City of Nightmares

A morally gray story set in a city where you can turn into your worst nightmare if you dream in your sleep. The main character is a coward who is terrified of everything. In a series of unfortunate events she has to team up with a nightmare boy who may or may not be planning on eating her. Thus begins her journey to overcoming her fears. I really enjoyed this story! It was fast paced, fun, and had a really interesting premise! Will definitely be reading book 2.

This book is wasted potential.

The setting is so cool, but instead of getting to explore a city where you can be turned into your actual greatest nightmare, most of this book is about a will-they-wont-they with a vampire. The book being as short as it was does it no favors, and while the main character is kindof annoying, I did trend towards liking her, if she was given more time to develop or do something other than worry about being a coward and think about a vampire or her dead sister.

There's also a mystery plot to this book, which...the answer to is largely not given clues for, so its impossible to guess, which makes mysteries not fun. The main character's trauma over her dead sister feels very surface level (“my sister became a giant spider, so now I am A COWARD BECAUSE MY SISTER DIED”) and I think her growth in this book felt unearned. Because, again, she spent most of the time talking to a spooky (but hot?) vampire.

If this was a book one in a larger series I would be okay with this hyper focused plot. Like if the author was planning a Dresden-type series with this. But it's the first in a duology. And I just....find this concept so interesting, and am very sad it's being used as a tool to be mediocre.

This book reads like an Anime. Wonderfully weird. The main character is a bit... much. But I can overlook the things I found a bit tedious or annoying as this is supposed to be a series and there was much growth by the end. The writing style in this book is a bit of a turn off, descriptions are lackluster in some cases, but the characters are lovely and i loved following them through the story.. The heavy under tones of consent is also a welcome sight to see.

content warnings: https://www.rschaefferbooks.com/content-warnings

I'll start this by saying that I loved Rebecca Schaeffer's previous series Market of Monsters. It was truly a dark and messed up YA series that was unlike anything else I'd ever read. Following that up would be a tough task for anyone, but City of Nightmares mostly achieves that and is an exciting new release.

Set in a Gotham-like city, this series is full of monsters and corruption. Residents have to take pills in order to prevent themselves from turning into Nightmares - whatever is the last thing that they would want to be. Ness, the protagonist, has had her life torn apart by a Nightmare and is now terrified by the prospect of turning into one or encountering one. During her work on behalf of the cult she is a part of (which she joined for food and shelter), she is caught up in an assassination attempt and survives with the help of a Nightmare. The rest of the book follows how she deals with the shift in everything she knows, and whether she can balance her fear of Nightmares with her want to be alive and search for the truth.

As always with Rebecca Schaeffer books, sometimes people are worse than monsters. And sometimes people turn into spiders and kill their family.

Ness is a pretty interesting protagonist and different to most female protagonists in fantasy type YA books. She's not brave, she doesn't want what's happening to her, and she doesn't trust anything around her. The book is well-paced and balances plot with character interactions and development. With this series being a duology, it'll be interesting to see how this is wrapped up in the final instalment later this year. I'm looking forward to more shenanigans involving Ness and Cy.

This was a fun little adventure. I thought the story was a weird (in a good way) mash up of a batman comic, Six of Crows, and The Troop. It was original and refreshing. I liked that healing and friendship were the main focus on this novel rather than romance. That being said the characters were missing some depth and despite lots of dialogue and backstory I didn't feel very connected to them, there was a layer missing that I can't put my finger on. Regardless is was a fun read and I'll definitely read the second one!

Sejak kakaknya berubah menjadi laba-laba pemakan manusia (mimpi terburuk kakaknya), Ness yang berumur 19 tahun masih trauma dan takut dibunuh oleh mimpi buruk dan juga takut menjadi seperti kakaknya. Karena di Newham, tempat tinggalnya, kota yang tidak pernah tidur, bermimpi berarti Ketika bangun akan berubah menjadi mimpi terburukmu.
Walaupun itu hanya berubah menjadi monster hanya dalam penampilan, ataupun berubah menjadi mahluk yang meneror kota, tidak seorangpun yang aman. Ness akan melakukan apa saja untuk menghindari jadi korban lainnya, bahkan jika itu membuatnya bergabung dengan Friends of the Restful Soul, organisasi yang kurang kredibel dan mungkin juga sebuah kultus.
Namun menjadi anggota organisasi ini ada harganya. Untuk membuktikan dirinya, Ness mengerjakan beberapa pekerjaan yang seharusnya sederhana, namun pada akhirnya dia mengacaukannya.
Setelah insiden bersama sahabatnya Priya, direktur Friends berniat memindahkan Ness ke tempat lain, namun Ness mampu meyakinkan direktur untuk memberinya tugas mengantarkan paket ke pulau lain, yg seharusnya menjadi tugas Cindy. Disini aku agak kurang menyukai cara Ness mendapatkan tugas ini karena pakai cara yang menurutku kurang dapat dibenarkan, kesannya seperti Ness seorang tukang tindas yang harus mendapatkan apa yang diinginkannya.
Kapal yg ditumpangi Ness dalam perjalanannya mengantarkan paket mengalami kecelakaan & meledak, bersama satu-satunya penyintas lain – cowok mimpi buruk yang Ness curiga berencana memakannya – mesti menemukan jalan kembali ke Newham, untuk mengungkap kebenaran dibalik kecelakaan tersebut.
Terlepas dari ganjalan sikap Ness diatas menurutku buku ini fantasi ringan yang cukup menghibur. Jangan berharap world building yang kompleks, seperti sudah kusebut, fantasi ringan. Aku menikmatinya lebih dari dugaanku semula, jadi untuk yang sedang ingin membaca fantasi ringan, kurasa buku ini bisa dicoba.