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A review by readingunderadesk
A Multitude of Dreams by Mara Rutherford
2.0
A Multitude of Dreams is supposed to be a retelling of Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of Red Death which is definitely appealing! But it's set in some pseudo-fantasy (or maybe speculative alternate history) unnamed medieval world/castle/manor as one single bastion against a deadly plague that is now over 4 years later but, there's a mad king keeping everyone in!
The MC is a Jewish girl who was taken from her guarded Jewish area to stand in for a dead princess so aforementioned mad king didn't know she was dead, BUT... there are no other apparent religions or even religious ceremonies/items/literally anything in this world related to any other religion. So there's this historical oppression of Jews (valid and real) that draws on knowledge of the real world and real life history to be applied to a fake castle/semi-fantasy world but with no indication of who is doing oppression or why except "everyone who is not Jewish is oppressive for reasons we'll just leave you to figure out but do not exist in context." (Note: I would have this same exact issue if the MC was any other religion because one single real world religion in a fake fictional world makes zero sense in context; it is Very Weird to have one real world aspect and its historical cultural stressors be present in this non-real world with everything else stripped out).
Also there are vampires for some reason who exhibit no other vampiristic traits other than "we are drinking the blood of people immune from the plague" and "you can't kill us with gut sword" and "you have to invite us in probably."
It's kind of a mess, and I never got a sense of who anyone really was, especially the guy who was introduced as the first love interest before the second one came around -- a victim of 'too many named characters in a very small setting with very little substance amongst any of them,' which is a shame. The concept is good (except the vampires and I am a very big vampire liker) on its head and so much just falls short that I kept reading chapter after chapter in hope that some of my gripes would be ironed out.
Beautiful cover though!
Thank you to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for the eARC in exchange for honest review.
The MC is a Jewish girl who was taken from her guarded Jewish area to stand in for a dead princess so aforementioned mad king didn't know she was dead, BUT... there are no other apparent religions or even religious ceremonies/items/literally anything in this world related to any other religion. So there's this historical oppression of Jews (valid and real) that draws on knowledge of the real world and real life history to be applied to a fake castle/semi-fantasy world but with no indication of who is doing oppression or why except "everyone who is not Jewish is oppressive for reasons we'll just leave you to figure out but do not exist in context." (Note: I would have this same exact issue if the MC was any other religion because one single real world religion in a fake fictional world makes zero sense in context; it is Very Weird to have one real world aspect and its historical cultural stressors be present in this non-real world with everything else stripped out).
Also there are vampires for some reason who exhibit no other vampiristic traits other than "we are drinking the blood of people immune from the plague" and "you can't kill us with gut sword" and "you have to invite us in probably."
It's kind of a mess, and I never got a sense of who anyone really was, especially the guy who was introduced as the first love interest before the second one came around -- a victim of 'too many named characters in a very small setting with very little substance amongst any of them,' which is a shame. The concept is good (except the vampires and I am a very big vampire liker) on its head and so much just falls short that I kept reading chapter after chapter in hope that some of my gripes would be ironed out.
Beautiful cover though!
Thank you to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for the eARC in exchange for honest review.