Lair of Dreams A Diviners Novel

The spooky binge continues

not sure if this is at a 4.75 or an actual 5 but whatever, it doesn't really matter because i enjoyed the book and that's that. some things i just wanted to note about it because i can so i will: - it was such a timely read. had i read this in 2015, which is when it was published, i wouldn’t have really thought much about the whole sleeping sickness thing but because i’m reading it in the middle of the pandemic, i can’t help but compare everything! from the protocols to the racism towards asians… it’s all the same. (though this isn’t necessarily a pandemic thing, i also noticed the ‘make america great again’ agenda taking place here too.) this was set in the 20s and yet … well, we’re technically in the 20s too so i guess it makes sense - for most of the book, henry annoyed me, i'm sorry. but he redeemed himself anyway so that's great! - need more sam/evie in my life thanks ! need me a guy who’ll steal 20 pesos out of my coat pocket in a train station (happens in the first book but ANYWAY) ! - with that being said, i don't care for the love triangle only because i think jericho's annoying when he's focused on evie. i like the drama it adds but part of me thinks it gives evie a big head and it makes jericho less likable. - realized that so much of the action happens in the last fourth of the book but the first 3/4 of it aren’t as slow as you’d expect, either? but it’s all still sort of just a set-up for what happens later on, which is how it was in the first book. this could be off-putting for some but i personally didn't mind because i think it pays off in the end anyway. - there were a few paragraphs that i felt were unnecessary but that's all minor to the entirety of the book so lol - this series would make such a good show/movie and the last chapter of this book would make such a good cliffhanger season finale/post-credits scene [spoiler ahead but not really because i redacted it anyway] - just need to say that i knew wai-mae was [redacted] from the very beginning !!!!

it took me a full year to get thru this for WHAT

i love ling and henry so much and i [will] come for whoever tries and hurt them.

update, reread 2/6/20: YALL ARE SLEEPING ON THIS SERIES AND THAT IS A FACT !!!!!!!! wow i’m posi-tute-ly obsessed!!! although i wasn’t fully convinced during the first half, the latter got me SOLD. i love myself a big cast of characters(!!), subtle romance, roaring 20s, and magic~~ also i LOVE THE DIVERSE REP I COULD CRY. def wasn’t what i expected since backlisted YA books are v white so i was !!!!! rep: queer, gay, black, chinese, ptsd, disabled

Loved it! Not quite as good as the first one, the ending felt a bit flat and anticlimactic. The writing overall is so vivid and enticing.

I'm just going to hop right into this review because I want to get to the part where I flail about my ship and how it's not going well. It's really not going well at all. I have read Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty and if memory serves me well (I read the series when I was in high school, which was 5 years ago), that didn't end well for me either. So this takes place after the events of the first book. Everybody is kind of off doing their own thing. Evie is now the Sweetheart Seer with her own radio show. Sam and Jericho are still working for Will at his museum and are attempting to save it. Theta and Henry are still with the Follies. Mabel was kind of put off to the side until about a fourth of the way in and even then, she wasn't mentioned much. Memphis makes a comeback, much to my dismay. We also get a new character, Ling, a Chinese girl. There is a "sleeping sickness" going around. The victim falls into a deep sleep and is unable to wake up. They end up literally burning from the inside out. It's quite gruesome really. It's up to Evie's group of friends to save the day and prevent more people from getting the sleeping sickness. I liked this book because we get more backstories, especially of Henry and Ling. The story really focused on them. Ling is all about science and is extremely straightforward, which I liked. Henry comes from a very old rich family from the South. We get to find out a lot of things about him that we didn't know before. Also, I just have to shout out Theta and Henry's friendship. They are seriously true friendship goals. The entire book was me swooning over their friendship and me sobbing about my potentially sinking ship. Yes, I'm salty about my ship. Sam and Evie. We get more of a backstory on Sam and about Project Buffalo. I'm really not one to talk about ships constantly. It actually incredibly annoys me when people ship other people together that clearly don't belong. (I'm looking at you, Supernatural, with your Destiel ship) I just know that the minute Libba Bray wrote Sam into the book that him and Evie are destined to be together. I'm hoping that things get concluded in some way. I've been warned that my hopes might have to wait until the third, even the fourth book. Libba Bray sures knows how to toy with someone's emotions. Okay, I'm off to find out more information about the third book. I got to wrap this up or I will go on and on about Evie and Sam. I really would recommend this book if you are into the paranormal mixed with fun 1920's history.

