Saturday, April 6, 2013

Dreams of Murder: A Book Review of "The Nightmare Affair" by Mindee Arnett

I gave this book 5 stars!!!!

This book was absolutely amazzzzzzzzing! I happened across The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett on Amira from AmirasBookReviews on YouTube during her list of anticipated books of 2013. During her synopsis of the book, I heard one of my favorite words for describing any book....MAGIC! That's right! This book stars a magical cast of characters who are students at a magical boarding school (think Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins not, Harry Potter) and looking for clues to solve who's behind the murders at their school. 

Fortunately, Arnett doesn't take the normal character route of other YA writers and instead makes her main character, Dusty a nightmare. Not nightmare as in a whiny, obnoxious character but, nightmare as in a magical character who feeds off others' dreams to obtain her magical powers. The story starts off with Dusty breaking into her crush, Eli's room to "feed." While doing so, she notices vast differences in Eli's dreams. For starters, Eli's dreams are in color and he's dreaming of a murder. Thus begins one of the best paranormal/fantasy books I've read since I finished Hawkins' series.

Arnett takes readers on a journey to find out who is killing the Keepers, a group of three magical beings one from fairykind, darkind (i.e., nightmares, demons, etc.), and witchkind. These Keepers are protecting some secret within the story. To solve this mystery, Dusty has to pair up with Eli allowing the two to become a dree-seer pair, a duo who help each other see into the future through dreaming.These two along with Dusty's best friend, Serene, a siren become junior detectives pursuing the killer using all types of wacky tricks to stay ahead of the murderer and their teachers who have warned them to stay put.

With this book, I didn't feel as if the author was reaching or even using recycled cliches to tell the story. Arnett's characters felt fresh. The story line drives you to keep reading even when you think you know who the killer maybe. Dusty's character is also relatable in the fact that, even though readers may not have magical powers, they may have experienced feeling like an outsider before, a feeling that Dusty often feels. I would definitely recommend this book to anybody who loves a good "who done it?" series or who just loves fantasy fiction.

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