In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

What I drank prior: So much Rose. Its been a solid day. Plenty of movies and hanging out.

Spoiler-free Overview: BtW I have been waiting for this book for months! I pre-ordered it and then breezed right through it. The Wayward Children stories take place in a world where some people find doorways that lead to a fantasy world. The series is amazing. This book follows Lundy who was a “perfect” child who went to a world with high logic, meaning everything needs to be fair value. There are multiple trips there.

Spoiler-free Thoughts: Holy shit. I do not have enough words.

Characters: Lundy, Moon, and the Archivist are the most important characters. Seanan McGuire has this ability to find the root of a character and explain it in a sentence. Lundy has a description early on that does exactly that. It sets up the rest of the book perfectly and makes her decisions completely make sense. Because how do you make sense of a world that does nothing to make itself make sense (this feels super profound because its 1am and Ive been drinking – please don’t disillusion me). Honestly I wish every one of these were full length novels. But there’s a taste of desperation through so much of this book and its hard to describe it as anything other than gorgeous.

Plot: this follows a similar format yo down among the sticks and bones, ot follows a child into the world that helps shape them. The movement from the real world to the goblin market feels fluid. Going to have so much to say in world building.

Writing Style: There is so much to say about the writing style (for once I have a comment). I said before that the author has this way of distilling the essence of a character into a sentence but thats true of everything she writes. There is such a sense of truth behind her words that evety pieve of description seems absolutley necessary, same with the dialogue. She has thus balance that leaves me in awe.

World Building: Ahhhh i literally obly have good things to say about this. There are two worlds that exist in this book. And she makes a fantasy world seem more real than the “real” world. (I feel like if i had a world mine would be similar to the goblin market). The adventures happen in the background which makes the world that much more important. As with all these novels I only wish there was more.

What to pair it with: A daquiri. But jot the one youre thinking of. Im thinking of the traditional daquiri. The kind thats just bitter enough that you have to decide to take your next sip but you always will because theres something that makes you want to knock it back and savor the entire thing.

daiquiri I mean obviously I hated this book…. 5/5. I’m pretty sure im gonna preorder the next one soon enough.

COMMENT DOWN BELOW: Pleade let me know if youve read this. I desperately want to talk about Lundy

~Ginny