REVIEW: STRANGE THE DREAMER + MUSE OF NIGHTMARES (Laini Taylor)

“I would have chosen you, if they had let me choose.”

I'll be honest -- I really had to think on a review here. This was a duology that took some digesting.

I didn't realize exactly how entwined themes of trauma were to this duology until I spoke about it to a friend later. Personal trauma, intergenerational, ongoing... How do we deal with our trauma? Do we tether our ghosts close to us until the weight of them keep us from growing? Do we forbid ourselves happiness? Perhaps, even, some of us must die a kind of death at the hands of trauma we have received or inflicted before we can become something else. Taylor weaves an unreal and truly awesome tale about how we make peace with our pasts, even when the people who hurt us are long gone.

However, it's also a story about the stories we tell ourselves -- about ourselves and others. What we could have been, and what we might be now. Taylor asks us to dig deep and imagine what kind of heroes we might be if our narratives weren't against us, and to rewrite those narratives.

I was absolutely enchanted by this series -- at first out of curiosity, and then out of complete awe at the translation of these themes into the personal lives of myself and so many others I know. Personally, I've grappled with feeling like I could have been something more than my trauma, if only it had never happened. Strange the Dreamer and Muse of Nightmares comforted some aching part of my soul that had long since decided what story to tell about me, and told that part: "Rewrite."

Strange the Dreamer sat at a very comfortable 5/5 for me, but Muse of Nightmares felt like something else. Something very, very surreal. It felt, somehow, like Laini Taylor had reached her hand through the book to hold mine. And that's what great fiction is -- a hand in the dark. Because of this, Muse of Nightmares elevated the duology to 6-star-status.

Seriously.

Read it.

... And Weep.

(Get it? It's funny.)

(You laugh or you cry)

(Originally posted on Goodreads: January 1, 2019)