Dream State: Oprah's Book Club

Reviews

OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK

A March 2025 Indie Next Pick • One of Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025

“A transporting wonder…Puchner’s manipulation of time is among his novel’s most magical elements….We book reviewers don’t get to say much about endings, but Puchner’s final chapter is one of the most touching and satisfying I’ve read in years.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post

“Fresh, wise, funny, and compassionate….Cinematic from the outset, Dream State opens (just as if a circular lens were unscrewing) upon a beloved old family homestead, site of a doomed wedding—descriptions so warm and attentive, a reader can’t help falling in head first….Dream State is a wonderful feast, and feat.” —Boston Globe

“The story of relationships built and broken, mistakes inherited and repeated, and the beauty of trying again…already one of the year’s best.” –People

“A moving, psychologically acute, formally surprising family saga…Sprawling and elegant…both old-fashioned and bracingly inventive.” —Kirkus Reviews starred review

“A shimmering Montana saga....A coming-of-old-age story…[that reminds] us that a mutable self doesn’t end with adolescence.” —The New York Times Book Review

“Dream State is a delight…An exquisitely rendered novel about the vagaries of fate, and friendship, and love.” —Alice McDermott, National Book Award winner and author of Absolution

“A masterpiece. Dream State is a glittering, evocative achievement.” —Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Orphan Master’s Son

“Filled to the brim with life, Dream State is a wonder of character and craft.” —Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less and Less is Lost

“Lush, immersive, devastating, and stunningly alive, Dream State did the thing the very best novels do: pulled me relentlessly into its characters, its setting, concerns, losses, and triumphs, only to let me loose again with a sharper, clearer vision of the world outside.” —Lynn Steger Strong, author of The Float Test

“[Puchner’s] novel overflows with both meaning and intriguing plot, layer by layer, year by year….Don’t miss Dream State, whose memorable characters leave readers with plenty to contemplate about life’s most vital aspects.” –BookPage *starred review*

“Masterfully built.” –Financial Times

“Funny and wild; some of the most beautiful writing that I have ever read.” —Matthew Klam, author of Who Is Rich?

“Eric Puchner has populated his engrossing and deeply affecting novel with characters so complicated and sympathetic that we want--we need--to know how their lives will turn out, and what will happen to the glorious and fragile landscape they inhabit.” —Francine Prose, author of Mister Monkey

“Eric Puchner’s Dream State delivers everything I want in a novel: a love triangle, a moving friendship story, a delicious setting (including some of the best skiing scenes I’ve ever read in my life) and rumination about how we search for meaning in our lives…an absolute masterpiece.” —Elin Hilderbrand, author of The Perfect Couple and Swan Song

“Dream State is a gorgeous exploration of time, grief, love, and the way that the commitments we make turn us into the people we become…brilliant.” —Danielle Evans, author of The Office of Historical Corrections

“Dream State explores several monumental themes—love, family, identity, human transience, climate change—but always with a scrupulous attention to the fate of individuals, and always with a powerful sense of intimate connection. . .a remarkable achievement.” —Andrew Motion, UK Poet Laureate 1999-2009 Expand reviews