The Dreamland Billionaires trilogy by Lauren Asher is one viral series on BookTok, and, personally, I love a rich man. So, when I found this on Kindle Unlimited, I decided to download all three and give them a go! I should clarify: I knew nothing about this series going in and I figured “Dreamland” was said billionaire’s last name or something of the sort. But, no, I couldn’t get off that easy. Turns out I had run face-first into Disney World fanfiction.
Yeah, you read that correctly. “Dreamland” is a theme park based in Flordia that creates lands and attractions based on its animated movies… need I say more? Now, I am a Disney adult. I love going to the parks, and I love all the movies, etc., but by no means am I this kind of Disney adult. Genuinely, I never thought this would exist, nevertheless, be published. But with all three books downloaded, I couldn’t turn back, so Disney World fanfiction I read.
Now I should start by pointing out a huge red flag when it comes to books (at least for me it’s a red flag, for you, it may just be a telltale sign that this, my friend, is just
published fanfiction): Playlists. Extremely common on fanfiction sites/apps like Wattpad, writers will include severe things before the start of their stories. Things like “aesthetic collages” to show you how they view the aesthetics of their main characters, or “playlists” to tell you what songs they think correspond to each chapter. Somehow, publishers decide to keep these included in certain works when they are being published. At the beginning of all three novels in The Dreamland Billionaire series, there are playlists, which let me know exactly what I was getting myself into.
The first book in this series is titled The Fine Print. It introduces us to the plot of all three books, as well as a little history behind the family you read about. Brady Kane (you can think of him as Walt Disney), Dreamland Founder and grandfather to Declan, Callahan, and Rowan, has passed away. With his death, Dreamland’s fortune and success are up for grabs, but the late Brady has a plan for all of that. He leaves behind letters for his three grandsons letting them know they all have tasks they must complete in order to obtain their portion of the will and prevent their horrible father from inheriting all of it instead. Sounds like a pretty interesting plot, right? I thought so, too. The Fine Print follows Rowan Kane, the youngest of the billionaire brothers, as he takes over the role of director of Dreamland for 6 months in order to research the park and present a new plan to make the park better. At the end of these 6 months, a board chosen by his grandfather will then vote to see if Rowan has completed his task.
Rowan is, how do I put it…, not a real human. There is just no way this man can be real. Throughout the entirety of the book, he talks of how he has such an icey exterior, no one can ever tell what he’s feeling. That’s partially because he’s trained himself to not have any emotions. He’s a brutal guy who tells it like it is regardless of anyone’s feelings. In fact, he’s the one who has set the pay to the minimum wage for tons of Dreamland employees, switched their health insurance to the bottom line, and cut paid vacation time for all employees. During his first meeting in Flordia, Zahra comes in late and falls right into Rowan’s lap, literally.
Zahra comes from a family of Dreamland workers and finds herself working in the Bippidy Boppity Boutique–wait, sorry, in this book it’s called the Magic Wand Salon– so what she’s doing in this meeting is a mystery to me. She quickly finds herself promoted to “Creator” (or Imagineer if you’re a Disney fan) after she submits a proposal completely tearing apart a recent addition to the park that her ex-boyfriend actually stole from her (I know this is a lot of plot, but stay with me here). Zarha tends to be a very positive person; she tries to find beauty in everything and has this certain confidence in herself. In her first presentation as a Creator, Zarha throws some quick remarks at Rowan after he trashes her drawing abilities. But, he also recognizes her abilities in front of the rest of the team and praises her ideas. He holds her behind after the meeting to warn her and the two end up sharing quite a spicy kiss.
WARNING: This paragraph contains slight spoilers. If you wish to proceed without spoilers please continue to the next paragraph. The two really can’t keep away from each other because of this “magical burning sensation” they both feel when they touch (believe me, the author doesn’t let you forget that literal sparks fly when they touch each other). Well, I guess it’s more that Rowan can’t keep away from Zarha. He shows up at her cubical all the time to just stare at her, sometimes talking. Eventually, something resembling a soul starts peeking out of Rowan when he offers to bring one of Zahra’s drawings to a “friend” to be fixed before her presentation. You may have guessed it, but this “friend” of Rowan’s is actually just Rowan. By helping Zarha, he reignites this passion for art that was taken from him by his cruel father. He also obtains her phone number to pass along to said friend, and he keeps it to text Zahra as an alias named Scott.
Throughout the novel, Rowan does a number of messed up things to Zahra using his goal as an excuse to be a terrible person. And Zahra has the will of a termite so she continually goes back to him time and time again–though I have to give Zahra some grace because he does mostly guilt-trip her into coming back every time. At some point, you do feel bad for Rowan, but only slightly because he is a billionaire after all. Now, I have to give props where props are due. The spicy parts of this book were *Chef’s Kiss*. Though the times they decide to get down are quite interesting (like right after he reveals some really traumatic things about his childhood), when they get down they know how to have a good time.
At the end of the day, this novel was basically a whimsical girl showing a rich guy how it is to be human, and he can only ever get halfway there. It’s extremely frustrating to read–not only because one of the characters is a literal robot, but also because of some truly questionable choices and plot points made by the author that I’ve decided not to cover in this review (like a semi-problematic view on Down Syndrom??). As an individual book, I have to give this a SKIP. The romantic relationship (or honestly even the platonic one) feels forced and definitely wouldn’t last long in real life. The two really don’t have anything in common nor do they have an ounce of chemistry, unless you include that “magical force” the author assures us they feel. Honestly, I was really into the workings of Dreamland and the project proposals and such, but halfway through the book just about all of that information is dropped to purely focus on Zahra and Rowan’s whirlwind relationship. I think if the book was more about that it would have been more enjoyable for me.
Even though this book was an individual SKIP, I will be reviewing the remaining books in the trilogy. So keep an eye out for those and if you read or plan to read this one, let me know how you felt about it!
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