy (but eloquent) detail. I don't typically seek out books about characters who are dealing with mental health crises, but this one really spoke to me as someone who has been in a bad spot.
I don't like assigning numbers to reviews, so I'll simply say read it, and give it a minute to get rolling.
January 8, 2025
Ian is lost, depressed, anxious, angry, bored, narcoleptic, and filled with regret for what he did and didn’t do. He doesn’t understand what’s the matter with him and doesn’t know what to do to get better. And then things get worse.
The last chapters of this book, when the pieces fall into place, are heart breaking and I think I’m gonna keep thinking about this story for a while.
The last chapters of this book, when the pieces fall into place, are heart breaking and I think I’m gonna keep thinking about this story for a while.
January 2, 2025
My expectations going into this book were slightly lower than I think it deserves. It's not a fun read, but it's a damn good one. I have a feeling Ian and his story will stick with me for quite some time.
March 10, 2025
A solid novel, yet I found it lacks punch, flair and innovation. The concept isn't new if you've dipped your feet into psych horror/thriller media, but its executed decently, using repetition effectively without being a chore to read. The chapters are a nice length- not too long or short, so it's easy to read.
My problems were that Ian always seems several steps behind the reader when it comes to figuring out his own situation. When everything is spelled out towards the ending, there were a few specifics regarding the 'dream girl' missing but I already had enough of a jist as to what's going on that it's not particularly thrilling to read.
Far from the: 'cutting dialouge' mentioned on the blurb, I found it quite uninspired (I.e. conversations about old movies, redoing the classic 'pineapple on pizza' debate) and the similies can be very basic (i.e. 'he felt like an animal behind glass', 'her voice sounded like birds chirping') though I think this was all clearly on purpose to hammer home the drabness of Ian's repetitive existance, so whilst technically not a point against the book because its effective at telling the story, its not very luscious or imagination inspiring to read.
My problems were that Ian always seems several steps behind the reader when it comes to figuring out his own situation. When everything is spelled out towards the ending, there were a few specifics regarding the 'dream girl' missing but I already had enough of a jist as to what's going on that it's not particularly thrilling to read.
Far from the: 'cutting dialouge' mentioned on the blurb, I found it quite uninspired (I.e. conversations about old movies, redoing the classic 'pineapple on pizza' debate) and the similies can be very basic (i.e. 'he felt like an animal behind glass', 'her voice sounded like birds chirping') though I think this was all clearly on purpose to hammer home the drabness of Ian's repetitive existance, so whilst technically not a point against the book because its effective at telling the story, its not very luscious or imagination inspiring to read.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews