Dream State
By Eric Puchner

This is Oprah's latest book club pick, and watching her podcast episode which featured the author, it was interesting to see the effect her gushing about the charms of this book had on him. He appeared a little baffled about it's reception. I thought, what a humble guy. To be plucked from relative obscurity and your book to be lauded by someone with the platform to propel your career into orbit, well, this was going to be something special, wasn't it?

Maybe not. Without going into the plot details, which are spoilery from almost any angle, this story about long marriage, love triangles, betrayal, climate change, biodiversity loss, addiction, regret, alzheimers disease is told with a tone that hurt my feelings for the people it portrays.

I used to know a guy who liked to drop rarely used words into conversation and then explain them as if the fact that we didn't find the use for them on a daily basis indicated that we didn't know what they meant. Reading this reminded me of being trapped in his company. Mansplaining, dad jokes, laddish attitude, purile humour. I should have set it aside, but when it comes to reviewing ARCs, I feel obligated.

It's hard to find anything to like about any of the characters, mostly because they aren't just flawed, they are one dimensional. I never once thought "this guy sure can write about women". But then, I felt no connection to any of the men either.

I love a novel where I learn new things, when the author introduces something I had never thought about before and I can go down a rabbit hole, exploring and further researching what I learned. No need here. This author knows stuff about stuff and he's desperate to show us the stuff he knows, and to explain about all the stuff he knows, whether you already know it not.

There are a few funny scenes in the early section of the story, however they resemble scenes from "Bridesmaids" and the like, so closely, mostly around uncontrollable body functions and accidentally getting high on Ambien, that the effect is diluted.

This may also have benefitted from a sensitivity reading. There are some problematic references to Montanans, Amish, Alzheimer sufferers that are supposed to be jokes, but someone missed the memo.

What is the point of this over long, tone deaf, romance/family/ wildlife/dystopian saga? I have no feel for what that is. For me the overarching theme is of disrespect. For each other, for themselves, for the way they speak about others, for the way they hold no accountability, for the attitude to birds of prey, carpenter bees, endangered animals, fragile environments, the infirm.

Oprah. What are you thinking? This is not who we are.

Gave this a couple of hours but found the characters tedious and the writing style not to my taste so did not finish.

I had high hopes for ‘Dream State’, as I love a multi-generational, character-driven story. Unfortunately, for me, it failed to deliver.

The characters are ill-defined, their voices interchangeable, which makes them feel less like real people than cardboard dolls that the author has pinned different outfits too. This, along with the constant jumping between POVs (including, at times, randomly entering into the wildlife’s POV), which prevents the establishment of reader-character closeness and character depth, left me unable to connect with or care about any of the characters. It didn’t help that none of the characters know themselves or possess anything close to motivation (which may reflect people in real life, true, but does not make for a good story). Cece in particular comes across poorly. Maybe some women really are this vapid, but it reads like a bad case of male author trying—and failing—to imagine female interiority. A lot of misogyny imbues the writing of her.

Furthermore, the characters lack chemistry and their relationships feel ungrounded. It isn’t clear what they feel for each other or why they feel it. Everything they do feels arbitrary.

‘Arbitrary’ also describes the plot in general—or the book, I should say, as it lacks true plot. There is no cause and effect, there is no cohesive story. Instead, the author jumps around in time from one moment in the characters’ lives to the next, without any thread between these moments and often no indication as to how much time has passed, which is disorientating to say the least. To me, it felt like the only cohesive storyline was the depiction of the worsening climate crisis, and that the characters were invented to provide the foreground to that.

Maybe the idea could have been salvaged by great writing, but unfortunately ‘Dream State’, along with its lack of characterisation and plot, is missing this. The writing ranges from painfully purple to laughably bad. There were several moments when I had to stop and question whether the author had seriously written the paragraph I had just read and if he really intended for it to be published. Those moments made the rest, including the distractingly dated language, the artificial dialogue and the children written in a way that makes it feel like the author has never met children, seem less problematic in comparison.

Overall, I can’t recommend this book. For me, it’s a long-flight-with-no-other-form-of-entertainment-to-pass-the-time kind of story.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Eric Puchner and Hodder & Stoughton for the ARC. My review will be posted on Instagram, Amazon UK, GoodReads and The StoryGraph.

Thank you, Hodder & Stoughton, Sceptre + NetGalley for the opportunity to read Dream State before it's physically published here in the UK. I started this on my Kindle and then realised that the audiobook was already released so I swapped about 10% the way through and finished the rest of the book via audio.

I’m a big fan of multigenerational family stories because lots happens to the characters over the years. That said I think the pacing was off, the first third is a matter of days and the remaining two thirds spans 40 odd years. I struggled to get through part 1 but once I did the following parts were a quicker and more enjoyable read. The final part absolutely broke me 💔

The ebook and audiobook are out now and the hardback is available on 8th May 2025!

Dream State is a generational story that starts with Cece, Charlie and Garrett. Cece is in love with Charlie and is getting married to him in Salish, Montana. Charlie is a cardiac anaesthesiologist with a bright future. Charlie asks his best friend from college, Garrett to officiate the ceremony but Garrett is the opposite of Charlie: depressed and he has a bleak future. Cece ends up spending time with Garrett and makes an impulsive decision that will impact the future forever.

This was so good. This book is written beautifully and I had such a good time reading this. It’s quite a slow read but I enjoyed every second. It’s a story about life, a lot of this is quite mundane but the characters feel so honest and realistic. The question of happiness comes up quite a bit in this book and I loved the way this author presented choices. In this story, Cece doesn’t really know what happiness is but I think that perfectly sums life up. It’s also a story of what if’s and how one choice can change a whole life.

