A Goodreads user asked Sarah Noffke:

What inspired you to write Awoken?

Sarah Noffke Thanks for the question, Dominic! The idea for Awoken came to me on a spring afternoon. I knew I wanted to write a YA series, but I needed it to be a new idea. Something with a unique world that I hadn't thought had been done yet. I've ALWAYS been fascinated by the strangeness of dreams. And I knew that dreaming (REM sleep) is crucial for healthy functioning. So I came up with the idea of a villain who stole people's ability to dream therefore causing them to have all sorts of problems and hallucinate. After I came up with Zhuang, the evil villain, everything else started to fall into place.

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