Lair Of Dreams (The Diviners #2)
Rating: ⋆⋆⋆(3.5 though)
Published: 25th August (UK)
Official Synopsis: After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O'Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. Now that the world knows of her ability to "read" objects, and therefore, read the past, she has become a media darling, earning the title, "America's Sweetheart Seer." But not everyone is so accepting of the Diviners' abilities...
Meanwhile, mysterious deaths have been turning up in the city, victims of an unknown sleeping sickness. Can the Diviners descend into the dreamworld and catch a killer?
Review:
I loved The Diviners and I've always sung its praises to anyone who will listen, so naturally I was over the moon to receive Lair of Dreams when Netgalley was offering it to the first 500 requesters. I've speculated for (literally) years about what might happen in Lair of Dreams, pinned my hopes on certain things happening, and quietly rooted for characters whilst they were in Libba Bray's capable hands. I absolutely adore Libba Bray's writing – every book since the Gemma Doyle Trilogy.
But here we meet our problem. If I were to give this book a rating based on how much I respect and admire its author, it would receive the full five stars. It's therefore awful for me to rate this book with three and a half stars when in my imagination before reading, I was sure it would be another five stars as I gave to The Diviners. And don't get me wrong, the writing is consistently beautiful, the characters (all eight narrators!) are fully fleshed and individual and unique. But my problem was that I think there was just too many of them.
In Lair of Dreams we have Ling Chang, Henry, Theta, Evie, Sam, Jericho, Mabel, and Memphis narrating the story as well as POVs of mysterious unnamed people. Eight narrators is quite a feat, most of all because I find it's often books with so many narrators that tend to drag. With the individual subplots, it's hard to form an overview in my mind of Lair of Dreams as a whole with any clarity. The action was few and far between (which is a shame because Bray is very gifted at action sequences in particular) and most frustrating to me was that in my opinion, none of the problems left over in The Diviners were even half solved like I had hoped they might be. More information is given but overall, nothing I'd been eagerly anticipated really comes to a head.
The other problem with having eight narrators is that I have an absolute favourite one – Jericho, who I love endlessly – and he got so little page time that he can probably barely be listed as one of the eight narrators. My favourite moments in Lair of Dreams usually involved him – particularly his interactions with Sam (Sam sat up. "I'm trying to understand all this–" "Don't strain," Jericho muttered). Jericho has a subplot which barely reached a crescendo, and is left for the next book to be explored. So halfway through this book, despite enjoying the lavish descriptions of the dream world and getting to know our new character Ling, I just wasn't feeling it. Luckily, the last quarter of Lair of Dreams saved it from being a total write-off to me, but I was still left feeling disheartened. I experienced none of the buzz and feeling of this is unlike anything I've ever read before that I experienced when I turned the last page of The Diviners. Which is a real shame, but having said that, it is not a bad book. It is just a weaker book compared to its predecessor, and I do think that many things could have been removed for the sake of pacing.
Now, out of fear of making this all doom and gloom, I have to say that I loved the world building and the subtleties included. It's very clear that an extensive, incredible amount of research has gone into the creation of Lair of Dreams, and it shows. The time era, New York City, and real historical tensions and problems of the time are expertly woven into our characters' lives. It's because of this, and because of how absolutely enchanting Libba Bray's writing style is, that I am so regretful of not being able to rate this book higher. The stakes were just not high enough to make Lair of Dreams as interesting as I feel it could have been.
I realise there is an immense pressure in the YA industry to get books out a fast as possible–and Lair of Dreams was already pushed back–but I do think that books on this scale and size should be given as long as they can possibly be given to develop. In fact, the word count was so big that I suspect small nudges to the events of The Diviners were sacrificed. Considering the length of time between the two books and how large The Diviners is, I'm sure many readers will not have the time to have a quick re-read before reading Lair of Dreams, and the narration does not do much–if anything–to help jog the reader's memory as I would expect of a sequel. The suspense was lacking, the threat wasn't all that scary (until towards the end), and only the setting, historical and current issues (such as racism and human trafficking), and the already-loved characters were keeping me on board.
Overall, this is series with astronomical potential which was sadly, in my opinion, not realised in this novel. Having said that, I hold bags of hope and faith for further books in The Diviners series to redeem it. And despite the cons to Lair of Dreams, I still maintain that anything Libba Bray ever writes is something I will be head over heels eager to read. There were points of absolute brilliance in the writing and witty dialogue, but on this occasion, as a whole, it did not hit the mark. However, I am confident there is plenty of time and room to salvage what was not achieved in this instalment.