I’m not sure what I make of this novel overall as I definitely enjoyed some parts but others really dragged and rambled.
The first third deals with CeCe, about to marry Charlie In his childhood family home in Montana. CeCe is there early, dealing with all the preparations and meets Garrett, Charlie’s best friend from university and who is due to be their best man. Garrett works in a menial job in an airport having dropped out of college after the death of his and Charlie’s closest friend. On the face of it CeCe and Garrett will not only have nothing in common but will they even get on at all?
The following two thirds of the novel takes us up to 40 years down the line, through marriage , children, divorce…. All of life’s tribulations through the eyes of the original core trio of CeCe , Charlie and Garrett and then also through the eyes of their children.
It list direction for me at numerous points and I just don’t know that I ever got back on track.

Dream State by Eric Puchner

Cece is in Montana to marry her fiance, Charlie at his family's vacation home on the lake. But when his best friend Garrett shows her around and takes her on a hike, the course of all of their lives is changed forever. An epic novel which spans their entire lifetime, from the early 2000s to half a century later.

Wow, what an amazing book this is! So much packed into it and yet it never felt unwieldy - I was drawn in and couldn't put it down at all. The writing is beautiful and carries so much meaning... relationships, friendships, family, health, climate change... it's all here. A fantastic achievement of a novel and very VERY highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I did really enjoy 'Dream State' in many ways - but it is, in my opinion, overly long.

Here we have the story of Cece, an excited bride-to-be about to marry Charlie in his home state of Montana. She obsesses about the big day - she wants it all to be perfect. As she is preparing for the celebration, Charlie's best friend from university, Garrett, turns up to show her the ropes in the area. From that moment on, they fall in love - and this marks a significant series of events in the story.

'Dream State' covers a lot of ground, from Cece's life in her 20s through to old age and illness. Even though it is epic in proportion, I do feel that too many assumptions are made, such as how readers are suddenly immersed in characters' lives much later on without really knowing 'how' they got there. Furthermore, the narrative shifts backwards and forwards - such as when it shows how Cece is suffering from dementia (the narrative, at this point, is a little confusing - perhaps it is meant to be, given what happens, but it also doesn't feel particularly plausible, at least not consistently so.) The plot goes back to an earlier time towards the end of the novel and, again, I am not sure why Puchner does this.

I really liked the novel but I think it tries a little too hard. It is beautifully written and deals with many complex issues, so overall I would recommend it.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

Eric Puchner’s Dream State is a doorstopper which takes its readers from wedding preparations in the late twentieth century through to the mid-twenty-first before coming full circle with the wedding itself. Cece has come to the Montana summer house she’s come to love since being embraced by Charlie’s family while he remains in L A. His old college roommate is to officiate at their wedding, not Cece’s choice, nor Garrett’s but Charlie is his best friend. When Garrett invites her for a hike, Cece accepts despite her antipathy towards this taciturn man so different from her fiancé. Over next few weeks, Cece tries to quash doubts about her future while Garrett attempts to stamp out his feelings for her..
When the novel opens, Charlie, Cece and Garrett are in their late twenties. Charlie forges ahead in his career as an anaesthesiologist but while Cece and Garrett have embarked on adult life, they’re not entirely tethered to it. Puchner charts a path for these three that leads through marriage, parenthood, tragedy and ageing over a half-century which sees the climate crisis worsening, always with the friendship between Charlie and Garrett at its foundation, holding firm despite the challenges thrown at it. Puchner knows how to spin an engrossing story, lightening it now and again with a dash of humour, and his characters are well drawn. Given the Midsummer Night’s Dream epigraph and the novel’s title, I wasn’t entirely sure how he meant it to be interpreted but that didn’t get in the way of my enjoyment.

I love this book and it will remain in my memory for a long time. It tells the story of a group of friends through two generations starting with the parents and continuing on with their children in the second half of the book . The families all holiday in a holiday house by the side of a lake in Montana and this house plays a very large part in the novel where the parents meet nearly married and where their children come to spend time holidaying

Early sections of the book are sat in the early 2000s before mobile phones were thing to read your emails wherever you are one of the characters has to go and look for a computer to do this seems immediately archaic that wasn’t that long ago
The ski accident section made me feel nauseous with anxiety and fear
The order I get the more I find stories where the characters age throughout the novel moving and I definitely found this book deeply moving.
The description of the wildfires becoming part of summer life seemed almost apocalyptic but I suppose is a real part of life in the climate warmed world . It took me awhile to realise that this part was probably set in future when climate changes even worse. It is now. It was quite horrifying to read very sad

They also has a beautiful lyrical lyrical pro style which is at the same time highly visual and poetic . There were several sentences that I particularly enjoy I for example,” the mysterious goodwill lights on people who’ve spent countless hours together in various rooms and cars and ski lodges laughing like idiots “ this really described perfectly how I feel about my university friends now I’m in my late 50s
I also loved
“A person afraid of cold water is a bystander of life “ having taken up Cold War to swimming at this even more

What an epic novel this is it will stay with me for a long time
I would recommend this novel for readers who enjoy primarily carrot paste novels watching families through time if you like us by David Nichols or a little life by Hanya Yanagihara, then you may well enjoy this book as much as I did
I read an only copy of the novel on NetGalley UK in return for a review
The Book is published in the UK on the 18th of February 2025 by Hodder and Stoughton
This review will appear on NetGalley UK, StoryGraph, Goodreads and my book blog bionicsarahsbooks. wordpress.com. After publication it will also appear on Amazon UK.

Dream State by Eric Puchner through the three main characters explores relationships in a love triangle, friendship, parenthood, and climate change.