With her smudged eyes and her dainty red Cupid’s bow lips, she reminded Sam of a sparkling party favor on the cusp of New Year’s. “Evie,” he said, taking gentle hold of her hand. “The party can’t go on forever.” Evie looked up at Sam, defiant but slightly pleading, too. Her voice was nearly a whisper. “Why not?” i am absolutely, positutely in love with this series I have The Diviners a glowing five star review, so if you want to know more about the series overall you should read that as THIS REVIEW is gonna mostly be about this specific book. “Besides, things you loved deeply could be lost in a second, and then there was no filling the hole left inside you. So she lived in the moment, as if her life were one long party that never had to stop as long as she kept the good times going.” LAIR OF DREAMS begins a few months after The Diviners. Evie has become a radio sensation (The Sweetheart Seer) after her abilities become public. Sam is continuing to chase down the project buffalo lead, a lead which is progressively heading into darker and more dangerous paths. Meanwhile, a sleeping sickness is spreading throughout the city and Henry, along with a girl called Ling who can walk in dreams, may be the cure to curing it. so I didn't love this AS MUCH as The Diviners but I still really loved it. Lair of Dreams is on a much smaller scale than The Diviners, and that scaling down it what worked against it, in my opinion. I also think too much of this book felt like the first 100 pages, by that I mean it felt like we were just getting into things instead of INTO things for way too long. But the character work was beyond good. This book follows Ling, the girl from Chinatown we briefly met in The Diviners, as well as Henry, Theta and Sam so much more closely and I LOVED getting to know these characters. Ling is probably the standout character of this book, because she's the one introduced and developed most. She's the daughter of Chinese immigrants, with a disability, who can walk in people's dreams and see the dead in her dreams and oh my god .. I love her? She's adorable, hilarious and her friendship with Henry was too pure for words. Henry had a lot of his backstory explained and uhh ... my heart is beyond broken. I love my sweet boy he deserves the world. “For dreams, too, are ghosts, desires chased in sleep, gone by morning. The longing of dreams draws the dead, and this city holds many dreams.” One thing I adore about these book is the amount of plots and subplots which are woven together into a larger tapestry. There's diviners, government conspiracies, the occult and supernatural, shadowmen, missing persons and ghosts. And so much more. And Libba Bray weaves it all together so well, and in such a clever way, and it keeps me constantly engaged. I genuinely have no idea where this is going next and I love it. The setting is also done so well. Libba Bray explores ALL of the roaring 20's, putting away her rose-tainted glass to address the awful bits too. The resurgence of Eugenics and the Ku Klux Klan plays a large role in this, as does socialism and the union fights, government corruption, poverty and the increasing gap between the rich and the poor. This book is so interesting and honestly educating in how it tells the story of the time period too and I love that. FINALLY, we need to talk about how CREEPY this is. Between ghosts hysterically screaming DREAM WITH ME, actual demon murderers, dead people coming back and being creepy and horror flashbacks into the past I am significantly SPOOKED. The audiobook narrator January Lavoy does such an amazing job at really emphasising the horror aspects and honestly it makes it so much more enjoyable ! “They wish, too, that they could warn them about the gray man in the stovepipe hat, about the King of Crows. For not all ghosts remember, and the citizens have need of warning.” Anyway to sum up. •I love this series way too much •I would put my life on the line for any and all diviners • I have the spooks, because this is terrifying • I CAN'T BELIEVE LIBBA BRAY MADE ME INVEST IN A LOVE TRAINGLE UNBELIEVABLE EVERYONE READ THE DIVINERS. THANKS AND GOODNIGHT

