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A review by skylarkblue1
City of Nightmares by Rebecca Schaeffer
5.0
Content Warnings: Gore, PTSD attacks + triggers, sexual assault (mentioned, few details).
Thank you ever so much to Edelweiss+ and HarperCollins for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!!
Imagine Gotham, but multiply the insanity by 100. Corruption, bribes and monsters run rampant in the city. A cult ran by a lizard, a city ran by someone with a pet man-eating pterodactyl. When you dream, you have a good chance to be morphed into your worst nightmare - permanently.
The story follows Ness, a young woman with severe anxiety/PTSD/monster phobia relating back to watching her sister (or well, the man-eating giant spider that previously was her sister) eat her father and then go on a rampage murdering another and injuring others. Ness tries to traverse the city, attempting to overcome her trauma and keep her free lodging at the cult while dodging the danger she’s flung open the doors to by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I quite liked the anxiety/PTSD/severe phobia depiction honestly. The fact that you know you’re overreacting, you know it’s far from logical and you *know* how damaging it is. But you can’t do anything in the moment, all that logic flies out the window the second something triggers you. The tiny part of your brain just screams at you to do things properly, but your body and the rest of your brain just ignores it. The book doesn’t quite go into enough detail about what it is exactly, but personally I think it’s a mix of a severe anxiety, a phobia and PTSD due to how it’s written and I do kind of like that. Those 3 can often mix in real life and play off each other, making them all worse and it’s exhausting. That came through with Ness’ character quite well I felt.
Also very much liked seeing a phobia depicted as what a phobia actually is instead of what it’s commonly shown as just being “scared”.
I can’t recommend this book enough. It was insane, a giant roller coaster of a read. You can’t ever quite tell how a chapter will end. A very funny read, emotional and gripping all the way through until the final page.
Thank you ever so much to Edelweiss+ and HarperCollins for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!!
Imagine Gotham, but multiply the insanity by 100. Corruption, bribes and monsters run rampant in the city. A cult ran by a lizard, a city ran by someone with a pet man-eating pterodactyl. When you dream, you have a good chance to be morphed into your worst nightmare - permanently.
The story follows Ness, a young woman with severe anxiety/PTSD/monster phobia relating back to watching her sister (or well, the man-eating giant spider that previously was her sister) eat her father and then go on a rampage murdering another and injuring others. Ness tries to traverse the city, attempting to overcome her trauma and keep her free lodging at the cult while dodging the danger she’s flung open the doors to by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I quite liked the anxiety/PTSD/severe phobia depiction honestly. The fact that you know you’re overreacting, you know it’s far from logical and you *know* how damaging it is. But you can’t do anything in the moment, all that logic flies out the window the second something triggers you. The tiny part of your brain just screams at you to do things properly, but your body and the rest of your brain just ignores it. The book doesn’t quite go into enough detail about what it is exactly, but personally I think it’s a mix of a severe anxiety, a phobia and PTSD due to how it’s written and I do kind of like that. Those 3 can often mix in real life and play off each other, making them all worse and it’s exhausting. That came through with Ness’ character quite well I felt.
Also very much liked seeing a phobia depicted as what a phobia actually is instead of what it’s commonly shown as just being “scared”.
I can’t recommend this book enough. It was insane, a giant roller coaster of a read. You can’t ever quite tell how a chapter will end. A very funny read, emotional and gripping all the way through until the final page.