My Review of Dreaming Death by J. Kathleen Cheney
My summary: Shironne is able a very powerful sensitive, someone who can feel the emotions of others, and those powers have left her blind. She is able to tap into the dreams of someone in the city who experiences people’s deaths but can’t remember them afterward. She works with the army to use what she sees to help solve the murders.
Why I picked up this book: I actually don’t remember. I must’ve heard about it somewhere.
What I knew going in: I read the first chapter before purchasing the book because I wasn’t as convinced about it as other books I’ve bought. I found the main characters very comforting, and I liked how the author portrayed her pov when she is blind.
My response: Another very rough beginning to a book. This time it was because of an immense amount of world-building info dumps. I loved the main character Shironne, and loved being in her pov, but we very quickly shift to Mikael’s pov, as a member of the army, and the Family, and one race but looks a lot like another, and all of the people he works with and their races and connections and backstories. I found myself slogging through information about which I cared very little.
Once the two main characters meet, the story is a lot more enjoyable. The characters are all written very well and feel real and distinctive. I didn’t have trouble remembering who was who (though I threw what race everyone was out the window.) except one guy who had a name that kept making me think he was a girl whenever I read it.
The plot was sufficiently intriguing and satisfying at the end. It will be interesting to see if future books will be past the fact that the female lead is still 17 for four months so she can’t have any sort of relationship with the male lead because she is a CHILD. (I very much felt like that word was being said in all caps ever time it came up.) I almost feel like I want to read the next book just so the world building I managed to get through doesn’t go to waste. (Don’t get me wrong, the world building is very intriguing, it was just not presented well.)
Do I recommend this book?: Sure. I enjoyed it well enough. It was a rather good mystery, and the world is intriguing, and once the main characters meet, they’re very cute together.
