A promising premise that failed to deliver on many fronts. The characters weren't absorbing, the love triangle was poorly designed, and neither the romance nor the love interests were attractive nor realistic. The most honest thing I can say about this book without expressing my personal frustrations with it is that the concept was interesting, but poorly thought out and executed. 
 Enough rationality, back to my personal opinions of the book. Warning: much swearing ahead, and a considerable amount of rambling. I can't help it, the book is so incoherent, and I can't seem to arrange my thoughts because I have so many questions and complaints. 
 The setting was poorly set up, and for me, there were too many questions and too many discrepancies to make this a believable dystopian novel. I couldn't enjoy the book because there were so many questions running through my head as I was reading it. While I like not being spoon-fed information and minute details (thanks for ruining everything, Mr. Charles Dickens), I do like to be given sufficient information in a timely manner, not bits and pieces scattered haphazardly throughout the book whenever the author feels like it. Relevant information and explanations, when they were finally given, were done so late in the book that I felt mislead for having guessed wrongly, and angy because the information would have been so much more useful had it been given on considerably earlier on in the story. 
 Beatrice is one of the top Seers at an institution called...The Institution. She lives in a city called The City. As you can see, there is a whole lot of creativity regarding nomenclature here. The Seers have visions regarding Dreamcatchers, who pose danger to the Citizens of the City (see what I mean about naming?). Beatrice has mysterious dreams about a Dreamcatcher boy called Echo who tells her that despite being on opposite sides, they have to work together for some reason. 
 Vague, isn't it? The book isn't much better. I was so confused reading this book, and throughout, I had more questions than I was presented with answers. I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT THE DREAMCATCHERS DO. That is a huge. HUGE. HUGE freaking problem, considering they're the Big Bad Guys against whom the Seers are protecting the Citizens. They kill Citizens. How? Why? Who are they? How are they created? How do their powers work? Where the fuck is Aura, where they live? How do they get there? Why is there a Dreamcatcher Princess, and if she's so important, why did they send her off ON HER OWN right into the arms of the enemy? I have so many unanswered questions regarding the main group of supposed villains in the story. This is not good. I KNOW we're given an explanation of what they do at the very beginning: "The Dreamcatchers are double the threat to us. They are able to reach into the minds of normal humans--Citizens--through dreams or touch. From what I've been told, a Dreamcatcher can shatter a person's mind with just one touch." 
 It's not enough; I didn't find it to be an adequate explanation. Why do they need to do this? We're half given the impression that they're their own separate people, and half implied that they're made and they exist within the protected Barriers of the City...it's so vague. The mysterious Dreamcatchers in the book reminds me of the Fade in Josin McQuein's Arclight; the concept doesn't feel well-developed. People are accused of becoming Dreamcatchers throughout the book...for example, a little boy has been accused of being a Dreamcatcher and sentenced to die: 
 "Ryan has been accused of traitorous behavior leading to the suspicion that he is a Dreamcatcher. A classmate of his said that he saw him touch another boy's arm inside the closet and cubby room and the boy screamed and fell onto the ground. Ryan's power was not enough to kill the boy, but he has permanently scarred him and has surely tapped into his mind. For this, Ryan has been sentenced to hanging." 
 And then there's the Dreamcatcher city, "...our home is called Aura. It is somewhere west, where you've never been." Okay, then...so which is it? Are Dreamcatchers born or made, and if made, how do they get through to their own city of Aura when the City is protected by a Barrier that doesn't allow anyone through? How do Dreamcatchers even get through to the City when the Barrier is so powerful and should be keeping Dreamcatchers out? So. Many. Questions. 
 The author makes it sound like the Institution are run by idiots. Here's the setup: we have the Seers, a super-important group of people of...I'd say, give or take, 50 fully-grown and useful Seers? Training sessions where the Seers fight each other and are shocked into pain and consciousness (think really painful laser tag, only with Tazers and the accompanying degree of pain)...that's understandable. Seers need to defend themselves. Training sessions involving real criminals, real weapons, where Seers can kill and be killed? When the actual training results in eight dead Seers? That's roughly 1/5 of your fighting force.... There are actually a few hundred Seers, but the latter teams are deemed pretty incompetent, and the rest are literally...toddler, barely plucked from their parents' arm and deposited into the Institution for training. Killing off your fighters and protectors of the city in training sessions is a really, really fucking stupid idea. And to keep holding the training session despite the disastrous results? Are you trying to decimate your main line of defense, Ms. Keeper? (again, see my note about naming of things and people). 
 The Seers also live a pretty horrible life. Cut off completely from the rest of society, besides for a few special days a year, they spend their entire lives training, their life within the Institution is austere, with not much fun or treats; they're not even paid for their work. This seems like a pretty poor way to treat the group of people assigned to protect the City. 
 The love triangle is stupid. Beatrice falls for Gabe gradually...which is a little understandable, even if he's an insensitive asshole. When your life is confined to The Institution, there's not much options where guys are concerned, so I can forgive her for falling for Gabe, even if he is a jerk. Echo, on the other hand...she sees him a few times in her Visions, he's pretty, he tells her stuff which might or might not be true. He's the enemy. Now that I didn't find so plausible. 
 Beatrice herself is not a really likeable character. She's just boring. I didn't hate her, but there wasn't much about her to like; it's not really the fault of the character. I feel that the book sets itself and its accompanying cast of characters up for failure because the writing failed to cover the plot gaps and believable character actions. As I mentioned, I didn't like that she falls for Gabe so easily, nor the Dreamcatcher boy. She sees one of her best friend killed during a pointless training session, and is horrified, but afterwards there is no mention of it, and things go on as normal. 
 Beatrice just doesn't act or seem like a normal human being. She is not stupid, her actions are sometimes unbelievable (sneaking out to see someone when she could have gotten killed for breaking curfew), but for the most part, she's not an absolute moron. She's also too gullible: she believes the enemy after a few brief words of explanation; she believes and falls in love with a boy she only knows from dreams that she doesn't even know are real visions or manipulated. Beatrice doesn't rank up there with my holy trifecta of TSTLs, but considering the exalted (or not) names on the list (Luce, Bella, Alex), it doesn't really take much to exceed that level of unintelligence. 
 There's a very thinly veiled political message in here...which isn't a bad thing, considering it is a dystopian setting. The problem I had was that it seemed haphazardly thrown in just for the sake of a political message, and didn't really go along with the plot. It feels like the author is trying to convey the message of Big Bad Government with a poorly veiled reference to a witch hunt/terrorism not unlike the McCarthyism of the 1950s. I support a well-written political message, but one as random as this doesn't fit in with the book and just serves to make the concept of the Dreamcatchers and their origins even more fuzzy: 
 "'Mr. McCue was known to do some "Dreamcatcher-like activity." What does that even mean?' 
 'It all sounds strange to me. Arresting people based off of second-hand suspicion.' I pick up the remote and turn the TV off just as they are showing a video of the operation. As the camera zooms in on the struggling Mr. McCue, the screen goes black. 
 'Me too. How long is it going to be before everyone starts to point fingers at one another?'" 
 I found the ending laughable, too. Despite the overall message that The People In Charge Are Hiding Things From You, Beatrice's actions contradict everything she had been fighting for. With all the contradictions, plot holes, and discontinuity (speaking of discontinuity, I found Calculus easier to understand than the majority of this book), I will not be continuing with this series.