Rating: 2

I’m not quite sure what the point of this book is apart from milking the Hunger Games cash cow. I must admit that I was a mite interested when it was first announced – not because I wanted any kind of additional book, but I have a very tight knit bond with this series. After all, I kind of owe it my bachelor’s degree. When I found out it was about Snow, however, that mite almost died down entirely and I became extremely wary. Well, I wasn’t wrong …

Where do I even begin? To quote one of our great poets (never thought I would draw Goethe into this): “Two souls alas! are dwelling in my breast.” So what’s the deal? Well, I know for a fact that naive 16-year-old me would have loved this series. Not-quite-as-naive-and-a-lot-more-sensitised 28-year-old me not so much. There’s common ground though: it’s just my kind of fantasy world. But while 16 is swooning about just her type of (male) characters, 28 is screeching at her that these characters, their relationships, and some of the concepts are totally fucked up and toxically romanticised, and 16 should just get lost in the past where she belongs (you see, it’s always fun living in my head). Wondering what has them so worked up?

Meh. When I first read Dream On, I had no recollection of the events of this book one week after finishing it. This time around – listening to the audio book – it was almost worse and I really have to strain to remember in order to write this review. That’s how forgettable this book is. It’s not bad per se, especially if you like that kind of irrelevant fluff that is Liv’s everyday life and oh, all the relationship drama. Unfortunately, there’s just not much dream demon stuff going on …

Weird. That’s the first word that comes to my mind when thinking about this novel. Technically, it had all the elements of my favourite chick lit novels: family mysteries, history, and foreign cultures. And yet, the pieces were oddly intertwined, the parts not evenly distributed over the course of the novel instead appearing as lengthy chunks one after the other. Furthermore, as much as I’m inclined to believe in some kind of the supernatural, as much as I love fantasy and madness borderlining each other, this story was something I just couldn’t fathom …

I was hooked by a mysterious title, a stunning cover, and an intriguing idea. Unfortunately, it was all a ruse. The title belongs to a different book, the cover only fits the first third and the idea was abandoned in favour of a generic romance-y fantasy plot. This is one of the ‘great idea, poor execution’ cases and therefore fell flat for me …

When I paused for the first time on page 118, I was a little scared. I thought I was getting old, mature, more grown up – whatever you want to call it. Why? Well, this wasn’t the first time I picked up Where Rainbows End. I tried to read it when I was 17 or 18. Tried, because I trudged through the first 80 pages and then gave up. I was bored to death. This time, however, I flew through those 118 pages and actually really enjoyed myself. Who would have thought!

Well, that was a really weird reading experience. Weird, because I couldn’t help hearing and picturing the BBC Sherlock actors. Which was sometimes funny, sometimes strange, and most of the time didn’t work at all. For unfortunately, this book doesn’t really work out as a Sherlock retelling – although I have a feeling I know where this series is heading … and it’s all build on dubious creative decisions …