Review by Demelza Black -- The Price of Dreams

[Demelza Black]

[Following is a volunteer review of "The Price of Dreams" by Jerry A. Greenberg.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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The Price of Dreams written by Jerry A. Greenberg is a story about John Dolan who is an art obsessed artist and his journey as he finds out that there are more crucial things than art. As a child, drawing pictures anywhere he felt like without control is his natural dominant instinct. After college, he marries Amy who is antithesis of him thinking that she can save the narrator from isolating himself. But their relationship turns toxic. He never really cares about his children. She provides shelter to 30-40 cats as a way to deal with their children moving out. Her personality changes from being cheerful, extroverted, lively to being irritable, obsessive that leads to her tragic death.
Her death provided a sense of relief and sadness to John. It is only after he adopts a dog, does he start loving something other than art. After meeting his ex-girlfriend from college, he realises that he was so indulged in art that he never knew what was going on around him. He admits that he never loved Amy and that she barged in his life. It is a journey of John finding true love and a balance in his unstable life.

The thing that I disliked about The Price of Dreams is that there were many errors in text which were annoying. The book was written in the main character's POV but there weren't many instances where the reader could look into main character's mind. Many of the times, only events of his life were described without mentioning his own reflection on various topics. As a reader, I didn't felt anything significant towards the characters which is a subtle drawback. I think author tried to include comic relief to the story at some points but failed.

I liked that the downfall of John and Amy's relationship was slow paced and written decently. I liked Jerry Greenberg's effort to describe the negative consequences of obsession. The ending of the story was nice but kind of abrupt. The story makes good sense with the title. The book was a simple and short read.

I enjoyed the book but didn't love it. Considering there were more than 10 mistakes, I can say that the book wasn't well edited. I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars.

There was some sexual content. So, the book is suitable for mature audiences. I also recommend this book to anyone who is looking for fun, light reading.

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The Price of Dreams
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