Photo credits: Jonny Lindner
Edited by Vaishali
Title: 'Dreamfever'
Author: Karen Marie Moning Series: (Fever #4) Genre: Urban Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction, New Adult, Paranormal romance, Occult fiction, Fae Publisher: Delacorte Press Year of Publication: 2009 Version: Mass Market Paperback ISBN: 978-0-440-24440-0
NOTE: 'Dreamfever' is the fourth installment in the 'Fever' series by Karen Marie Moning, so this review will contain spoilers if you haven't kept up with the series so far!
Some quotations from the book may contain swearing. Review
“When the walls come tumbling, tumbling down, that’s the question that matters. Who are you?”
“Who the fuck are you? Here on the floor, in my final moments – Mackayla Lane’s last grand hurrah – I see that the answer is all I’ve even been. I’m nobody.'
Dublin has fallen to the darkest creatures to prowl the world.
It is a wasteland. The world’s population is dwindling. Dark Zones are spreading. The Fae world unfurls into the human. Mac has lost her mind. ….and without her only chaos can commence.
“Don’t lose yourself in anger, Mac. It’s gasoline. You can burn it as fuel, or you can use it to torch everything you care about and end up standing on a scorched battlefield, with everybody dead, even you – only you body doesn’t have the good grace to quit breathing.”
“But there was a part of me that wanted to go over the edge. Wanted to scorch the battlefield. Just to watch the damned thing burn.'
This story is erecting into something stupendous and I am too eager to read the final instalment! 'Dreamfever' - just like it's predecessors - is well written and well-fleshed out; the direction is heading to a thrilling destination where I hope (just like Mac) I will retrieve long-awaited answers. It's fast-paced, packed with exploits and rammed to the hilt with anticipation and dark matter, nuanced in the dualities and conflicts of man and woman, the world at its weakest, surpassing its lowest and the incomprehensibility of the characters in it wreaking havoc and imploring restoration.
“Revenge,” he says softly. “They took too much. You give up and die, or learn how to take back. Revenge, Mac.”
I cock my head. I try the word on my tongue. “Revenge. “Yes. That is what I want.”
Mac, I think, from the start epitomised a generation misplaced in life, misdirected and misguided in the laws of the truth of the world and a human’s place in it. This trajectory of hers was unceasingly about understanding and drawing out her own mettle, recognising her potential and forging a thicker skin, stronger bones, a sturdier mind and impenetrable will. Every time Mac thinks she is at the top of her game, she is always reminded that she has a longer way to go to get to where she needs to be and what she needs to become to fulfil her vocation - and I think that is the most important things for her: that her strength doesn’t hinder or halt at one point, one place, one time. Measures of strength are ever-growing, life does not start with weakness and end with strength, strength itself is an evolution and Mac must slowly climb that ladder, to earn the stages of strength through her own endless tragedies.
“But my dream sky darkens, and sleep’s moon fills the horizon.
“Don’t leave me.” I thrash in the sheets. “I’m not, Mac.” I know I am dreaming then, because dreams are home to the absurd and what he says next is beyond absurd. “You’re leaving me, Rainbow Girl.”
Life checks her arrogance produced by the strength she gains and brutally screams that she must become more. Barrons teaches her with the tougher kinds of love, as opposed to the limitless, softer love she has received for the best part of her life.
“There’s only one question that matters, Ms. Lane, and it’s the one you never get around to asking. People are capable of varying degrees of truth. The majority spend their entire lives fabricating an elaborate skein of lies, immersing themselves in the faith of bad faith, doing whatever it takes to feel safe. The person who truly lives has precious few moments of safety, learns to thrive in any kind of storm. It’s the truth you can stare down stone-cold that makes you what you are. Weak or strong. Live or die. Prove yourself. How much truth can you take, Ms. Lane?
...And Mac continues to climb ladders, she is smarter in so many ways, her abilities becoming stronger and she has not even uncovered the full limits of her capabilities and what she is. She comes to play, employ and navigate the politics of the ‘sidhe seer’ society and their cunning Grand Mistress, while riding the waves of trust when it comes to her ominous companions’ aims. Mac is dependent on assurance - though she has little to none - and without the stability of certainty, all else is dubious and unscripted knowledge.
“Some say dreaming is another place we go to. That we don’t know it as such because it’s not a physical realm we recognise. It exists in another dimension, which mankind has not yet discovered and to which it attributes no credence.
I dreamed my life back.” “Do you think the heart only follows blood?”
Tragedy is a lonely companion at Mac’s side, walking with her in her quest for vengeance, continuing to forge Mac into a darker version of herself. Still, more secrets come forth and Mac’s own nature is as debatable as her assumed allies, enemies and the condition of the world. Mac’s assiduous journey is about extracting hope and promise and belief any way she can when her own life strips the basis for securing it.
“Look, you can face what’s out there and get stronger for it, or you can stay behind these walls and take orders until our planet is beyond saving. You want to talk about damned? Our entire race is, if we don’t do something about it."
I love the conflicting characters in this series, even the ones I do not trust to the ones I secretly have hope for. I love watching Mac make friends and create allies, to fighting and breaking and hardening through her own failures and wrongdoing. I love Barrons even though I don’t really know what and who he is, but he is already a favourite of mine to read in fiction because the most difficult people to understand are the ones worth investing in. Barrons is a robust and well-formed creation - the 'perfect' lead to star in this series! It's an absolute pleasure to read him... and there goes another space on my book boyfriends library...
“Life didn’t explode in the sunshine and pretty places. Life took the strongest root with a little bit of rain and a whole lot of shit for fertilizer. Although love could grow in times of peace, it tempered in battle.”
