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“It was impossible, of course. But when did that ever stop any dreamer from dreaming.”

— Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer

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🦋✨Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor✨🦋

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Strange the Dreamer

★★★★☆

In middle school, I remember reading and really liking Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone series. That, and a friend's recommendation, inspired me to pick up Strange the Dreamer, and I'm so glad I did.

What is this book about? It's so creative and wonderful that it's hard to describe, but in short: Lazlo is an orphan obsessed with the lost city of Weep. Sarai is a half-goddess who lives in a giant floating citadel above the city. Lazlo accompanies other experts to Weep in order to help discover the secret of the citadel, and discovers the twisted history of the old murdered gods of Weep.

If that summary doesn't sound enticing, don't worry, because it doesn't do the book justice at all. On a more fundamental level, Strange the Dreamer is about love, both the power it gives us and has over us. It's about prejudice. It's about judging people for their parents' mistakes, and it's about what makes a hero or a villain.. (Let me just say, the themes in this book were presented excellently.)

So, as always, I will start with the things I liked.

High on the list is characterization, because holy smokes, Taylor knows how to write a protagonist. The scene where Lazlo first came to the library almost made me cry because it reminded me so much of why I fell in love with stories in the first place. He's a very genuine character, and something that really struck me was what a good person he is. I mean, lots of books have "good person" main characters, but we were never told that Lazlo is good. It's shown through his actions, and that makes all the difference. He's always willing to lend a helping hand, but he also knows when to back off, and understands that people have to star in their own stories.

And our other protagonist, Sarai, was also great. Her gift of entering and altering other people's dreams is explored deeply, and so is her relationship with Minya, who manipulated her into using her powers to bring nightmares to the citizens of Weep. A lot of Sarai's perspective dwells on her guilt and turmoil and longing to be considered a normal girl, but it never feels repetitive or annoying. When Sarai is sad, so is the reader, and when she's happy the reader rejoices.

Speaking of which, the romance also deserves a shout out. I'm not usually a fan of lovey-dovey books, but Sarai and Lazlo were so sweet together that I couldn't help but enjoy this one. They tell each other their deepest secrets and support each other's most difficult decisions. Maybe it's just me, but I also loved how slow they took their relationship. And, I think my favorite part was that, even though Sarai was raised to despise humans and Lazlo was told horrendous stories about the blue gods of Weep, they came to understand each other's people as well as love each other. And the ending completely broke my heart, but anyway

However, as wonderful as the characterization is, it pales in comparison to my favorite aspect of Strange the Dreamer, which is the sheer creativity. I think Laini Taylor must be a genius or something. I don't want to spoil the story, but let's just say the dilemma Weep is facing, the creatures that used to live there, the fact that everyone in the book has two hearts (one that pumps blood and one that pumps spirit), the tattoos the women of Weep receive, and of course the writing style... Reading this book really does feel like stepping into a dream.

To anyone who loves fantasy, I completely recommend Strange the Dreamer. I can't wait to read the sequel!

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Top Ten Tuesday - Books I Recommend to Others the Most

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday a topic is assign, and from that topic a top ten list is formed. This weeks topic is Books I Recommend to Others the Most and this list is going to feel…

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What an interesting opening line

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new art in the home ~

#ooh pretty cover

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sometimes family is just a bookworm obsessed with learning a dead language and finding a lost city's name, a bunch of god babies brought up by two ghosts, and the golden boy jealous of the blue one.

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Just started reading Soul of the Deep by Natasha Bowen (sequel to Skin of the Sea) and I’m so excited!! I loved the first book and I would highly recommend this series to anyone who likes Strange the Dreamer. It’s a young adult fantasy series (maybe duology? idk how many books there will be) about West African mermaids. The descriptive writing is really beautiful, the characters are unique and interesting, and there’s a romance that’s a little instalove but also made me cry towards the end of book one. The audiobook narrator for book two is really good, idk if she did book one as well but I’m enjoying her narration. Also the covers are absolutely gorgeous!! Would highly highly recommend to y’all 💙

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#iconic chapter titles if I do say so myself

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Here was the radical notion that you might help someone simply because they needed it.

Strange the Dreamer (by Laini Taylor)

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thyon is cursed with blond and ruza is cursed with crush on blond

#speaking from experience crush on blond is definitely a curse

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“Lazlo couldn’t have belonged at the library more truly if he were a book himself. In the days that followed—and then the months and years, as he grew into a man—he was rarely to be seen without one open in front of his face. 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. On the occasions that he did look up from the page, he would seem as though he were awakening from a dream. “Strange the dreamer,” they called him. “That dreamer, Strange.” And it didn’t help that he sometimes walked into walls while reading, or that his favorite books hailed from that dusty sublevel where no one else cared to go. He drifted about with his head full of myths, always at least half lost in some otherland of story. Demons and wingsmiths, seraphim and spirits, he loved it all. He believed in magic, like a child, and in ghosts, like a peasant. His nose was broken by a falling volume of fairy tales his first day on the job, and that, they said, told you everything you needed to know about strange Lazlo Strange: head in the clouds, world of his own, fairy tales and fancy.”

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“Few will ever witness an act destined to become legend. How does it happen, that the events of a day, or a night—or a life—are translated into story? There is a gap in between, where awe has carved a space that words have yet to fill.”

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“There was a man who loved the moon, but whenever he tried to embrace her, she broke into a thousand pieces and left him drenched, with empty arms.

Sathaz had finally learned that if he climbed into the pool and kept very still, the moon would come to him and let him be near her. Only near, never touching. He couldn’t touch her without shattering her, and so—as Lazlo had told Sarai—he had made peace with the impossible. He took what he could get.

Lazlo had loved Sarai as a dream, and he would love her as a ghost as well.

He finally acknowledged that what he carried in his arms was not Sarai but only a husk, empty now of the mind and soul that had touched his in their dreaming.”

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“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.” ― Laini Taylor, Strange the Dreamer