** spoiler alert ** 
 I have to start with my biggest issue with this book, because it bothered me for almost 3/4s of the books. Josh... is a BOYS name. Joshlyn is a horrible name at all, and I am only comforted that the author is horrible at foreshadowing, and that if there is a sequel, I believe we will find that Joshlyn is not actually her name, being that she's the lost princess and all. I could be wrong *holds up hands in surrender* but I don't think so. 
 I know that gender shouldn't be such a huge issue, but it is when you keep focusing on how your main character is flirting with all these guys, and I have to keep reminding myself... Josh is a girl. Josh is the main character, and she is female, and has girl parts. I don't know that I've ever been bothered so much by the misnaming of a character in my life, but it really kept pulling me from this rich world the author was trying to build around me, and it was frustrating. 
 Right, moving on. Why do the authorities not come and remove Josh and her pals from their homes? These kids keep showing up at the hospital with wacky stories about their injuries, and you mean to tell me that social services never went, hmmm, a fractured skull after a broken knee, maybe this child is being abused. I'm going to go with nope. Alloway went so far out of her way to make this little society in the midst of our world, I felt like she could have given them top notch, top secret physicians. It would have been more believable than the frequent trips to the ER, no questions asked. (Really, Haley? Aliens?) 
 Speaking of world building... I was so very confused so much of the time. The plot kept moving, and it kept me interested, so I kept on with the story. I'm glad that I did, but I could see many people getting turned off when you don't find out for 57 pages what dream walking even IS. I had the feeling through out that the author *knew* what was going on in her world, but she didn't want to give me too much information so that I'd plunge ahead of her in the plot. 
 Josh, other than be a girl with a guy's name, had a pretty irritating personality. She's very, woe is me, but the author tries to make it like this makes Josh responsible and now just whiny and annoying. She blames every thing on herself, and you kind of want to pull her out of the book and slap her around a bit, because if she's shut up and stop being down on herself she might be getting crap done. 
 Also, she's one of those super irritating characters that just goes, I don't care about the consequences and who I'm going to hurt, I'm going to do what I want because I do what I want. Which was incredibly at odds with her, I mess everything up, everything is my fault, persona. You know what Josh, everything is your fault, because you don't grow as a character, and you keep messing up, and all you do about it is shut the world out. The characters around her are the only reason she's even tolerable. Poor Will sees the best in her (though I'm a bit sick of his, but I don't fit in tantrum almost as soon as it starts), and helps to interpret her moods. The author has to work hard to make Josh not just this big old ball of frustrating for the reader by making you view her through her losses and through her friends and family. 
 The True Dream Walker business felt a bit useless to me, but I imagine if this becomes one of the hot right now YA trilogies, it will come into play. There were quite a few characters, and I had trouble keeping them straight. I know Ian, and I know Haley, obviously I know Josh (she's a girl!) and Will. Whim I would get mixed up with Winsor, which was awkward, as one is a boy and one is a girl. Deloise seems to have little purpose, and I'd sometimes think, is this some random adult in Josh's life? No, that's a little sister. Isn't it? I don't even remember. I really hate throw-away secondary characters like that, but it didn't detract too much from the main story. 
 Even with all of these little things that bothered me, I really did get pulled into this story. I didn't want to put it down.