Eye Dancers, by Michael S. Fedison

“That we’re not so alone, you know? Maybe we’re all connected to each other in ways we can’t understand. And that’s okay, I guess. Because maybe we don’t need to understand it.

We just need to believe it.”

Eye Dancers is a delightful and suspenseful coming of age novel, aimed primarily for young boys. The story revolves around four boys during one hot summer. They are friends, well, all but one, Kuslanski who is an outsider, but a real geek, a genius and a loner.  But he will soon be pulled into their nightmares. Joe, Ryan and Mitchell find themselves having the same freaky, terrifying dream, a dream about a girl with weird dancing, twirling blue eyes. She pulls at them with her hypnotic eyes. She is a ghost girl, or so they think.

They enlist Kuslanski, the brain, to help them figure out what’s happening. They are scared, but it is Kuslanski’s logic they need, and they need him to watch over them as they sleep. He’s only supposed to be an observer, but finds himself pulled along with them as the ghost girl’s power engulfs all of them and they are whirled into another dimension.

The ghost girl is in trouble and her very life may be at stake. Only the boys’ can save her, but only if they can find her in time. And so the mystery begins and along the way, each boy finds an unmistakable truth, about who they are and about what it means to be a friend. And about self reflection and acceptance.

Michael is a wonderful and insightful writer. Suspense, humor and pathos combine to make Eye Dancers an exceptional novel, not only for the young, but the young at heart. Reading it, I was pulled back to my own childhood, to the time when we are not sure of ourselves and just learning about life and our place in it.

I highly recommend Eye Dancers, five stars all the way!