Goodreads 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?
Welcome to Weep.
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I’d read the other series, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor last year. So I was fairly interested when I heard that she’d published another book. Plus I fell in love with the cover.
Strange the Dreamer is much better than Laini Taylor’s first series. You can tell right away that her storytelling and prose has matured, which made me happy. It’s so cool when you can tell that an author is growing and becoming better, it gives me hope for my own writing. 😀 There were still times when I felt her prose in this book went a little overboard, I caught myself having to read paragraphs twice before I understood what was going on. It was just all so flowery. However the upside to the prose style is a very vivid world.
The world of Strange the Dreamer is fricken gorgeous. From fair blue maidens, to libraries that you wish you could go live in, from dream moths to ghosts. This world is amazing.
The characters are also well written, though I disliked some of them, I can’t complain that this was because of lack of development or poor writing. It was just a matter of the character being annoying in my mind. The character I’m talking about is Sarai, the other main character and eventual love interest. Sarai is a good girl, too good. She takes care of her godling siblings/friends and doesn’t complain. She knows her family was slaughtered by humans but doesn’t want revenge. She was so boringly good, it frustrated me. I didn’t understand her lack of anger. I felt that there was nowhere for her character to go, she was already perfect.
Speaking of anger, I loved Minya. I want to read a book from her perspective. As a small child she is the one who rescues the other godlings, dragging them to safety when she was only 6! She saw her family and friends murdered brutally and she wants revenge. I could understand that, I wanted to see her anger, to see her taste revenge and I wanted to see her be able to move beyond that eventually. A redemption arc I guess.
The main character, Lazlo was fantastic. I appreciated that he doesn’t get what he wants immediately, I like it that he has to work long and hard to reach his dream. I disliked the romance between him and Sarai, it felt forced and I didn’t think they had chemistry. I honestly thought Lazlo was gay for quite awhile. Which would have been better in my opinion, but whatever. I do however, liked the way the story ended. I won’t give spoilers, but I will say it will leave wanting to read the next book very badly.
Overall I really liked this book. Strange the Dreamer is a fantastic fantasy story, it has a stunning world and interesting characters. Four stars.
