Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - City of Nightmares

Unfortunately another YA fantasy that falls to the "this duology probably should've been edited down into one book" pitfall. At the beginning I was really interested in the world building and the concept of this world - where people can turn into their worst nightmares. However, the plot really dragged and I wasn't really into the writing in general (a lot of repetition). I really just felt like things were starting to get interesting when the book ended, meaning that there wasn't enough substance in book 1 to keep me interested in reading book 2 (feels like all the action will be in that book).

Someone please explain to me this whole 'vampires shown in media is just making them seem sexy when they are evil' bit... but then she befriends one and lets her bite him (which we don't even get to see). Like what is this critiquing?? In fact this is like a main critique I have with this book in that a lot of important things happen off page and we're just told about them later?

Another example - when she confronts her old teacher at the end, I was like - why are we just being shown only this part? one encounter with him earlier in the book, and she just figures out he's the one sending kids off ??? where was the mystery building up to this reveal?

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prikaboo's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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nasabl3's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Great follow up to the Market of Monster series and I hope there is a sequel </the story took me a while to get into but as it slowly started to display the Scooby Do esc villains of the story it felt a lot more fun as we saw just how much crime and chaos were squeezed into the city. Go them like indeed.>

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pvbobrien's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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foulone's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

City of Nightmares by Rebecca Schaeffer (3 stars)

‘In a Gotham-inspired city where people go to sleep and wake up as their own nightmares, perfectly normal, perfectly terrified Ness must face her biggest fears, before she ends up a casualty in some else's villainous war.’

This was a fascinating concept for a book: imagine a world where you must sleep but every dream is laced with the fear that you will wake up as a completely different creature, warped into your worst nightmare. The worldbuilding does a decent job of expanding this idea and explaining the different caveats - for example, that some people turn into nightmares and then have to be immediately taken out because they go on a killing spree, whereas some turn into nightmares and can still function in their everyday lives. The narrator Ness is terrified of nightmares because her sister turned into a spider more akin to the first category, killed after eating their father. Ness works and lives with the Friends of the Restful Soul, a culty organisation led by a nightmare turned lizard director. Just trying to survive in the terrifying nightmare-ridden city where she lives, Ness unintentionally gets drawn into a mystery involving a vampire, assassins, and a city-wide conspiracy.

This was an engaging story to listen to, particularly on audiobook. I enjoyed the diverse range of characters, particularly the way that every character was given a full description which included their skin colour - regardless of what that skin colour was. Ness’ fear was well described, given a vivid idea of how debilitating fear can be and how her trauma manifested. Vampires and other nightmares are used in a somewhat clever way to mirror sexual assault and the dark side of Hollywood, and sex work is also discussed in a nuanced way. Fear is used as a big theme in a convincing way, and the character growth was realistic - Ness doesn’t go from being a coward to being a superhero overnight.

However, although I did really enjoy this story and the characters within, there were some flaws to this book. It could’ve been half the length as there was so much repetition. The author writes as if they are worried you might be about to forget key facts, and so events are repeated three times in slightly different words or key pieces of information are mentioned in every chapter. The moral posturing was also a bit overdone, again as if the author thought their ideas were too complicated for the reader to process, and so this can become a bit ham-fisted at times. Told not shown is a recurring theme. There were also some gaps in the worldbuilding which made some of the twists a tad unbelievable, but I’m hoping the second book handles this (a book I will be reading!).

A very weird and different book that I would definitely recommend! Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for the ARC of the audiobook!

“Just like I made myself into a coward, I can make myself brave too.”

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