Muse of Nightmares Book Review
In the follow up book to Strange the Dreamer, Laini Taylor picks up right where it ended. **Spoilers ahead if you have not read the first book**
This book starts off by telling a story of Kora and Nova. We get a small glimpse into who these characters are and why they are important to the story in the beginning chapter.
In the last book, the metal mesarthium is mentioned, but we don’t know its true significance until now. Through reading about the past of Kora and Nova, we understand that each child is tested for abilities using this metal, as only the metal gives them their blue color and awakens their dormant power within. If they have tremendous power, they are taken away to fight in the war. If they don’t, they are left behind in a cruel world where they fight to survive and are sold into arranged marriages.
Meanwhile, Sarai is dead and Minya is holding her soul captive to make Laszlo do her bidding. Minya still seeks vengeance on Eril-Fane for slaughtering their people, including children and babies. She tells Laszlo he must do everything she says without question, or she will release Sarai’s soul and let it cross over. Laszlo is torn as he wants to help the people of Weep, but he can’t let Sarai go as she is the only person who ever loved him.
The sisters Kora and Nova’s bond is the driving force behind this book as the chapters alternate between learning more about their story and the present day of the events that happened in the city of Weep. Kora was taken from Nova and enslaved for her powers while Nova has to stay behind, powerless, because the gods feared her power. Without each other, the two sisters are empty shells of themselves. They are forced to do things they do not want to do and have no communication with each other until Kova finds a way to cross through worlds to deliver a message to Nova – save her as she is not free.
Back at the citadel, in a desperate attempt to save Sarai and themselves from Minya’s vengeful wrath, Ruby and Sparrow concoct a way to drug Minya and put her to sleep. This works and Sarai enters her dreams to try to help her move on from the past. In these passages we get to see the depth of what happened on the day of the massacre. Minya played a part in the deaths of people in the castle as well, but only to protect the children. This says a lot about her character as she was only six years old at the time.
Laszlo visits Weep and Eril-Fane is convinced he must atone for his sins. He asks Laszlo to take him to meet his daughter, Sarai, and talk to the other godspawn he didn’t kill. His wife Azareen and his mother join him on his quest to set things right, but they are interrupted by the arrival of Nova.
Nova managed to find her way to them after a series of events in the past where she kidnapped her husband and used a piece of the metal to awaken her dormant power, which is the ability to steal other people’s power. She flies through rifts in the worlds searching for Kora. Through her travels, she frees children who are being sold into slavery for their gifts, which eventually leads her to the citadel where Kora was last alive. It is here that Nova discovers Eril-Fane killed Nova, along with everyone else, thus taking away her dream of saving her sister and punishing those that took her.
There was bloodshed, death, and redemption. Laszlo was kidnapped by Nova. Sarai and the godspawn, along with a few townspeople, embark on a journey to save him. This is where the book reaches its conclusion at last.
While so much happened in this book, I had a hard time getting through it. The first act was nothing but a power struggle between Minya and Laszlo. I didn’t understand the point of killing Sarai in the first book when she’s able to do everything as a ghost that she did as a human. Minya could’ve just taken her hostage and held her over Laszlo in exchange for his help in taking her and her army to Weep to exact revenge on Eril-Fane.
Laszlo and Sarai were also able to have relations with her as a ghost so there was no sense of loss at all really. Their relationship was still hard to support as they really weren’t given a chance to fall in love in the first book, btu somehow Laszlo becomes this hardened man who would die in the name of love. For him to be so completely in love with her that he would risk the lives of the people of Weep wasn’t a storyline I believed.
There was also a point in the story where the godspawn were in Eril-Fane’s mother’s house and Ruby was trying to convince Sparrow to make her boobs bigger. If they were locked away from everyone their entire lives with nothing from the outside world, why would Ruby want bigger boobs to feel better about herself? That wouldn’t have even been an influence that was in her train of thought.
There was so much more that could’ve been done with this book. The story of Kora and Nova was a book on it’s own. That’s the story I wanted to read. There was fire and passion in their story. I understood the characters and their positions in the story. They had backgrounds and a plot.
Nero was mentioned in this book a few times briefly and somehow his character was given it’s own arc, even though he’s only in it a few brief times. His character was pointless int his book.
Eril-Fane and Azareen also deserve their own story for everything they went through. The way the author presents Eril-Fane in the two books does not lead me to believe he would have killed the children. If we had a book on his story and how manipulated he was by Sarai’s mother, it would’ve made more sense.
This book was good and of course I think every book is worth reading as it resonates differently with other people.