The Nightmare Affair(The Arkwell Academy 1)Publisher: Tor Teen, 2013Genre: YA ParanormalSixteen-year-old Dusty Everhart breaks into houses late at night, but not because she’s a criminal. No, she’s a Nightmare.
Literally.
Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for magickind, and living in the shadow of her mother’s infamy, is hard enough. But when Dusty sneaks into Eli Booker’s house, things get a whole lot more complicated. He’s hot, which means sitting on his chest and invading his dreams couldn’t get much more embarrassing. But it does. Eli is dreaming of a murder.
Then Eli’s dream comes true.
Now Dusty has to follow the clues—both within Eli’s dreams and out of them—to stop the killer before more people turn up dead. And before the killer learns what she’s up to and marks her as the next target.
When
authors break away from the norm and decide to write about rarely known magical
beings, I get all excited. This is the case with The Nightmare Affair, which features Dusty Everhart, a teenage
Nightmare who feeds off the dreams of people. She’s the only one of her kind at
Arkwell Academy, the local school for magickind. When the dreams with Eli, the
hottest boy she’s ever fed off, turn out to be semi-prophetic it’ll be up to
them to uncover the mystery of the murders at Arkwell by continuing to share
dreams.
Dusty
was such a quirky character to meet. It’s hilarious the way Nightmares feed and
her magic almost never works as she wants it to. She’s really powerful and part
of her growth comes in the form of learning to control her vast abilities. Her
friend Selene was awesome too, with the whole rebellion against the portrayal of as
sexual objects. Though I wish she hadn’t been trying so hard to be a tomboy as
it came off as fake. Eli didn’t make me swoon and I didn’t feel his connection
to Dusty until the very end, but at least he was better than her second option.
Though
the plot was interesting and the pace lively, I still felt something missing
from it all and I think it has to do with the setting and descriptions. Arkwell
Academy is this awesome school for magical being, yet the place itself isn’t
developed enough for me to feel the magic. Sure, there are the animated objects
and what not, but I didn’t get an overall magical feeling from the place, not
like Hogwarts or Hex Hall.
The
murder investigation could’ve gone a bit better, but it tended to drag and I
ended up skimming some chapters just to get to the action. All in all, this was
a great paranormal YA novel with lots of magic, quirky characters, and a heck
of a mystery to keep me entertained, but not enough for me to follow in subsequent books.
*Arc copy
provided by the publisher via Netgalley*
Favorite Quotes:
~Dangers
of having extra magic~
“You should be excited,” Selene continued,
doing her best to lighten my spirits. “Just think of all the cool things you’ll
be able to do with that much extra magic.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s half the problem. I
have a hard enough time handling what I do have. Anything more and I’ll
probably blow myself up.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit. For
as little time as you’ve had to learn, you’re doing great.”
“Yeah, sure. Tell that to your hair, why don’t
you.”
“Don’t even try that.” Selene reached behind
her head and slid her long black braid over her shoulder. She picked up the end
and examined it. “See. You can’t even tell it was ever singed.”
I tapped my fork on my plate. “That’s because
you’re a siren, and your magic corrects imperfections quickly."
