City of Nightmares: The thrilling, surprising young adult urban fantasy

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The characters in this book really stood out to me. Ness, our main character, is described as a coward, but it runs much deeper than that. I love a good unlikable character, and Ness is definitely one. She’s on the morally grey side, and she’ll do anything to ensure her safety. I loved her character arc, and I’m really excited to see where this series will go. Ah, Bestie Priya was everything girl could ask for in a friend. She is the definition of a Badass Female Character. I mean, Priya has no fears and literally can conquer anything. What I loved the most about Priya, though, was her constant support and love for Ness. Priya admits that she needs Ness as much, if not more, than Ness needs her. She was never ashamed in admitting how much their friendship meant to her. I am MOST DEFINITELY looking forward to getting more of Badass Priya in Book #2. In the city of Newham, no one is safe. Corruption is rife, violence is commonplace, and if people dream when they sleep, they become their worst fear. Ness's sister Ruby dreamt once, for once is all it takes, and became a giant man-eating spider, killing her father and leaving Ness traumatised.

In a Gotham-inspired city where people go to sleep and wake up as their own nightmares, perfectly normal, perfectly terrified Ness must face her biggest fears, before she ends up a casualty in some else's villainous war. Cheesy, camp, hilarious and so much fun, this was so much fu This fantasy adventure is set in a world where bad dreams come to terrifying life, as two teens are thrown together in a chilling fight for survival - Cosmo At times the book feels a bit slow, and it’s not always clear where the plot is going next. There are quite a few moving parts, but overall it worked well. The real action starts at about the 30% mark, and after that, you won’t be able to put it down. Intrigue – 7/10

Holy man-eating spiders! You do not want to miss this gloriously dystopian and utterly addictive YA fantasy, where your nightmares can transform you into literal monsters. City of Nightmares has such a cool premise. The city is a lot like Gotham – corrupt and full of crime. It might even be more over-the-top corrupt than Gotham is. What makes the crime even worse is the fact that when you go to sleep, you turn into your worst nightmare. There are vampires, huge spiders, and pterodactyls. It might sound a bit cheesy, but it really works. I read a lot of books and have a lot of opinions, so the only books I put up and rate on Goodreads are ones I absolutely loved and would heartily recommend to my fans. In a Gotham-inspired city that is comedically chaotic and full of so many villains they literally trip over each other’s plots in Bacanno style chaos, people are literally transformed into their worst nightmares.We follow a perfectly normal, non-Nightmare, non-villainous girl, who just happens to have joined a cult for the free rent. As one does. She’s also a huge coward (which really, relatable given this is the kind of city where the Mayor has a pet pterodactyl that eats people). But when she gets blown up in some random villain’s plot, she need to grow a semblance of a spine before she ends up a casualty in multiple villainous wars.

City of Nightmares has an incredible premise. The world is full of literal nightmares- humans turned into horrors based on their bad dreams. Nightmares can be sentient or 'animal-like monsters, but the world's residents now largely drug themselves to avoid dreaming. They walk among monsters every day and have to learn to live with them in this new world. There's a subtle romance happening between Ness and Cy, me being me though I also ship her with the Phantom so we'll see where it goes. Ness's new home is with a group called Friends of the Restful Soul, everyone else in the city thinks it is a cult but to Ness it is the place where she is laying low with all of her fears and hiding in a room most of the time curled up on a bed just wishing the world outside away. When Ness's place at the could be cult's sanctuary is threatened, she is willing to go outside the current jobs she has been doing there in hopes of making herself useful so she doesn't get sent away. That is when everything goes wrong and Ness learns that the life she held onto for safety was probably just a big lie, as she tries to find out why now someone is trying to kill her. So I thought that thread of character realism in this caricaturized, fictional version of our real world's dark side was awesome. It lent a dose of grounding to the sensational world building. And it made for a very good reading experience.A large wooden telephone watches me from the wall, the two brass bells on the front eerily resembling eyes and a long speaker dangling beneath like an elephant’s nose. But I’m not!” She frowns down at the woman, then shakes her head. “Actually, I think she’s just fainted.” That said, all the snorting, groaning, and developing relationships tired me. The plot, well, I won't spoil it, but I feel it has more than one hole and I disliked the ending. Being the only suspects puts them into a bloody, threatening dilemma. Every reporter is after their story, leaving them trying to solve a mystery in a city swarming with police corruption, conspiracy theories, and cults.

Rampant crime and violent death. In-your-face political corruption. Unbelievable living conditions. And none of those things are the worst selling point— it's the Nightmares that you have to worry about. Put your flowers down and get out.” Mrs. Sanden’s lips thin. “I don’t need you or whatever scam you have.”And people always seem to think that Nightmares are a thing that happen to other people, not themselves. I was never quite sure where it was headed, but I always knew each piece of information being introduced was going to be important at some point, which it most certainly was. Aptly, the entire story felt like a spider weaving its web until the entire city of Newham and all of its plot points were trapped and connected by this web. Even though a lot of questions were answered, there’s still so much to be uncovered, and I already cannot wait until the next book comes out! The simmering undercurrent of tension that permeates the entire plot also really amps up the mystery aspect, as Ness attempts—with her only friend Priya and fellow boat survivor Cy, to find out what really caused the explosion. I also really enjoyed that old school, crime noir-style dynamic that we see between Ness and both Priya and Cy.