Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor Review
Hello Again!
Welcome to my first review of February. I wanted to do a review for Strange the Dreamer since it was the first buddy read I did with my new book club, The Bookish Ladies Book Club. This was definitely a unique read and will be a fun review, read on below! Enjoy!
Synopsis
"The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever. What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving? The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?"
- GoodReads
Review
This book was very interesting to read because if I had done the review during my reading of the first half of the book, I would have given this book a less pleasant review. However, this book gets vastly more interesting after the halfway mark, enough so that I really enjoyed it despite my unenjoyment of it in the beginning. Read on to see specifically what I enjoyed and didn't enjoy.
When I started this book, I almost put it down immediately because of how verbose the writing was. This writer definitely likes to use description. Honestly, if I had not been reading this for a book club with the goal of finishing it, I think I might have DNF'd it. I'm glad that I pushed through it though as I got use to the author's use of description eventually. In addition to the description, the story is pretty slow in the beginning and was hard for me to follow what was going on for pretty much the first 250 pages.
I really enjoyed that the main protagonist of this novel was a guy. This is hard to find in young adult novels these days and it was a change of pace. One of the things that made it harder to follow in the beginning but then made it more enjoyable was her use of switching from one story plot to another. She would switch from one set of characters to another and it really helped you to get a sense of what each side was understanding and feeling. The world building in this novel is phenomenal, her creativity know no bounds. The story was like nothing I had ever read and it felt like I just kept learning about new things in each chapter which is sometimes hard to do without overwhelming the reader.
One of the things that I think is a deficit for this book is that the author introduces so many characters in the beginning and then we don't really learn much from them and our protagonist doesn't really interact with them. I'm not a fan of having a character introduced that serves no purpose to the plot. I just feel like the writer missed an opportunity in the second half of the book to develop the protagonist's relationship with these characters. They may pop up again in the second novel, only time will tell.
Another thing I enjoyed was the romance that develops between two of the characters. It was not an R- rated romance like you see in so many young adult novels today. The romance was subtle, accented by her descriptive writing, and although the characters had not known each other for very long it still felt like they were very connected. The last 10 chapters of the book were an all out action fest and I loved it. They had me on the edge of my seat because there were so many twists and turns even though after they happened I could see the evidence in her writing. I think this really shows her prowess as a writer. The ending was phenomenal and I honestly have no idea what will happen in the next book but I know I'm excited to read it.
Conclusion
Overall, I thought this novel was quite slow until it picked up in the second half of the book. The plot twists at the end were phenomenal and I can't wait to read the second novel.
Length: At 536 pages, this novel was quite long but I could have read even more!
Story Development: Very slow in the beginning but the development in the second half makes up for it.
Romance: Subtle but well rounded.
Protagonist Strength: Above Average
Re-readable? Yes! In fact I think it will probably be better the second time!
I give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars
