*RE-READ April 24-26, 2020* Still as beautiful and heartbreaking as my first read. I listened to the audiobook this go around, and I highly recommend it. The voice actor does a really nice job providing distinct voices to the various characters. I don’t know that it gets much better than Laini Taylor.

*RE-READ September 30-October 4, 2018*
Well, this book is still five stars for me. I loved it even more the second time around. I'm not saying it's perfect. There are some pacing issues and I wish some of the dream sequences between Lazlo and Sarai had taken place over the course of several nights instead of just a couple, but I also don't really care. This story is beautiful and devastating and hopeful and heartbreaking.
It's funny. This was my favorite book of 2017, and one of my favorites of all time. That being said, I totally forgot a couple of the big plot points and reveals that happen near the end of this book, so it was like I was reading it for the first time. I am so glad I re-read this before jumping into Muse of Nightmares. It was absolutely worth it!


Wow. This book is beautiful. I can't believe I have to wait a year for the next book!

Things I liked:
1. The writing. Laini Taylor's writing is exquisite. It's lyrical and poetic. It's descriptive without being overly so. Her ability to paint a scene with just her prose is truly spectacular.
2. World-building. The world she has created here is stunning. From the actual places to the people and their cultures, I thought it was unique and compelling.
3. The characters. Strange the Dreamer is 100% a character-driven story, and that is 100% fine with me. I saw some reviews talking about how they felt the book was just filler and I just don't agree in the slightest. Everything in the books is driven by the characters, their decisions, their struggles, their hopes, their fears, and so on. Learning about these characters and their relationships not only with the people around them but also the world around them is vital to understanding what has informed their decisions. That is NOT filler.
Lazlo and Sarai are wonderful protagonists. All of Sarai's 'family' members are also very compelling. Even the antagonistic characters in this book are layered and complex. In their minds, they are justified, and that is so much more fascinating than a mustache-twirling, one-dimensional evil antagonist.
4. The focus on dreams. I have always had a fascination with dreams, and I love that it was a focus in this book. The ethereal quality created in Lazlo's dreams was perfection.

There are people who will probably say that there isn't much of a plot in this book. I disagree. True, there may not be an overarching EXTERNAL plot, even though there is some action. Instead, the plots running through this book are internal. Each character or group of characters have goals that they are trying to achieve that have been set forth based on their character and circumstance.

I loved Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, and I'm so happy to say that I enjoyed this even more.

*RE-READ May, 2020*


4.5 stars

So...just to reiterate. This review will be full of spoilers for Strange the Dreamer and Muse of Nightmares. Read at your own risk.

After the end of Strange the Dreamer, I expected that this book was going to be just as heart-wrenching, as devastating, as brutal.

It wasn't.

Just for the record, I was looking forward to all of those things. I had in my mind what this book was going to be. Epic fantasy, lots of action and angst, death of beloved characters. And that's not really what we got. At all. In the end, I loved the book, but I don't think it's as strong as Strange the Dreamer, which it seems like is an unpopular opinion. That being said, I still gave it five stars because what it did, it did exceptionally well.

What I liked:

1. The writing. I love Laini Taylor's prose. I just eat it up. Her writing is so evocative and descriptive without being overblown. It's poetic and lyrical, but you can also see her sense of humor through her writing.

2. The characters, particularly the side characters. I still enjoyed Lazlo and Sarai in this book, but we got to see more of the side characters and their interactions with each other. Thyon and Calixte have some really great scenes. Thyon in general has a good arc through this series, although I wish we'd seen a little more of them. And then, something that was a surprise to me, but I also loved Minya's character/arc in this book. As we learn more about her childhood before the Carnage and we learn about the way her powers affect her, I couldn't help but root for her.

3. The Koraandnova storyline. When this book began with a completely different place and characters than we'd previously seen, I was intrigued. I loved that in this world, the Mesarthim are seen as servants to the Empire that rules their lives. I loved learning about how the Mesarthim are created. And even though we only see snippets of the sisters together, their bond was evident. This relationship actually produced the most emotion from me as I read this novel. I never felt annoyed to be taken out of the current action to be given another peek into their journey.

4. Learning the history of the seraphim and Mesarthim and how they came to be in Zeru. I especially loved the tie-in with Daughter of Smoke and Bone. It's been several years since I read the DOSAB trilogy. I've wanted to do a re-read on it for awhile now and when I realized the connections I almost wanted to shut that book and pick up DOSAB. I love that she created these two completely different worlds/stories and was able to connect them so seemlessly with only a few sentences.

5. More of Eril-Fane's and Azareen's backstories. We know going into the book a little about their past, but this book gives us more and I am here for it.


What I didn't like:

1. Pacing. I'm not actually sure if pacing is the right word for this, so let me explain. This second book takes place over the course of maybe three days. The first day takes up over 200 pages in this book. And to be honest, not much actually happens. Now, I'm a character-driven story kind of girl, but I wanted some action. I wanted more interaction between the godspawn and the townsfolk. I wanted to see Lazlo geek out over the library and all its books.

