Book Review: Hugo & Rose by Bridget Foley

What would happen if your fictional, totally made-up dream friend showed up in your real life? Read Hugo & Rose to find out.

Hugo & Rose by Bridget Foley is a fantastical story of life-long friends who have grown up together but have never met in real life. While other children dreamed of different places and people, Rose only dreamed of Hugo. They would explore their dream island together and share their most intimate thoughts in their adventures. As Rose grew up in the real world, she married and had her own children; but she never stopped sharing nightly adventures with Hugo. All of her life, she believed that Hugo was just a product of her imagination… until one day, completely by chance, she stood face to face with her dream friend.

What is Hugo & Rose about?

Rose is disappointed with her life, though she has no reason to be – she has a beautiful family and a perfectly nice house in the suburbs. But to Rose, this ordinary life feels overshadowed by her other life – the one she leads every night in her dreams.

After a childhood accident, Rose’s dreams take her to a wondrous island fraught with adventure. On this island, she has never been alone: she shares it with Hugo, a brave boy who’s grown up with her into a hero of a man.

But when Rose stumbles across Hugo in real life, both her real and dream worlds are changed forever. Here is the man who has shared all of her incredible adventures in impossible places, who grew up with her, even if they aren’t what either one imagined. Their chance encounter begins a cascade of questions, lies, and a dangerous obsession that threatens to topple everything she knows. Is she willing to let go of everything she holds dear to understand their extraordinary connection? And will it lead her to discover who she truly wants to be? [GoodReads.com]

My thoughts:

I immediately loved the premise of Hugo & Rose. Nothing is more exciting than escaping into a vivid dream world filled with adventure and friends, and nothing is more unpleasant than waking up from one of those dreams. It would be incredible to live inside the same dream world with the same dream friends every time we closed our eyes, knowing the people we created would always be there when we needed them. That alone would be a fascinating story, but in Hugo & Rose, Bridget Foley takes the premise one step further: what would happen if we ran into one of those dream friends in real life? How would they act? How would they think? Would they be exactly as we created them?

Having never read Bridget Foley before, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but her writing immediately pulled me into the story. Her casual style and intriguing plot made the book hard to put down. I found myself wanting to know and understand more about Rose’s world, both her dream world and her real world. Foley makes it so easy for the reader to buy into Rose’s predicament; even as Rose’s dream world begins to infect her reality, the author carefully distinguishes between what is real and what is going on in Rose’s psyche.

Hugo & Rose moved rapidly; each time I put down the book, it was out of obligation to sleep, eat, or work… I was always left wanting to know what happened next. I was never bored or felt the writing wandered – it was a fun read and one you should consider picking up!

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