Where book one was entertaining enough and I got a good feel for the female main character and the supporting cast, this book felt a little shallow. At the end of book one there was some tension going forward as we had to work out how the barrier between the two world was going to come down. However, a large section of the book was spent travelling, while another section was spent across the barrier, only for us to learn that everything we had discovered and thought about it, was previously untrue. For me this didn’t create conflict but instead felt as though the book took a major step backwards. I respect that this book is YA so it has a very linear and basic structure but that did make it feel a little too childish for my personal tastes.

It works wonderfully for the young adult audience, so I cannot fault it in that regard, although textually it was very repetitive to the point of idiocy. Constant plot points or dialogue were repeated twice if not three times in quick concession in order to elaborate on a point, which I thought was very low-grade writing.
I did go into this thinking there was going to be a love triangle of sorts, especially from the blurb and where this didn’t go with that plot point I felt a little disappointed as that would’ve given it some appropriately dramatic levels. Everything about this was a little too cut and dry and maybe the conflict of love interests may have given it a little bit more for me to be interested in.

I was also a little disappointed because what I loved about Saiorse in the first book, I felt was lost in this one. She was constantly at war with her emotions even when they were staring her blatantly in the face, especially in regards to prince who was always honest about his own emotions so why she couldn’t be the same felt as though it were being dragged out for no real reason. The relationship with the sister still held no real weight. Her relationship with her best friend was probably the most flushed out connection throughout the book. Everyone else felt a lot like filler and ultimately rolled into one.

The ending, again was quite straightforward with no real collateral damage by one character and while that gave an appropriate emotional response it wasn’t necessarily a positive one for me. Drown Me with Dreams is a prime example of a story that is perfectly fine, but not breaking any barriers ironically. 

I would recommend this for true young adult fans of low spice and heavy dialogue. If you like all the explanations told a million different ways then this is for you.