Review: Strange the Dreamer

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

On the second Saturday of October, in the city of Aberdeen, a girl sat down to write a book review.

The book was amazing, the girl in awe.

She sat at a laptop, hands above the keyboard, and there she hung, eager to write, desperate to share her words with other beautiful minds. One tiny detail held her in place. The inability to write as beautifully as Laini Taylor, the deficit clear in her words, glittering for all to see. She stopped and started as the words tried to break free, her vocabulary clearly lacking.

Later, she would say the it was the hardest thing she had attempted and not the easy imitation she’d expected it to be.

She would say it hadn’t be difficult but impossible. That it was lewd, attempting to mirror such natural beauty, defacing it, that she was ripping apart all that was beautiful in the world and leaving a pale imitation. She would say the thought finally took hold, solid, and made her realise she needed to stop.

That was true. Only that.

Now imagine the above written in the beauty that Laini Taylor provides the world, introducing us to something much more interesting than a bibliophile sitting down to write a book review. Imagine something dramatic, something that shakes the foundations of the world, and you have the introduction to Strange the Dreamer. As you can imagine, it starts with a bang and only gets better.

Since reading Daughter of Smoke and Bone, I’ve been addicted to Laini Taylor’s words. I’ve grabbed all I could get my hands on, and then found myself desperately awaiting Strange the Dreamer. I’d originally planned to dive into it the moment the book was released, but I held off because I knew I would need Muse of Nightmares as soon as I was done. The wait was painful – especially when I saw how much everyone loved Strange the Dreamer – but I’m glad I held off. The ending to Strange the Dreamer has ensured I’ll be diving into Muse of Nightmares to find out what happened, with the ending ensuring I would have had a painful wait otherwise.

At first, the story was a wee bit slow. It was beautiful, as everything Laini Taylor writes is, but it was a lot of introduction to things. This was a necessity, though, as we really are introduced to so many things. People, cities, events, and so much more. The world is brought to life before us in the most wonderful way – the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the hate and the love, and every other detail that makes up a world. Although things were slow, watching the way everything was introduced to us more than made up for the fact things were not moving at the intense pace I’d anticipated.

Then, later in the story, when things start to move, they do so at a rapid pace. Details come to light and build upon what we have come to know, we’re sucked even deeper into the story, and everything comes together wonderfully. I’d worked out some of the elements, I’d guessed what was going to come to light, but my knowledge of what was to come had no impact on my enjoyment. I’d expected things, and it was still beautiful to watch said things play out. It’s such an intricately crafted story that watching the way everything plays off other aspects is a delight.

I could say so much about this story, giving you an endless list of the things I like and the things I loved, but I would never be able to do the story justice. I admit, I did not love this one to quite the same degree as I loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but it was a beautiful story. It’s one that hooked me throughout, one that sucked me deep into the world, and I cannot wait to see how Muse of Nightmares plays out.

In truth, my rating is a four-point-five-star rating. I surprised even myself through opting to round down with a Laini Taylor story, but I have no doubt in my mind that Muse of Nightmares will easily pull a five-star rating from me if it is as beautiful as I’m imagining it to be.

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