Recent Reads: Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

Source: Ebook from Netgalley and Little, Brown books for review. This in no way alters my opinion or review. Audiobook borrowed from local library.

 

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray
Series: The Diviners #2
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date:  August 25, 2015

 

Format:  Ebook/ Audiobook

Rating:

DNF 😩 

Goodreads Synopsis: 

The longing of dreams draws the dead, and this city holds many dreams.

After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O’Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. With her uncanny ability to read people’s secrets, she’s become a media darling, earning the title “America’s Sweetheart Seer.” Everyone’s in love with the city’s newest It Girl…everyone except the other Diviners.

Piano-playing Henry DuBois and Chinatown resident Ling Chan are two Diviners struggling to keep their powers a secret—for they can walk in dreams. And while Evie is living the high life, victims of a mysterious sleeping sickness are turning up across New York City.

As Henry searches for a lost love and Ling strives to succeed in a world that shuns her, a malevolent force infects their dreams. And at the edges of it all lurks a man in a stovepipe hat who has plans that extend farther than anyone can guess…As the sickness spreads, can the Diviners descend into the dreamworld to save the city?

In this heart-stopping sequel to The Diviners, Printz Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Libba Bray takes readers deeper into the mystical underbelly of New York City.

Review: 
Disclaimer - I did not finish this book. I made it approx. 75-80% through and then threw in the towel. 

Some background though...I read listened to The Diviners around the time it came out and enjoyed it, but it was very long and long-winded, but I wanted to keep up with the series so I requested book 2 from Netgalley. It had been sitting there for YEARS and I was ashamed of that. 

I decided to borrow the audiobook from my local library and got a few chapters in when I got swamped with other things and let it expire. Recently, I have been trying to go back and clean up my act with books I need to review and so I was giving Liar of Dreams another go. I reserved the audiobook again from the library and got a good bit in (about 45-50%), then it expired, I reserved it again and at the 80% ish point it expired again and I just didn't want to go back again...

In the first book, I expected it to build this gorgeous world the Diviners are in and the elaborate story thereafter and it did that wonderfully, but was SO LONG in doing it. In book 2, I wanted more story and action and less building... and that is all that it did. It built and built and built and built and at the 80% point I should have been seeing some climax in the story. Yea, I was getting little tastes here and there but no grand one, and it was getting old real fast and I was losing steam. Specifically, I would have been ok with less of Henry in the dream world - experiencing the same thing every time, or the creepy woman in the dreams over and over again, and with less Evie partying (we get it- she likes the drink!). It was all just useless repetition for me. So after trying 3+ times to tackle this book, I am giving it up for other books on my stack. I hate to not finish a book, but it does happen and there are too many books out there from me to keep struggling through this one.