Book Review | Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

STRANGE THE DREAMER

By Laini Taylor

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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Have you ever read a book so magical that it feels like finding a missing part of you and now you are whole?

That is Strange the Dreamer.

“I think you're a fairy tale. I think you're magical, 

and brave, and exquisite. 

And I hope you'll let me be in your story.”

This book is perfection. From the start it has constantly reminded me how much I love to read. A kind of story that only comes so rarely that I can't even find the perfect word to describe it. The closest analogy I can use is the feeling of not having to set my alarm for work the next day - and waking up so refreshed after a full nights sleep. I had to stop myself from reading too fast and savor every word and every twist of the plot because I didn't want to miss anything.

“As for fairy tales, he understood that they 

were reflections of the people who had spun them, 

and were flecked with little truths 

- intrusions of reality into fantasy, l

ike toast crumbs on a wizard's beard.”

We are introduced to Lazlo Strange, sharing the last name of every other orphan, he grew up in a Monastery and was expected to die as a baby. He grew up enchanted with the stories of an old monk about a magical Kingdom across the expanse of desert where fantastical adventures await. These stories he considered his treasures, getting him through the times when the monks tried to tamp down his wildness and got him the job as junior librarian.

“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.”

I could see myself in Lazlo. This was me when I was a young girl, my nose buried in a book. Lazlo has reminded me why I fell in love with reading in the first place. His amazement when he discovered there was more than just that one story he has kept since he was a child was priceless. I relate to how much our heads would be in the clouds if we had all the books we could read. But Lazlo was the most level headed character in the story, with no prejudice and a lot of imagination. 

On the other side of the desert is Sarai, also an orphan, who lives in a once opulent citadel. She grew up with 4 other Orphans and has ghosts for servants. They have powers over fire, weather, nature. They were godspwan.

“Sarai was seventeen years old, a goddess and a girl.

 Half her blood was human, but it counted for nothing. 

She was blue. She was godspawn. 

She was anathema. She was young. 

She was lovely. She was afraid.”

Sarai is the Muse of Nightmares. Named so because she could enter into peoples dreams and cause them to fear. Despite that, she is sweet and emphatic and hopeful. She falls in love with the dreamer. She finds herself in the dreamer.

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I see this book as a tall glass of water for a parched traveler. It is peculiar but also gripping and wonderful. This is a story for dreamers, for the people like me who hope - for my letter from Hogwarts to still arrive in the mail, to discover a wardrobe that leads to Narnia, to be a dragon rider. I have read over a thousand books in my lifetime, but I have never read anything like this.

I am a dreamer. If you are a dreamer too then you are in for a treat

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (Is that even possible? I need more stars)

PS.

There might be more to this - a duology perhaps. I hope it comes out soon.