Starred review from September 16, 2019
Book one of Stiefvater’s Dreamer Trilogy, spun off from the Raven Cycle, centers on orphaned high school dropout Ronan Lynch. Ronan yearns to follow his boyfriend, Harvard student Adam Parrish, to Massachusetts, but until he can better control his propensity for manifesting elements of his dreams (“monsters and machines, weather and wishes, fears and forests”), he’s stuck living on his family’s Virginia farm. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., art forger Jordan Hennessy sleeps in 20-minute bursts for fear of entering REM sleep, during which she creates sentient clones of herself, each of which “physically cost her something.” Neither knows the other exists until mysterious fellow dreamer Bryde visits Ronan’s dreamspace and sends him to save Jordan. Also en route to D.C. is reluctant government agent Carmen Farooq-Lane, whose organization hunts and kills dreamers to try and forestall a widely prophesized apocalypse. Chaos ensues as their paths converge. Stiefvater delivers a stunningly imaginative tale that is by turns dark, funny, tragic, romantic, and surreal. Exquisitely drawn characters and witty, graceful prose complement the artfully crafted plot, which thrills while examining issues of individuality and mortality. Stiefvater delivers a dazzling fantasy, at once epic and intricate, from which readers will be loath to wake. Ages 12–up.