Empress of Sass
Written on Feb 24, 2020
There is a lot to like about In Restless Dreams, so I’m going to share my positive impressions first, before I dive into the aspects of this novel that I did not like. The basic premise is one that is very attractive to me. Girl finds her way to Fairyland, discovers she is the chosen one and has the chance to help make the world better. I love these kinds of stories and rarely get sick of them. They are familiar, comforting, and fun. In that regard, In Restless Dreams is a novel I enjoy. It’s full of tropes, executed in non-surprising ways, but I’m okay with that because sometimes I just want to read something safe, familiar and predictable.
There’s a bit of a love triangle, and lord knows I love that kind of drama, but it’s a real side note, so if that’s not you’re thing, don’t worry that it will be front and centre to the story. I found both love interests to be intriguing, and wish a little more of the story was devoted to them, and their interactions, both with each other and with Sylvia. Sylvia is the Phantasmer, which is just this novel’s way of saying that she is the chosen one, and I’m a big fan of chosen one story arcs. If you aren’t a fan of this trope, this might not be the novel for you.
Now onto my issues with the novel. It takes way too long to introduce fantasy elements to Sylvia’s story. Her very first brush with the Fairy world doesn’t happen until 40% of the way through the novel. For a novel with a shorter page count (316 pages isn’t long for a fantasy novel), this takes way too long to get going.
As much as I normally really enjoy school drama novels- especially private or boarding school drama- in this book it’s not what I’m here for, and almost half the page count is dedicated to it. I’m not entirely sure what it really adds to the narrative- most of the school plot lines are dedicated to the bullying of Sylvia by a classmate named Cassidy, and that has no bearing on the Fairy plot line (aka the main plot line of the book). The only part of the school story that is relevant is when a classmate named Alex tricks Sylvia into eating a drugged brownie at a party, which kicks off her first real time seeing the fairy world. The rest of the school plot line isn’t necessary, and I’d rather it have either been worked into the main narrative better, or trimmed down significantly, in favour of beefing up the Fairy plot line.
The Fairy plot line itself is interesting, but again I really wish it had been explored further. It comes across as rushed, and a lot of it is bogged down in excessive descriptions, rather than showing us the Abstract World through dialogue and actions. The various locales and creatures dreamed up were interesting, but were ultimately just a pretty background, and not fully fledged out setting and characters.
Sylvia as a hero was most likable, but at times dipped into annoying, childish or just plain inconsistent. Her family was a mess, and really needed some more fleshing out. The school characters were largely irrelevant and two dimensional. I wanted more from the Queens of Fairy, but I did really enjoy the Stranger and the Knight, they felt like real breathing characters to me.
Overall, the dialogue was where this book was let down. There wasn’t enough of it, and what was there read awkward and a little staged. There’s a trick to writing teenagers so that they don’t sound like an adult trying to talk like a teen, and unfortunately this novel does not successfully accomplish that.
The main plot needed more depth and expansion, with more time dedicated to the world building and magic of the being a Phantasmer, but I’ve said that numerous times in this review. Bottom line is cut a lot off the beginning, flesh out the middle and the end, and this would easily become a 4 star+ read for me. As it stands, I have to give it a low 3 star review.