REREAD JAN 2020: Original review some points - in my original review, I say I liked this less than The Diviners, but on reread I liked it more - EVIE O'NEILL - Evie being drunk for like the entire showdown at the end #iconic #queen I love her so fucking much - Sam Lloyd UWU - Sam and Evie's fake romance easily the best part of this book - NEEDED MORE MEMPHIS - sorry to Henry but I find him ... not that funny? He's still my boy tho - Mabel is so annoying lmao - despise Jericho Jones - the subplot about the government/diviners/conspiracy is the best part of the series - i just lov the group dynamics - evies relationship with James is probably my favourite thing - evie's 'why can't the party go on forever' monologue to sam.... my fave of their interactions

3.5

5 stars |

5/5 STARS!!! Find Out More at: https://thebleedingeyes.wordpress.com/ “For dreams, too, are ghosts, desires chased in sleep, gone by morning. The longing of dreams draws the dead, and this city holds many dreams.” YES YES YES!! This book is absolutely amazing!!!! Bray did just a great job following up what she's left off in book one (The Diviners). Normally I'm not a big fan of the 2nd book of any series ever, but LoD has just become my exception because it.was.so.good. (The other exception was Neal Shusterman's Unwholly, which was equally as super duper screaming worthy). The stories continued right from where we were left off at book 1. in the oh-so-charming 1926 NYC. Evie O'Neill is now the people's favorite 'The Sweetheart Seer', making other diviners want to hide away with their ability more than ever - the dream walkers Ling Chan and Henry Duboise included. Just when everyone thought the nightmare was over, the mysterious sleeping-sickness has cast a terrible shadows over the cities, leaving people paralyzed with fear. With Ling, tucked away in her parents' restaurant in Chinatown, becoming the latest installment to the squad, once again the beloved Diviners have to stand ground against the mysterious women known as the Veiled Lady, who preyed upon dreamers of the big cities, eating away their souls from the inside out. If Libba Bray was a diviner, 'balancing' would most likely be her superpower because she really did balance things out so damn good. So we have a lot of things going on in Lair of Dreams; mystery, history, paranormal, thriller, romance, coming-of-age thingy, and realistic drama...I know right?? And then Bray just balanced them out so well that nothing felt weird or off, like her storyline just went smoothly and well-crafted and once I realized, it's already the last chapter (which she chose to go as an introductory part for more mysteries instead of closure and it feels so frustrated!...but in a good way, I guess?) What I love the most about her book is the characters. Not many authors can create such diverse characters and orchestrate the series so smoothly, giving each of them an equal attention span like the way Bray did to hers. We have characters came from various ancestries (e.g. Irish, Russian, Chinese, African-American), and that helps in glorifying the NYC setting she has created, putting an emphasis on the charming diversity vibes of the great city everyone comes to love. However, at times I felt the book was a bit dragging. It was like what? 600 pages? It could have easily been 100 pages shorter with more questions answered and mysteries revealed and all that. Speaking of which, the mysteries in this book were a little bit easy to crack, and by the time I reached half way through I have already figured what was what. But then again, the revealing scenes were still shocking and emotional - her good writing has really saved the book from falling apart. Oh, more importantly, now the love triangle has turned into a love rectangle. And even though I felt annoyed by it at times, I realized I kind of like it. Here the romance thingy has been included much enough to stir butterflies in the stomach, but not so much to make you throw up in your mouth. Thanks to Bray again for not forcing any romance down my throat like other teensy teen paranormal books. I also love the way she emphasize the glorious power of love and friendship (e.g. between Ling and Henry) That was just lovely. The last time I checked, there will be (at least) 4 books in the series, and Bray plans to release one each year. I'd probably be dead by the time all the mysteries (Stovepipe Hat? Grey suits?) have been solved. UGH.

