TELL ME YOUR DREAMS

Ashley Patterson is an attractive yet introvert lady in her late 20s. Toni Prescott is an outgoing lady who loves to dance and sing. She also loves spending her private time chatting in the Internet. She is six years younger than Ashley and she is of English descent. Alette Peters, the youngest of the three, is of Italian descent and has a very good talent in painting. They all work in a computer graphic company in Silicon Valley, but they do not get along well because of their differences. Toni despises Ashley for being "Miss Goody Two Shoes" but mingles with Alette as Toni somehow enjoys Alette's calm attitude. When a series of murders happened involving male victims who were brutally killed and castrated, all three ladies become suspects. The ensuing investigation and trial led to shocking revelations tying these three unique characters and eventually bringing them together.

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Years ago when I read Sidney Sheldon's Master of The Game, I concluded that was my favorite of his books by far. Now that I've read Tell Me Your Dreams, I'm torn!

>>SPOILER ALERT<< If like me, you were fascinated by John Cusack's movie, Identity, then you'll flip over Tell Me Your Dreams as well. I love how fast paced the story is and quickly develops into ultimately revealing that Ashley Patterson is suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder, and Toni Prescott and Alette Peters are her alters. It's smart of the author to only reveal Toni's real name, Antoinette, later in the book when a psychiatrist was explaining that alters usually take a pattern, and in Ashley's case, she and her alters share the same initials, AP. I like that part in an early chapter when Alette says an exact line which Ashley also said in the beginning of the book. Although that was a key clue to where the story was going, the following chapters remained to be interesting and intriguing keeping the suspense all throughout. And when I said, all throughout, I meant like up till the last page! My jaw fell on the floor when I finished the book. Have you seen Leonardo di Caprio's movie, Inception? You know that last scene when he twirled his totem object which left viewers' mouth gaping and then debating whether the totem did stop or not? Same feeling you'll get with Tell Me Your Dreams. You could formulate as much as you'd want with how you'd like the story to end but the never ending what if's would never satisfy your curiousity. Sometimes open endings are annoying but sometimes they can be hauntingly beautiful, and Tell Me Your Dreams is one of the latter. Oh, the mystery of unknown!

Let's look at excerpts from the book:

"There's something you're going to learn about me, honey. I don't give up. Ever."

"How does it feel to have a famous father?"

"She had forgotten how savage her father's temper was. He had once punched an intern during an operation for making an error in judgment."

"...but try as she might, Ashley could not remember what it was. She had blocked it from her mind."

"I hate cold weather. Even with gloves, my fingers get numb."

"Toni thought about the terrible accident in which her mother had died. Toni could still hear her screams for help. The memory of it made Toni smile."

"She could see colors, smell colors and hear colors. Her father's voice was blue and sometimes red. Her mother's voice was dark brown. Her teacher's voice was yellow. The grocer's voice was purple. The sound of the wind in the trees was green. The sound of the running water was gray."

"She could  be plain-looking, attractive or stunningly beautiful, depending on her mood or how she was feeling about herself. But she was never simply pretty. Part of her charm was that she was completely unaware of her looks."

"Toni had a solution for everything, and it was usually: 'Let's go and have some fun.'"

"The only thing that solved her happiness was the knowledge that the darkness would come down on her again, and she would be lost in it."

"...buying things they would have no use for the next day."

"The past is the past."

"Hometowns were supposed to look smaller when a native returned years later..."

"It was amazing how much people could change in ten years. They were fatter and thinner... prosperous and downtrodden. They were married and divorced... parents and parentless..."

"...a virago with a tongue sharp enough to fell the forests of Oregon."

"...when a murder goes unsolved, I don't think it means that criminals were that smart. I think it means that the police weren't smart enough."

"'Of course, I will. We'll go out and celebrate.' And the words reverberated in his mind. Years ago, he had said to someone else, 'We'll go out and celebrate.' And he had killed her."

"It's a condition where there are several completely different personalities in one body. It's also known as dissociative identity disorder. It's been in the psychiatric literature for more than two hundred years. It usually starts because of a childhood trauma. The victim shuts out the trauma by creating another identity. Sometimes a person will have dozens of different personalities or alters."

"Alters are created because the host can't stand the pain of the trauma. It's a way of escape. Every time a fresh shock occurs, a new alter can be born. The psychiatric literature on the subject shows that alters can be totally different from one another. Some alters are stupid, while others are brilliant. They can speak different languages. The have varied tastes and personalities."

"What idiot said that pregnant women weren't beautiful?"

"They made an unlikely couple, but the marriage worked because they were deeply in love with each other."

Sidney Sheldon is one brilliant author. He captivates his readers with his genius and his books are really hard to put down. You have to be prepared with the roller coaster ride you've put yourself into once you start reading his book. The unpredictable loops and twists are jaw dropping and stomach turning. Just one bravo after another - that's the kind of author he was. That being said, I rate this book 4.5 stars, with half-point deduction once again for very few typo errors.