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A review by lilibetbombshell
The Lost Dreamer by Lizz Huerta
4.0
I loved almost everything about this book: the fresh and compelling magic system(s), the lush and vibrantly-described settings, the driven and intriguing plot, and just a whole new world of epic fantasy to explore.
The magic systems are exposed in a show of deftly-written show and not tell. I don’t like long-winded explanations of magic systems told in narrative, and many authors choose to use telling instead of showing to make you familiar with the magic system. In this book, Huerta made the right decision to show us the magic system (or, really, it’s more like multiple systems but the Dreaming takes a central and pivotal role) as part of the plot development and in character development, and it was a nice way to keep the plot moving along.
The ancient Mesoamerica settings were so well-described I felt as if I could smell, taste, and see them. This isn’t a talent easily-cultivated, and it isn’t a talent to scoff at. A lot of authors think they can skip over setting in a lot of fantasy novels, but given this fantasy takes place in a part and time of the world most people know little to nothing about it was a great decision to try and pull readers into that time and that space using as many senses as possible without slipping into purple prose.
My only complaint, the one that caused me to rate this a 4 instead of a 5, is the overly-large cast of characters and how similar some of them were. I couldn’t fully hold onto which character was which and where they came from due to just how many of them there were. I found myself having to stop to remember who was who and what role they were playing in the whole thing from time to time, and that doesn’t make for a great reading flow.
I highly recommend this fantasy book for fans of newer worlds and looking for different magic systems to explore.
Thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan Children’s Books, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.
The magic systems are exposed in a show of deftly-written show and not tell. I don’t like long-winded explanations of magic systems told in narrative, and many authors choose to use telling instead of showing to make you familiar with the magic system. In this book, Huerta made the right decision to show us the magic system (or, really, it’s more like multiple systems but the Dreaming takes a central and pivotal role) as part of the plot development and in character development, and it was a nice way to keep the plot moving along.
The ancient Mesoamerica settings were so well-described I felt as if I could smell, taste, and see them. This isn’t a talent easily-cultivated, and it isn’t a talent to scoff at. A lot of authors think they can skip over setting in a lot of fantasy novels, but given this fantasy takes place in a part and time of the world most people know little to nothing about it was a great decision to try and pull readers into that time and that space using as many senses as possible without slipping into purple prose.
My only complaint, the one that caused me to rate this a 4 instead of a 5, is the overly-large cast of characters and how similar some of them were. I couldn’t fully hold onto which character was which and where they came from due to just how many of them there were. I found myself having to stop to remember who was who and what role they were playing in the whole thing from time to time, and that doesn’t make for a great reading flow.
I highly recommend this fantasy book for fans of newer worlds and looking for different magic systems to explore.
Thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan Children’s Books, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.