The story begins with our protagonist Kane Montgomery being found half-dead next to a burned down mill with no memory as to how he ended up there.

The police suspect Kane of having stolen his father’s car, so he could then commit suicide by crashing into the mill. Kane is profiled as a suicidal teenager by the police due to the fact that Kane is the only openly gay teenager in a small, conservative town in East Amity, Connecticut. 

Kane has not only lost his memories related to the accident, but he has forgotten other aspects of his life, so much so that his own room seems unfamiliar. The most important memories he lost were related to Kane’s group of friends, called the Others, and their goal of resolving the Reveries in their town. 

Reveries are created by the over-imaginative minds of individuals, creating a world that pulls in the inhabitants of the town to enact the plot the individual has created, with specific rules that if broken have serious repercussions to those inside the Reverie. 

People in the Reveries do not remain lucid while fulfilling the role the individual has set for them. The only people who remain lucid are Kane and the Others, who have powers that manifested around the time the Reveries started appearing in their town. The Others unravel these Reveries with the goal of keeping everyone safe so that no one is killed during a Reverie.

Throughout the novel, Kane works to figure out what he has forgotten as he tries to discern what the truth is among a group of people who want to hide it from him. These groups consist of the Others, a drag queen sorceress, and a mysterious boy who gives him hints about his past, which no one else is telling him about.

Reverie by Ryan La Sala was a fun book to read. La Sala’s writing draws in his readers to the imaginative world he has created. I enjoyed Kane as a character, but  I would often become frustrated when Kane would ignore the warnings from the people around him and get into serious danger as a result. Though I understand the author needed Kane to make some bad decisions to further the plot, I still disliked this aspect of the book. Overall, I would score Reverie 4 out of 5 stars as I thoroughly enjoyed reading Kane’s dialogue with the other characters as he interacts in the fantastical world he has forgotten.