Today I finished Strange
the Dreamer, and I have to say, that this book was incredibly strange. This has been my first
experience with a Laini Taylor book… and I am very confused. I still gave it a
decently high rating, because it kept my interest through the entire thing.
I’ll get into why I didn’t give it a full five stars in a bit, but I’m going to
go ahead and say it’s more of a 3.75 rating. Strange the Dreamer was so strange that the entire time I was
reading, I expected to find answers as I flew through this book, only to be
left more in the dark.
I’m going
to try and explain this book in a way that’s easy to understand, although I
don’t know if that’s possible.
Essentially,
Strange the Dreamer follows Lazlo
Strange who is an orphaned boy who is discovered by monks at the beginning of
the novel, turns into a librarian and then… well you’ll have to read to see if
he becomes anything else by the end of the book. The entirety of this novel
follows him as his obsession with city named Weep (because a goddess ate it’s
original name) and what he does when he actually gets there.
The things
that I enjoyed the most about this novel are fairly straightforward. I felt
that the plot was original, and it kept me engaged for the entire book. I
wanted to find out who these blue skinned people were and why they were there.
Lazlo as a character was very entertaining to read about, especially in the
earlier parts of the book. I so related to his dreaminess, and his getting lost
in the library where he worked at. Laini Taylor’s writing is so vivid that I
really felt as though I were in this book. Those are the kinds of books I like
reading the best—if they can block out the outside world for a couple of days,
then I know it’s a good book. And Strange
the Dreamer is good, in it’s own way, but I do have a few complaints.
I’m going
to start with the romance.
I like a
good romance as much as the next person. That being said, when I’m engrossed in
a fantasy novel, I don’t want it to take
up the entire plot. Mostly I kept reading because I wanted to find out
where these blue skinned people came from and why they were there. I basically
got no answers. While I understand that this is the first book in a series
(duology? I have no idea how many books are going to be in this series), I like
to have at least some answers before
I have to wait another year for the next installment. And to be honest? I
couldn’t care less about Lazlo and his romance with the other main character. I
wanted to learn more about the world and what happened to make these blue
people come down to this world and be so cruel to humans. There was so much
talk about hate and how brutal it could make people, but I wanted to see why. Sure, there was some backstory as
to why some of the characters are the way they are now, but it wasn’t nearly
enough. Laini Taylor’s flowery writing really only focused on this very intense
dream romance (I don’t really know what to call it without spoiling the whole
book).
So,
overall, I’m not quite sure how I felt about it. I gave it a higher rating on
Goodreads, mostly because I enjoyed reading it for what it was. I still wished
there were more answers than Taylor gave us, but it was like watching a very
vivid movie that I never wanted to leave. I have very conflicting emotions
about this book. I’m definitely going to pick up the next one, and I’m not sure
if I explained it well enough for any of you to want to read it. I say if you
read her previous Daughter of Smoke and
Bone trilogy, you might want to check this out. For me, however, this book
was my first experience with Laini Taylor’s writing, and I don’t know how I feel
about it, if I’m being honest. I had a really good time while I was reading it, but now that I’m done I feel mostly
confused. Hopefully we’ll get some answers in the sequel, because with the way
this one ended, I know that I’m going to be picking it up when it’s released.
No comments:
Post a Comment