#Review - City of Nightmares by Rebecca Schaeffer #YA #Fantasy

Series: City of Nightmares # 1
Format: Hardcover, 384 pages
Release Date: January 10, 2023
Publisher: Clarion Books
Source: Publisher
Genre: Young Adult / Fantasy

Gotham meets Strange the Dreamer in this thrilling young adult fantasy that is "so much fun and readers will stay up all night to finish it" (Kirkus, starred review), nineteen-year-old Ness is a cowardly girl who finds herself at the center of a criminal syndicate conspiracy, in a city where crooked politicians and sinister cults reign and dreaming means waking up as your worst nightmare.

Ever since her sister became a man-eating spider and slaughtered her way through town, nineteen-year-old Ness has been terrified—terrified of some other Nightmare murdering her, and terrified of ending up like her sister. Because in Newham, the city that never sleeps, dreaming means waking up as your worst fear.

Whether that means becoming a Nightmare that’s monstrous only in appearance, to transforming into a twisted, unrecognizable creature that terrorizes the city, no one is safe. Ness will do anything to avoid becoming another victim, even if that means lying low among the Friends of the Restful Soul, a questionable organization that may or may not be a cult.

But being a member of maybe-cult has a price. In order to prove herself, Ness cons her way into what’s supposed to be a simple job for the organization—only for it to blow up in her face. Literally. Tangled up in the aftermath of an explosive assassination, now Ness and the only other survivor—a Nightmare boy who Ness suspects is planning to eat her—must find their way back to Newham and uncover the sinister truth behind the attack, even as the horrors of her past loom ominously near. 

City of Nightmares, by author Rebecca Schaeffer, is part one of a two part duology that is planned by the publisher. Set in the city of Newham, where criminal syndicates and sinister cults reign and dreaming means turning into your worst nightmare, the worldbuilding here is fresh and exciting. Like the vampires and monstrous Nightmares that roam Newham, readers will find much to sink their teeth into. This book is being marketed as Gotham meets Strange the Dreamer. 

In this world, people are turning into nightmares in their sleep. Some have gone as far as to take nightmare trauma therapy as well as taking drugs called Helomine to ensure they don't sleep. 19-year-old Vanessa (Ness) Near lost her family when her sister turned into a deadly monster, and went on a killing spree. Ness ended up with the Friends of the Restful Souls. Ness is terrified of all Nightmares, even though not all of them are mindless. She lives in a tiny room provided by the Friends of the Restful Soul, which basically is like the Salvation Army. 

Everyone calls it a cult, but as long as they let Ness stay, she doesn't care. Because she's afraid of nightmares, she's a liability. Thankfully her roommate, Priya, a Nightmare hunter in training, often keeps Ness out of trouble. To prove herself, she agrees to go on a mail run to a resort on Patton Island. But, before she can finish the job, the ship explodes and the only survivors are her and a vampire named Cy who saves her life. Though he saves her life, she's still terrified of him until she learns whether or not he is going to attempt to bite her

Soon thereafter, Ness and Cy learn that the ships explosion wasn't an accident, and now there are assassins after Ness in order to silence them from talking. Ness soon digs into who brought the bomb on board and why, and the only people she can now trust are the boy who saved her, and Priya, the girl who is supposed to be joining the Nightmare Division group which has a whole lot of secrets of their own. Oh, and let's not forget the powerful mayor who has her own man eating pterodactyl or the fact that Ness meets an actual Nightmare who becomes extremely curious about her.

One thing this story has going for itself is that it doesn't take itself seriously. There's a bunch of dark comedy and Ness isn't your typical heroine who wants to save the world by somehow suddenly having strange and unusual powers to defeat the horrible nightmares. Nope, she's just a girl who got a bad rap as a child after her sister's episode, and has been living in fear that the same thing could happen to her. Plus, having Cy and Priya around let's her become someone she can actually like. 

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