Grey Warden

This is one of those books that refuses to let you like it.  And I don't see it getting any better.

The plot intrigues you a little: main character experiences lucid dreaming- sort of like being awake while asleep- and her nightmares bring all the attendant mental stress you'd expect.  And of course, her dreams bring her to the attention of the Powers That Be, who want her for their own purposes, she falls in Instaluv with one of their young flunkies, blahblahblah...

And being a YA novel, our girl is utterly sooper speshul- otherwise what's the point?  Since being able to lucid dream putting you in that top 1% of the population isn't enough, she's also a genius-level intellect who's so bored and disaffected with her life yet she keeps dumbing down her performance in school instead of moving on to bigger and better things.  I could even dismiss all of that- it's YA, remember- except for the fact that this author needs to relearn one of the cardinal rules of writing: SHOW, DON'T TELL!!!

Starting right off the bat with the opening, at least once a chapter you get an infodump of seemingly pertinent info regarding either the science behind lucid dreaming or some future story occurence that the author couldn't figure out how to work into the story, so he just drops it in your lap.  The first time had me shaking my head and moving on, until it happened again.  And again.  And then some more.  And now I'm tired of it to the point I almost can't stand this book.  Plus since these events are supposed to occur later in the story I don't know why he's telling us about them now,

This is one of my favorites so far:

31%- He wore a long, dark floor-length coat, a duster, like a gunslinger, and his chest was clad in silver battle armor.  A long, gleaming broadsword from a scabbard at his waist.  Lori would find out later that this man also happened to possess a very impressive pair of wings, which were folded beneath the fabric of his long coat... Lori would eventually learn that this was the Archangel Michael- the head honco of this little guerilla unit- but right now, right this instant, things were happening too quickly for niceties.

I don't know about you, but now I'm all tingly for the scene where Lori gets to find this out for herself.

I'm gonna turn around now, and when I do someone please hit me in the back of the head with a heavy, blunt intstrument.  Please?