After they drugged Minya I thought the action would finally pick up, but it really didn't. That happens Day One and theirs still 80 pages before we get to Day Two. We learned some new things about Minya's past,which was great. The revelation about the Ellens was a big surprise for me. But there was also a lot (a LOT) of time devoted to the cutesy romance between Lazlo and Sarai. I liked their banter and obvious love for one another, but come on, guys. Priorities, please.

I guess I just expected this book to have a little more movement and show more of a passage of time.

2. Tropey trope. One of my least favorite tropes is killing off a character just to bring them back to life in the next chapter. When these characters were killed near the end of the book, I thought it was sad and tragic and ultimately kind of beautiful. They died trying to protect the people they loved. When they were brought back due to a previously undiscovered power, I thought it felt a little lazy and a little cheap.

3. The ending was a little too neat. It all just seems to tie up so neatly and quickly. After spending 200+ pages covering the events of one day, it made the ending feel a little rushed.

I do want to do a re-read of this series in about six months. I feel like this book suffered for me personally because of my own expectations of it, which aren't really fair to the book. I would like to go back in knowing what to expect and see what I think about it then. I still love Laini Taylor. I will buy any book she ever writes.

I can’t believe this is a debut novel. I loved it!

This was a surprising 5-star book for me. Going into it, I wasn't sure what I was going to think. Normally this kind of story wouldn't necessarily appeal to me, but I kept seeing rave reviews and decided to check it out.

Even while I was in the middle of the book, I never thought I would end up giving it 5 stars. It's told in two different timelines (the first is a specific day in time, the other is directly after that day and for the next six years) and while I do tend to enjoy those stories, knowing that the one timeline was headed for this catastrophic event and the fact that it kept switching from one POV to another made me feel a little disconnected from those characters. We don't ever really get to know any of them, with the exception of Edward and perhaps his family.

So imagine my surprise when we finally get to the point of the book where the crash is detailed, and I realized I was crying. I'm not someone who generally cries while reading. Movies and television? Yes, I'm a crybaby, especially if the score is well-done. But even when I feel sad or moved by a book, I don't usually cry. And I think that if the book had simply focused on Edward and his family, I still would've been moved, but I don't know that I would've felt the heartbreak that I did after learning bits and pieces about these other characters and their stories. Also, being introduced to these people in this way gives the letters Edward receives more impact than if we just focus on him and his grief.

I always find it interesting when movies or television shows kill off characters with no resolution to their arcs, but then I try to remember that that's life.. I would imagine very few of us actually get a fully-resolved story, and this book explores that in a way that I wasn't expecting to have as big an impact as it did. As we got closer and closer to the climax, I kept hoping that what I knew was going to happen wasn't actually going to happen. Perhaps we would realize it was all a terrible dream, or that the crash only existed in the script Edward's mother was writing. Maybe there's another version of our universe where the plane landed safely and everyone was able to go on with their day-to-day lives.

As far as the other timeline goes, I felt like the author did a fantastic job weaving this story about grief and trauma with a really authentic coming-of-age story. He goes through all of the ups and downs that all adolescents face through their pre-teen and early-adult years, while also having to deal with the deaths of his family and being thrown into the public eye and all that would entail. I loved his relationship with Shay and her mom, and the way he's ultimately able to connect to his aunt and uncle. There is a moment where his aunt decides to wear one of his mom's shirts to an interview because it made her feel powerful and he realizes that just as he lost a brother, his aunt lost a sister. It's a terrible thing to offer common ground, but his ability to make connections to the people around him is what helps him through his grief and trauma.

I don't usually talk about books in relation to book clubs, but I feel like this would be a great one to sit down and dissect with a group of people. There are so many interesting themes running through that were so well-crafted.

I also thought it was evident that the author did a great deal of research when writing this book, and learned in the author's note that she actually used black box transcripts to recreate the dialogue between the pilot and co-pilot in the second half of the story. The great thing is that it doesn't feel like the information is shoved in there. It all feels very organic in the way it was woven into the book.

I think this is going to be a book I'm going to think about for a long time.

This book will definitely not appeal to everyone.

Read the book with my son over the past few days, which was absolutely the best part of the experience for me. The book was fine, the characters fun and engaging. I don’t have the nostalgia for this story that some may, as I never read it when I was a child nor have I seen the movie adaptation, but seeing the way my son responded to it increased my own enjoyment for sure.

So I just finished reading this for the third time, and apparently I never reviewed it? Weird.
Anyway...I really enjoy this series, and this book especially. It’s creative in its structure, and one of the best audiobook experiences I’ve ever had. This is the first time I’ve listened to the entire book via audiobook. It’s so well done.
The fact that this book, entirely written as documents in a file, could provide such well-developed characters, is really impressive. I am always sucked into the story and root for Ezra and Kady to find their way back to each other.
I’m continuing on with Gemini and Obsidio via audio, and I’m excited to be revisiting this series again.