Dreamquake

Book Two of the Dreamhunter Duet

by Elizabeth Knox

**Due to heavy spoiler action of the first book, I’m going to try to keep the summary to a minimum. However, I’m not sure I can keep all spoilers out. It doesn’t seem likely. Read with caution if these things bother you!**

My review of Dreamhunter: Book One of the Dreamhunter Duet.

We start Dreamquake slightly before the end of Dreamhunter – in the Rainbow Opera on St. Lazarus’ Eve in 1906 of the alternate history world Knox has created.

Grace Tiebold is about to have her blissful dream overtaken by a harsh and terrifying dream that will cause a riot and lead to isolation of the dreamhunters. No one will know why the terrible dream was planted, because any attempt to expose the injustice and corruption of the government through the dream will be covered up. And now Grace’s niece Laura, her family and her friends must continue to fight the corruption that is threatening their way of life, even if it means destroying everything they hold dear.

Okay, pretty bland summary. I know. I’m not really sure how to address the subject matter without giving away some of the biggest plot points of Dreamhunter. I even had to leave out some key names just to avoid spoiling the end.

But onto other things. Namely, what I thought of this book. First, I have to address a question I asked in the Dreamhunter post – whether or not Dreamquake can stand alone. To be honest, I don’t think it can. Knox does give a great summary at the beginning and I thought for awhile that it might actually be okay, but the more complex the story got, the more I was aware the first book was essential.

And the story gets ridiculously complex. There are twists and turns and things that are hard to wrap your head around. I had to reread numerous bits and use the glossary (big props for including that) to get myself comfortable with what was developing and what anything meant.

I really, really liked Dreamhunter because of its innovative-ness and action-packed storyline. Dreamquake, however, never really matched the expectations I had after the first book. It stepped over the line from complex to bizarre a bit too often for my liking. It didn’t help that I wasn’t exactly pleased with the many of the character’s endings.

I’m sure there are people who would read Dreamquake and love it (obviously the Printz committee did). It just got a little too out-of-control for my liking.

Where this book came from: the library

**Major, Huge, Epic Spoilers**

Okay, so I do want to address the ending a bit. So, there are going to be spoilers here.

1. What a crappy, crappy ending for Nown, who – in my mind – was the hero in this entire story. This, more than anything else, made me SO. Mad. I’m wondering if the earthquake was supposed to mean something about Nown, but that could just be me trying to reconcile this gross injustice.
2. Did Rose hook up with who I think she hooked up with? Really?
3. There didn’t seem to be any justice. Sure, there was a bit. But, basically, all but one bad guy had anything bad happen. AND the other main sort-of bad guy (that I thought was realizing what he was doing wrong) suddenly was evil again!

Okay. I’ll stop now.