I loved The Diviners and I've always sung its praises to anyone who will listen, so naturally I was over the moon to receive Lair of Dreams when Netgalley was offering it to the first 500 requesters. I've speculated for (literally) years about what might happen in Lair of Dreams, pinned my hopes on certain things happening, and quietly rooted for characters whilst they were in Libba Bray's capable hands. I absolutely adore Libba Bray's writing – every book since the Gemma Doyle Trilogy.
But here we meet our problem. If I were to give this book a rating based on how much I respect and admire its author, it would receive the full five stars. It's therefore awful for me to rate this book with three and a half stars when in my imagination before reading, I was sure it would be another five stars as I gave to The Diviners. And don't get me wrong, the writing is consistently beautiful, the characters (all eight narrators!) are fully fleshed and individual and unique. But my problem was that I think there was just too many of them.
In Lair of Dreams we have Ling Chang, Henry, Theta, Evie, Sam, Jericho, Mabel, and Memphis narrating the story as well as POVs of mysterious unnamed people. Eight narrators is quite a feat, most of all because I find it's often books with so many narrators that tend to drag. With the individual subplots, it's hard to form an overview in my mind of Lair of Dreams as a whole with any clarity. The action was few and far between (which is a shame because Bray is very gifted at action sequences in particular) and most frustrating to me was that in my opinion, none of the problems left over in The Diviners were even half solved like I had hoped they might be. More information is given but overall, nothing I'd been eagerly anticipated really comes to a head.
The other problem with having eight narrators is that I have an absolute favourite one – Jericho, who I love endlessly – and he got so little page time that he can probably barely be listed as one of the eight narrators. My favourite moments in Lair of Dreams usually involved him – particularly his interactions with Sam (Sam sat up. "I'm trying to understand all this–" "Don't strain," Jericho muttered). Jericho has a subplot which barely reached a crescendo, and is left for the next book to be explored. So halfway through this book, despite enjoying the lavish descriptions of the dream world and getting to know our new character Ling, I just wasn't feeling it. Luckily, the last quarter of Lair of Dreams saved it from being a total write-off to me, but I was still left feeling disheartened. I experienced none of the buzz and feeling of this is unlike anything I've ever read before that I experienced when I turned the last page of The Diviners. Which is a real shame, but having said that, it is not a bad book. It is just a weaker book compared to its predecessor, and I do think that many things could have been removed for the sake of pacing.
Now, out of fear of making this all doom and gloom, I have to say that I loved the world building and the subtleties included. It's very clear that an extensive, incredible amount of research has gone into the creation of Lair of Dreams, and it shows. The time era, New York City, and real historical tensions and problems of the time are expertly woven into our characters' lives. It's because of this, and because of how absolutely enchanting Libba Bray's writing style is, that I am so regretful of not being able to rate this book higher. The stakes were just not high enough to make Lair of Dreams as interesting as I feel it could have been.
I realise there is an immense pressure in the YA industry to get books out a fast as possible–and Lair of Dreams was already pushed back–but I do think that books on this scale and size should be given as long as they can possibly be given to develop. In fact, the word count was so big that I suspect small nudges to the events of The Diviners were sacrificed. Considering the length of time between the two books and how large The Diviners is, I'm sure many readers will not have the time to have a quick re-read before reading Lair of Dreams, and the narration does not do much–if anything–to help jog the reader's memory as I would expect of a sequel. The suspense was lacking, the threat wasn't all that scary (until towards the end), and only the setting, historical and current issues (such as racism and human trafficking), and the already-loved characters were keeping me on board.
Overall, this is series with astronomical potential which was sadly, in my opinion, not realised in this novel. Having said that, I hold bags of hope and faith for further books in The Diviners series to redeem it. And despite the cons to Lair of Dreams, I still maintain that anything Libba Bray ever writes is something I will be head over heels eager to read. There were points of absolute brilliance in the writing and witty dialogue, but on this occasion, as a whole, it did not hit the mark. However, I am confident there is plenty of time and room to salvage what was not achieved in this instalment.
"It was science and it was magic, a blend, like her, and it was more beautiful than anything."
