15 Hours 54 Minutes | Hachette Audio | YA Fantasy | 10/02/2018
Laini Taylor is one of those authors who reminds me why I love books and reading. She weaves these sweepingly romantic epic fantasies that I can’t imagine working in any other medium. I have officially reached book hangover territory.
Do you ever read a fantasy book and think; everybody in this book needs some serious therapy? This book is like… well, what if they had some? It sounds like it wouldn’t work but it just does.
What is so fascinating to me about this duology is that while there is a clear Big Bad, he is long gone by the time the first book opens. The duology delves into what happens after the villain is gone and characters are left with PTSD, generational trauma and (not to get all The Good Place-y) figuring out what they owe each other.
Taylor does hit some of the same beats as The Daughter of Smoke and Bone series but I feel like this duology offers a more optimistic perspective. I mean, there are still plenty of triggers and fridge horror moments but I think the end is ultimately hopeful.
This book in particular did feel unnecessarily long. At one point I looked down to see I was at 50% and less than a few hours had passed in the story time. This book is doing a bulk of the heavy lifting story wise and I feel like she could have shaved off some stuff from the beginning of Strange The Dreamer.
Me, every time a Daughter of Smoke and Bone reference was made:
Sidenote
Shout out to Book Series Recaps, I read Strange The Dream a year and a half ago and their thorough recap helped me pop back into the second half of this duology without having to re-listen to the audiobook.
I’m a lifelong reader who started blogging about YA books in 2011 but now I read in just about every genre! I love YA coming of age stories, compelling memoirs and genre bending SFF. You can find me talking all things romance at Romance and Sensibility.