Reviewed by chymerra on

4 of 5 stars

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When I read the blurb for Nightmares & Daydreams, I was intrigued. I wanted to know what memories Kalim was suppressing and why. This book did not disappoint.

I am going to throw up some content and trigger warnings. I usually do not do this, but this book deals with some serious issues. Homophobia, child abuse, drug use, the traumatic death of a loved one, and mental illness are featured. The author doesn’t hold back with anything but the child abuse (those scenes are toned down). I strongly recommend not reading this book if any of these triggers you.

The plotline for Nightmares & Daydreams was fast-paced and exciting. Kalim is a British citizen living in Marseille with his boyfriend of 8 years. Kalim starts lucid dreaming about an older woman, and those dreams quickly turn into nightmares of his past. Soon, his nightmares begin to bleed into his waking life as hallucinations. Why is this happening? What has Kalim suppressed? Can Kalim come to terms with his trauma before it destroys his relationships and sanity?

I felt awful for Kalim from the first sentence of the book. No one and I stress this, could live through what he did and not have issues. He seemed to be living a good life in France, but the more into the story the author got, the more I saw that Kalim depended on sleeping pills to get him through the night. His nightmares were genuinely horrific, and there were several scenes where even I, the reader, couldn’t tell if he was dreaming or not. And his hallucinations were frightening. He saw an older woman in places she shouldn’t have been. I was apprehensive about his sanity during his London trip.

His trip to London seemed to hasten everything that was happening to him. Add his relationship with his abusive, homophobic father and his return to using drugs to numb to pain; I was pretty confident he would hit rock bottom.

The author did show the strong support system that Kalim had with his boyfriend, his friends, and his mother. I just wished that he had confronted his demons sooner in the book. That way, I could have seen what his life was like afterward.

The end of Nightmares & Daydreams was a little opened ended. I will not go into what happened, but I will say that it fits the book. I also liked the poetry at the end.

I would recommend Nightmares & Daydreams to anyone over 21. As I stated above, there are several content and trigger warnings. They are homophobia, child abuse, drug use, traumatic death of a loved one, and mental illness. There is also language, violence, and no sex.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 17 October, 2022: Finished reading
  • 17 October, 2022: Reviewed