Award-winning writer Karen Halvorsen Schreck hops between heavyweight emotion and typical adolescent angst when relaying the multi-faceted story of 16-year-old Olivia's adventures over the summer prior to her junior year in high school. On the surface, Schreck's story reads just like any other young adult novel --- filled with the typical talk about boys, fitting in at school, teens rebelling against authority, and so on. What makes it different, however, is that the protagonist's mother is dying of breast cancer, her father doesn't quite know how to handle it, and none of the characters are exactly comfortable facing their separate or collective realities --- let alone talking about them.

When Livy first learns of her mother's illness, the finality of the situation doesn't register. Over the next two years, as she watches her mother grow progressively weaker, she still doesn't (or won't) own up to what's actually going on, preferring instead to bury her nose in books and act as though everything's perfectly normal. Then, just as her sophomore year ends and her mother languishes blankly in the hospital bed in the living room full-time, Livy finally begins to acknowledge that things aren't going to get better, and in fact, they're growing much worse --- fast.

In response, Livy starts going out more with her friends, drinking more and flouting her father's rules. She develops a wild crush on a one-dimensional football player named Charlie and hangs out with him and his friends at Goodlove Forest Preserve, where they swim, flirt and carry on, as horny teenagers are apt to do. In a somewhat hastily drawn side-plot, the group encounters their first real catastrophe when a prank involving fireworks goes awry, and Ed, the "sensitive boy" figure in the crew, winds up in the hospital with his hands blown to bits. In the end, Ed's hands heal, Livy realizes that Charlie is a selfish dud, and Livy's best friend, Ruth, decides that small-town life is too boring and leaves to live with her aunt in Chicago.

For the most part, these two aspects of the book --- Livy's mother's illness and the effect it has on her family, and Livy's growth into a young woman --- play off each other as they would in life. The gross weight of pending death is offset by the ardor of the teenage journey toward independence and self-realization. There are times, however, when some readers may wish for less of a stark contrast between the two threads, as overly carefree scenes involving skinny dipping ring false against a backdrop of a mother's death and seem too out of place in the presence of such grave thematic elements. Although Livy's mother's death is handled with a delicate yet unflinching honesty, there are a few beautifully drawn moments that could have been expanded upon.

Nonetheless, DREAM JOURNAL is a gallant effort about surviving loss, by a noteworthy writer.

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