Dreaming Anastasiaby Joy Preble

What really happened to Anastasia Romanov?Anastasia Romanov thought she would never feel more alone than when the gunfire started and her family began to fall around her. Surely the bullets would come for her next. But they didn’t. Instead, two gnarled old hands reached for her. When she wakes up she discovers that she is in the ancient hut of the witch Baba Yaga, and that some things are worse than being dead.In modern-day Chicago, Anne doesn’t know much about Russian history. She is more concerned about getting into a good college—until the dreams start. She is somewhere else. She is someone else. And she is sharing a small room with a very old woman. The vivid dreams startle her, but not until a handsome stranger offers to explain them does she realize her life is going to change forever. She is the only one who can save Anastasia. But, Anastasia is having her own dreams…

My embarrassment at having taken two years to read a book that I bought, prompted me to make sure I read the other book bought at the same time that was still unread. So I tackled Dreaming Anastasia this week.Overall, this was a fairly engaging YA novel. It has elements of history, magic and mystery. Anne was pretty likeable, but I didn't care much for Ethan. I did really like Anne's best friend, Tess. She rocked.The problems I did have with the book are few, but stood out. Firstly, I am not a fan of stories told from multiple points of view. It is rare that an author can pull this off well enough to avoid my picky judgement. (An author who DOES pull this off, is Rick Riordan in the Kane Chronicles. FYI.) Flipping between Anne (whom I liked), Ethan (whom I didn't) and Anastasia (not counting the letters, which I'll get to in a second), made the book feel jumpy. Anne seemed like a strong enough character and then you'd be subject to Ethan's Emo Woe Is Me diatribe where he constantly refers to himself as a "dickhead" in Russian. Ok, I get it, you're acting all stupid. Get over it.Anastasia, on the other hand, was randomly inserted into the story. Her chapters were never very long and I don't feel they added anything to the story. It felt like filler space.My other problem with this book, was the letters written from Anastasia to various family members. These letters may or may not have had important plot information within them, I don't know. I couldn't read them. Whatever typeface the publisher used to create these "hand written" letters was completely unreadable to me. I couldn't understand half of the words and the more I'd squint and concentrait on decifering the writing, the bigger my headache got. I suddenly remembered why I didn't finish reading this book 2 years ago - the handwritten sections make me dizzy and headachy. It was sad.So I skipped them. I'd try to read the first paragraph and the last on each of those chapters just to see if I was missing something, but to be honest, it was a lost cause.With the exception of Ethan and the handwritten chapters, I found this to be an entertaining read. The history in the story made it original enough that I could over look the "instant love" and "OMG I'm the CHOSEN ONE!" plot points. I was very aware that I was reading them, but I didn't care overly much. I think this would have been a great stand-alone novel, only now I see that there are TWO MORE books following. Ugh. I am so tired of every book becoming a series. What happened to awesome stand-alone books?