Strange The Dreamer

Strange the Dreamer (Strange the Dreamer #1) by Laini Taylor

my rating : ★★★☆☆

genre : fantasy

goodreads rating : 4.43

I received an arc copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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. 

Part 1: Atlantis + The Name of The Wind = Strange The Dreamer

Part 2: Introduction of clear love interest

Part 3: meet cute

Everything else: I hate myself, why is this happening?

-Also I just realised the acronym for this book is STD and now I feel weird

-Lazlo is actually a special snowflake

“On the Sabbat of Twelfth-moon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky. Her skin was blue, her blood was red.”

Honestly, this started out so strong, I was thinking 4.5 or 5 stars and then bam the romance. No thank you, please leave, this is not what I signed up for.

Strange The Dreamer had the best start to a book that I had read in a long time, it gave me hope as I hadn’t particularly enjoyed the last two books in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series.

I LOVED the first half of this novel, we focused on Lazlo and his librarian life, yes, that’s right, I said librarian! We discover how he learnt about Weed and learn that he’s a bit of a smartie pants – he really reminded me of the dude (Milo??) from the Atlantis films, which is probably why I liked him so much. Unfortunately, however as the novel went on and the more he got infatuated with his love interest I sort of discovered that the dude’s a bit wet. There’s nothing to him – he’s a pile of books without a memorable personality. He made some really dumbass decisions, especially towards the end (in fact, what the hell was he thinking with that ending, uggghhhh).

This book was just over 400, 500 for some people pages. And for the most part I liked Lazlo, but somewhere in that mess of prose and slow pacing I began to lose my respect for him. He went from being this boy who was a tad obsessed with a place no one else believed in, a boy who read until his eyes were dry or he walked into a wall. To being a man who was sick with love for a girl he’d met maybe twice, willing to risk anything for her. Like, I’m sorry, but any reader knows that is never a good idea – we’ve read every possible outcome and there is only ever a very small chance it will ever go well.

“He read while he walked. He read while he ate. The other librarians suspected he somehow read while he slept, or perhaps didn’t sleep at all.”

However, as the story went on we started to drift from Lazlo and his special snowflake brain and were introduced to the love interest, whose name I cannot even remember,

I had quite  few problemswith this book, while the writing was awesome, the plot was as slow as a wet week and the romance was disgustingly instant.

Kiki over on Goodreads said this and I’m inclined to agree with her.: “There was no plot, only a series of situations that were eventually overwhelmed with a mass of cloying, sickly romance.”

Anyway, so what I’m trying to get across is that there isn’t really a plot it’s just a really diabetes-inducing romance. A romance that I just can’t get myself to back up.

“I turned my nightmares into fireflies and caught them in a jar.”

I had high hopes for this novel but I think Laini Taylor’s books just aren’t for me. I’ll miss her stunning writing and intriguing synopses but I won’t miss the formulaic girl meets boy, everything is now irrelevant plots.

• Totally quotable
• Fantastic writing, as per usual
• I really enjoyed Lazlo
• The romance overpowered the story

I honestly don’t know if I will continue this duology? trilogy?

If I get sent an arc I will of course pick up the next book but I wouldn’t buy it in store. I hope that the second instalment is better than this was but right now, no, I doubt I’ll pick up book 2.

Have you read Strange The Dreamer? What did you think?