Book Review: Lair of Dreams

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

Released: August 25th 2015
Read: May 2016
Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover, 613 pages
Series: The Diviners #2, here's my review of the first book.

Description from Goodreads:
After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O’Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. With her uncanny ability to read people’s secrets, she’s become a media darling, earning the title “America’s Sweetheart Seer.” Everyone’s in love with the city’s newest It Girl…everyone except the other Diviners.
Piano-playing Henry DuBois and Chinatown resident Ling Chan are two Diviners struggling to keep their powers a secret—for they can walk in dreams. And while Evie is living the high life, victims of a mysterious sleeping sickness are turning up across New York City.
As Henry searches for a lost love and Ling strives to succeed in a world that shuns her, a malevolent force infects their dreams. And at the edges of it all lurks a man in a stovepipe hat who has plans that extend farther than anyone can guess…As the sickness spreads, can the Diviners descend into the dreamworld to save the city?


Review:
Holy cow! I thought that like most sequels, this one would fail to capture the magic that the first one did. I was happily proven wrong. This book (while not QUITE so scary) managed to keep the suspense from the reader until the very end. While I thought that it would be hard to follow the plot from the first book, she managed to create a mystery with the same excitement as the last one. In this novel, the old characters were developed upon, and new ones introduced. In many series, it sometimes feels like the existing characters are almost forgotten, or set aside. Not in this one. Although we got to know the new people, the old were still very much there. Goodness... this is actually such a good sequel! I couldn't stop gushing about it while I was reading, because there were many twists and turns that came from nowhere. The only thing that could've been improved was the "horror" element. It could've been scarier, like the first one was. But still an AMAZING read! And luckily there are still two more books to go!

Favorite Quote:
“We are made by what we are asked to bear, Ling Chan,” 

― Libba Bray, Lair of Dreams

Rating: 8/10

Recommended for people who love: mystery, horror, romance, suspense, supernatural, strong female leads, historical fiction

Happy reading!
Mari