UPDATE FROM REREAD SEPTEMBER 2022 I have so many thoughts! I'm still conflicted on how to rate it because I had 65 highlights on my kindle copy. The stuff I liked I absolutely ADORED(every time evie and sam interacted (view spoiler)[specifically that rooftop scene if you know you know (hide spoiler)], the HUMOUR this book was so funny, will's backstory, the first henry/louis scenes) I screamed on multiple occasions, the character development, the backstory, the fake dating, all absolutely the berries. But at the same time, there were parts I just didn't connect with as much - I feel like I didn't appreciate this one enough the first time round and I definitely enjoyed it much more this time so it probably comes out at a 4.75 on average but I cannot WAIT to get stuck back into book three! FRICK I LOVE THIS SERIES! I think I maybe preferred The Diviners a little bit more but this one was still EXCELLENT! I'm so tempted to just launch straight into before the devil breaks you now but I'm going to give it a rest for a while but I still need more of my beloved little divining gang who I love so much. I even love Evie now! Who knew all it would take was enemies to lovers and fake dating tropes, I really am that basic! I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS

this took me 3 and a half months to read .. not bc it was bad but simply bc i lost motivation & then school happened… but i’m glad i finished it! i love henry💛

** spoiler alert ** I really enjoyed this book. As much as the first book? I don't think so, but I still really enjoyed it. The first book centered more heavily on the murder mystery of John Hobbes while this one, while it has an underlying Supernatural mystery, is a much more suspenseful book with more that's focused on developing characters that were left less developed in the first book. It's also got the continuation of the underlying government super power conspiracy. I definitely enjoyed it. I'm sorry that Henry lost Louis, who seemed like a very loyal and loving character. I hope in the future he'll find someone who's equally good for him. I also hope that Theta's dirtbag husband gets what's coming to him in future books.

6 stars. I LOVED this book! I’m in love with this series too! I love Evie, even if she is self-centred and selfish. I love Sam, and Memphis, and Theta, and Henry, and the addition of Ling. I am so excited to have a biracial character!! I love the feel of old New York, and the creeping influence of New Orleans. I love how this is a different story from the first book, but still ties in with a sense of bigger things happening. I’m not sure about Jericho, and the love triangle, and I wish there was more of Arthur in this book, but I hope he’ll be a bigger part (for Mabel) in the third book, which I can’t wait to start! For the life of me though, I don’t know why more people aren’t mad about this series, it’s terrific!

Really got to love the characters in this one (Mabel has my heart, Henry too) . Plus the jumping between all of their stories didn’t bother me as much as it did the first one, probably because I know the characters more now. Pros: ghosts and the paranormal causing mayhem, ragtag group of diverse young adults, AMAZING audiobook narrator Cons: set in the 20s (not my thing but narrator makes up for it) and lots of storylines to follow (however they all collide much more in this book than in the first)

Even though I knew what was happening with the main mystery from the very beginning, I still really enjoyed this one, even more than the first one. These characters have my entire heart, I love them all so much (except Jericho). Libba Bray's writing is beautiful and the audiobook narrator, January LaVoy is absolutely amazing and added so much to the story.

If The Diviners is great, this book is amazing, spectacular, fantastic, and brilliant. The creepy thing that happened, seriously creeps me out. To the point where I'm afraid to go to sleep for the fear of dreaming and being trapped there. I admit, when they reveal who's actually behind it all, I'm not at all surprised. It was pretty obvious, but I still enjoyed it a lot. And, oh, I love Ling so much. Her character growth in the span of one book is so much more... interesting and meaningful than our dear Miss Evie O'Neill. Going into this book, I'm kinda hoping she would tone it down on her hedonistic ways but nooooo, she got even more obsessed with parties and fame, it just grate on my nerves. So, yes, I still don't like her that much because, in my opinion, she cares more about her stupid fame and party rather than looking out for her friend. I understand why she did it, but I didn't approve of it. And she's also being a terrible friend for Mabel, giving her hopes with Jericho when she knows that Jericho isn't interested that much in Mabel. Henry and Ling, the friendship we deserve. Henry deserve a warm hug, a cup of chocolate, and supportive friends (I mean, Theta and Ling, y'all).

the writing style and atmosphere are the only things making me want to continue this series, most of the book feels like filler and i couldn’t be bothered to care about what was going on half of the time

i listed to this on audible and oh my god january lavoy is such an incredible reader!!! she sings, growls, and does about 15 different voices whether they be male, female, child, or demon through the whole book. if you’re not into fantasy in 1920s nyc, (then leave my goodreads page) listen to this anyway just for lavoy’s spectacular performance.

Review to come later because oh my god

I just truly loved how immersive the books are!

4.25 stars