The Nightmare Affair (Arkwell Academy, #1)

by Mindee Arnett

The Nightmare Affair is the first in the gripping Arkwell Academy trilogy by Mindee Arnett. Sixteen-year-old Dusty Everhart breaks into houses late at night, but not because she's a criminal. No, she's a Nightmare. Literally. Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for magickind, and living in the shadow of her mother's infamy, is hard enough. But when Dusty sneaks into Eli Booker's house, things get a whole lot more complicated. He's hot, which means sitting on his chest and invading his dreams couldn't get much more embarrassing. But it does. Eli is dreaming of a murder. Then Eli's dream comes true. Now Dusty has to follow the clues - both within Eli's dreams and out of them - to stop the killer before more people turn up dead. And before the killer learns what she's up to and marks her as the next target.

• ISBN10: 0765333368
• ISBN13: 9780765333360
• Publish Date: 18 February 2014 (first published 5 March 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 9 September 2015
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Tor Books
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[boghunden]

Slightly disappointed. I had really high hopes for this one!

So, to begin with, I thought this would be a more mature read. I found it a bit too young - almost middle grade-ish, which was a shame. I just didn't really get the feel of the characters, they didn't get "under my skin."

The worldbuilding had me confused every now and then. I liked how there was so many mythical creatures and stuff, but I didn't really get the explanation if there was any?

The writing style was part of what made this book feel young, I guess. It's hard to point out exactly what it was, but it was just...not my style.

The storyline was okay, but nothing out of the ordinary, and also: it had a love triangle! I didn't expect that, and I also didn't like it. It wasn't at all what I was expecting about this book! It was less about the "dream world," and more about a "world with magical creatures who can do anything you can think of," and so I was disappointed.

This is probably just me, expecting something else than what I got. It's not a bad book, I liked it, but I was just so disappointed. As to whether I wanna continue this series, I'm not so sure. I might, since my copy of the book is so beautiful! ;)

[Amber]

I was so excited to read The Nightmare Affair because, hello, boarding schools! Who doesn't like a good boarding school book? Better yet, this particular boarding school is full of magical folk, and the main character is a Nightmare! I've only seen one Nightmare in YA before, and that's a character in Rachel Vincent's Soul Screamers series - one of my favourite series to date. I had fairly high expectations, and The Nightmare Affair was one of my most anticipated debuts of the year. Unfortunately it feel very, very flat.

Full review here: http://www.booksofamber.com/2013/03/the-nightmare-affair-by-mindee-arnett.html

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

What is it about boarding schools that attract so much trouble?! In The Nightmare Affair, the Arkwell Academy, a special school for magickind, is being plagued by a string of murders. It’s Dusty, the school’s only Nightmare, who stumbles upon the first body…sort of. She sees it in a dream while she’s out feeding, then gets picked up the campus cops where she learns that the murder she saw did indeed take place that very night. Now the school is bringing in its first “ordinary” student, so that Dusty can continue to feed from him in hopes of being able to identify the murder.

This ended up being a really cute and fun mystery. Nightmares aren’t something that pop up a lot in fiction, so I really enjoyed reading about Dusty and her mom. They’re not just the bad dreams that we all suffer from occasionally. Nightmares have plenty of unique abilities, and Dusty is just now discovering what those are. In her urgency of uncovering the murderer, Dusty learns to manipulate the dreams that she’s in, not always with the expected results. I really enjoyed these scenes, and wish there had been more of them, or at least more detailed ones.

The world is fabulous, too! My favorite part was how the inanimate objects around campus develop personalities and minds of their own with continued exposure to magic. Electricity speeds up this process, so you probably can’t trust your computer to not take a nap while you’re working on a term paper! There’s even blocking spells in the bathrooms to prevent the toilets from giving anyone too much trouble. It’s all very imaginative, and the world is the main reason why I’ll be continuing the series. I can’t wait to see more of it! I also want to see more of Selene, Dusty’s best friend and siren. She’s working against the objectification of sirens, which is mentioned a few times, but we don’t get any real details about it.

In the end, I did really enjoy The Nightmare Affair, but I found that the mystery started to really drag in the last quarter. I was busy fitting together the clues with along with Dusty, but I did get it wrong. When the big reveal happens, it kind of happens in stages, which made it kind of convoluted and confusing. All of a sudden all of the suspects are around and you think they’re up to something bad, but then it turns out that they’re not, but then they are, but then they’re working with someone else, but that person isn’t really bad, but someone else is…..and, well you get the picture. It was just kind of a mess.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[jnikkir]

3.5 stars, review to come...