City of Nightmares by Rebecca Schaeffer: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

City of Nightmares by Rebecca Schaeffer

City of Nightmares is set into an alt-history world of maybe early twentieth century. For a hundred years, peoples’ nightmares have come to life, changing the person to their worst fears. Some become murderous, some live their lives as before, with altered looks.

Nineteen-year-old Ness lives in Newham, hiding among a ‘cult’ that offers therapy for people suffering from the consequences of nightmares. She’s afraid of all of them, to the extent that she becomes completely paralyzed by fear. But nightmares aren’t the only frightening things in Newham, which is run by mobsters and corrupt people who kidnap children to feed them to monsters, among other things.

Her life changes when a boat she’s on explodes and she’s saved by a young vampire man. Not only is she forced to trust him, in the aftermath she starts to question the safe haven she’s been living in. Little by little, she sheds her fears, so much so that when the worst monsters come at her, she’s able to face them with courage.

The book started a bit slowly and it wasn’t very compelling, but it picked up pace towards the end. The assassination plot didn’t make any sense even after it was explained, but luckily it wasn’t the main focus. That was Ness and her fears. Her transformation was believable at first, but then her fears were wiped away with a kind of deus ex machina solution that came out of blue, as her ability to lucid dreaming wasn’t used anywhere else.

Ness was a good character, but at no point did I believe she was an adult, as her inner life and behaviour were more suitable for a fourteen-year-old. Side characters didn’t really come to life, though I liked Cy.

My biggest problem was with the setting, which was a confusing mess. I thought at first that the book took place in 1930s, with Bakelite phones being the height of modernity, but then there were TVs everywhere. I thought Newham was somewhere in the US, but then there was the bit about annexing Sweden, which doesn’t make geographical sense. In the end, I just imagined it was a secondary world and ignored the odd bits.

This was a start of a series, but it has a good conclusion and the book can be read as a standalone. There were enough open questions left, but I’m not curious enough about them to read more.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.