Rosie Sinclair has a tough life, living in an abandoned train community with her mother, stepfather, and half-sister. In her life there are not a of opportunities for advancement, and the prospect of improving herself decreases even further when an altercation with another student has her kicked out of school. All that changes when a popular reality TV show, The Forge School, accepts Rosie as a prospective student. The Forge School only takes the most artistic and talented students from across the country. Initially, 100 students are chosen in the new class and then based on viewer ratings, only the top 50 continue on. Rosie will need to win over viewers and do everything possible to secure her spot in the school if she hopes to pursue an exciting careers making films and maybe even make some money from the show in the process.
However, at the school, things are not quite what they seem. Students are giving medicine to sleep for 12 hours a night to enhance creativity and brain activity. However, being a lover of the stars and the night, Rosie decides to skip her medicine just once to get a glimpse of the night sky she's missed so much. It's during this unexpected awakening that she realizes strange things are happening at night ... things which might put her and the other students in grave danger.
It's difficult to determine who to trust at the school since the people there are either students who desperately want to follow the rules to avoid getting kicked off the show and Forge employees. Rosie makes an unexpected connection with a charming guy around her age who works in the kitchen. While their feelings grow, everything they do is recorded on camera, so it gives them little opportunity to get to know each others true identity. Is everything an act for the show? Who can she trust? What really goes on after the cameras are turned off at night?
When strange things start happening, she realizes it's not just her safety she needs to worry about, but also the safety of other innocent people. Rosie sets off on a mission to capture proof that something is going on at the school. Are the clues she is finding just part of television drama or is something much darker and scarier really at play?
I listened to the audio version by Emily Woo Zeller who does an excellent job narrating the study. The voices are clear and precise, and I especially like the way she narrates Rosie and her boyfriend. This is a great book to listen to on audio.
This novel looses points only because of the cliff hanger ending. While I appreciate leaving some pieces open in a series, the ending appears to come abruptly in the middle of the story, rather than after some more issues have been resolved. If you don't mind a good cliff hanger, then this is an exciting (and suspenseful!) place for the novel to stop, but as a reader I felt like it was too abrupt and left too much unanswered. Overall a good story, and I look forward to listening to the next one in the series just to find out what should have happened at the end of this book.
NARRATED BY: EMILY WOO ZELLER
LENGTH: 10 HRS AND 35 MINS
SERIES: VAULT OF DREAMERS, BOOK 1
RELEASE DATE: 12/02/2014
PUBLISHER: TANTOR AUDIO