Genre: YA Fantasy
My Review - 5 Stars
What a powerful conclusion to this duology. It’s dense with action and characters and I had no idea how the intersecting threads would resolve, particularly for Sarai and Strange. All hope seemed lost at the end of Strange The Dreamer (one of my favorite books of 2017) and yet Sarai has a chance thanks to Minya’s gift. But of course it comes with a mighty price.
While Strange was an ode to books and reading, Muse is more a story about what happens when we are lost to our grief and need for revenge. Grief can twist and distort us, as we see with Minya and Nova. Half the time, I wasn’t sure if I was rooting for them to be crushed or redeemed. They do awful things but they’re treated with compassion and we can clearly see why both became this way.
Laini Taylor’s world-building was amazing per usual. The ghost characters have different abilities compared to other ghost stories—a saving grace for Sarai—and the arc with the two Ellens had me rapt. All of her angel demon monster books are inventive but I was particularly impressed with how things came together in this one. I have no idea how she came up with the idea for this story but I’m so glad she did.
CW: past rape, child slavery, slavery, violence, murder, attempted murder, grief, domestic violence, toxic parents, child abuse
Synopsis
Sarai has lived and breathed nightmares since she was six years old.
She believed she knew every horror and was beyond surprise.
She was wrong.
In the wake of tragedy, neither Lazlo nor Sarai are who they were before. One a god, the other a ghost, they struggle to grasp the new boundaries of their selves as dark-minded Minya holds them hostage, intent on vengeance against Weep.
Lazlo faces an unthinkable choice—save the woman he loves, or everyone else?—while Sarai feels more helpless than ever. But is she? Sometimes, only the direst need can teach us our own depths, and Sarai, the Muse of Nightmares, has not yet discovered what she's capable of.
As humans and godspawn reel in the aftermath of the citadel's near fall, a new foe shatters their fragile hopes, and the mysteries of the Mesarthim are resurrected: Where did the gods come from, and why? What was done with thousands of children born in the citadel nursery? And most important of all, as forgotten doors are opened and new worlds revealed: Must heroes always slay monsters, or is it possible to save them instead?
Love and hate, revenge and redemption, destruction and salvation all clash in this astonishing and heart-stopping sequel to the New York Times bestseller, Strange the Dreamer.
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