I have come up with a multitude of theories whilst reading this series and yet I'm constantly blindsided by the changing of events and manipulative narrative! Ironic that Moning has captured a dream in the making of this book even though the content ensnares such dramatic bedlam and anarchy. Moning delves into the psyche of the primitive mind, as well as the broken and malleable one, of creature and habit and facets of mind and man and woman.
“I’ve come to hold the human spirit in the highest regard. Like the body, it struggles to repair itself. As cells fight off infection and conquer illness, the spirit, too, has remarkable resilience. It knows when it is harmed, and it knows when the harm is too much to bear.”
This series isn’t an ostracization of ‘bad’ deeds or ‘bad’ people. Its an investigation and grasping of them; even the worst perpetrators have reason and a strange kind of rationality in decision-making and action. But does the ‘bad’ prevent the potential of becoming something other than ‘bad’? Does pure ‘good’ guarantee survival and triumph? Do we all contain a bit of ‘evil’ inside of us even though we are not ‘evil’ by the core? …Moning’s enthralling world of the ethically divided and morally distorted is excellently executed and I SO look forward to Mac’s final endeavour in this harrowing place she has found herself in, and I hope my darling Barrons becomes everything I wish him to be!
“Maybe in the moment of being born and the moment of dying, we’re nearer to pure. Maybe it’s the only time we’re ever still enough to feel that there’s something bigger than us; something that defeats entropy; that has always been and will always be. A thing that can’t be flipped. Call it what you will. I only know it’s divine. And it cares. It was no longer my “comfort zone”. It was my truth.
I gave this book 4.5 stars -
Trigger Warning: This book contains a lot of adult content.
My Rating System:
★ - 1 star: I did not like the book ★★ - 2 stars: The book was okay ★★★ - 3 stars: It was a good, solid read ★★★★ - 4 stars: A great book ★★★★★ - 5: A phenomenal read
THE FOLLOWING WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!
Queries/Thoughts:
1) I still don’t understand the importance of Mac’s hair being dyed? She is known by her enemies, so I don’t understand the point. If anything, I think she should dye it back, signifying her strength as who she is, needing to change for no one and nothing and not cowering from her enemies with anonymity. 2) Really cannot stand Rowena. 3) Despite the circumstances, I wanted Mac to be in her full faculties when she had sex with Barrons. I would have preferred them both to do it of their own will and in the right setting, not because it was somewhat of a necessity to bring her back from mindlessness.
Favourite Parts:
1) Barrons bringing Mac back from being Pri-ya. 2) Mac and Barrons ‘Tubthumping’. 3) Barrons always being the one to try to save Mac in whatever capacity he can despite his unpredictable person. 4) Barrons’ backstory. 5) Mac finally meeting Ryodan. 6) Mac riding a hunter. 7) Visit to Nana O’Reilly’s. 8) Mac resisting ‘Voice’. 9) Mac using ‘Voice’. 10) When Mac finds Christian. 11) Mac and Dani’s sisterhood.
Favourite Quotes:
RSS Feed
Bloodfever - "One day you may kiss a man you can't breathe without, and find that breath is of little consequence." Dreamfever - “He kisses me until I cannot speak or even breath again.” “So what’s the big picture about our lust for sex? We’re not trying to acquire something. We want to feel something: Alive. Good. Bad. Pleasure. Pain. Bring it on – all of it. For people who live small, I guess enough of that can be found in sex. But for those of us who live large, the most alive we ever feel is when we’re punching air with a fist, uncurling our middle finger with a cool smile, and flipping Death the big old bird.” “You can do this, Mac. I’m here. You’re safe now. It’s okay to remember. They can never hurt you again.” “Who wants to go back?” I said coolly. “I want to go forward. And if you’re always looking over your shoulder, worrying about the next step you’re taking, you can’t. Hesitation kills.” “There are moments in my life when I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, doing exactly what I’m supposed to do. I pay attention to them. They’re my cosmic landmarks, letting me know I’m on the right path. Now that I’m older and can look back and see where I missed a turn here and there, and know the price I paid for those oversights, I try to look sharper at the present.” “Better the devil you know than the one you don’t know. Especially if the devil you do know is about to give you what you wanted. “ “There’s good everywhere. You just have to look for it.” “Strength wasn’t about being able to do everything alone. Strength was knowing when to ask for help and not being too proud to do it. “ “Life’s an ocean, full of waves. All are dangerous. All can drown you. Under the right circumstances, even the gentlest swell can turn tidal. Hopping waves is for the week-end warrior. Choose one, ride it out. It increases your odds of survival.” “It’s funny how, when things seem the darkest, moments of beauty present themselves in the most unexpected places.”
_______________________________________________________________
Related posts:
● 'Darkfever' by Karen Marie Moning
● 'The Alpha Alternative: JZB sex scene' by Karen Marie Moning ● 'Bloodfever' by Karen Marie Moning ● 'Faefever' by Karen Marie Moning ● 'Shadowfever' by Karen Marie Moning ______________________________________________________________ CategoriesAll Leave a comment and lets talk about 'Dreamfever'
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
VaishaliBorn in the UK Archives
February 2024
Categories
All
2019 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [Vicarious Living] has
read 15 books toward
her goal of
30 books.
hide
2020 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [Vicarious Living] has
read 1 book toward
her goal of
20 books.
hide
2021 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 1 book toward
her goal of
10 books.
hide
2022 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 0 books toward
her goal of
5 books.
hide
2023 Reading Challenge
Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews] has
read 0 books toward
her goal of
5 books.
hide
DisclaimerAll images of book covers on this site belong to the authors and publishers of the books.
|