The Nightmare Affair

Author: Mindee Arnett
Goodreads Rating: 4.31
Pages: 367
Format: E-ARC from Netgalley

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.

I am just filled with all kinds of squeaky love for this  book. Had I not finished it at work, I would have for sure squeeled and been excited and super loud about my love for this book. It was that good. I’ve been looking forward to this book since September (if not earlier) and so getting a copy of this book was like magic for me. Teh, see what I did there? It was magic to read a book about magic? Okay, I’ll stop my bad jokes now.

Trying to decide where to start what I loved about this book is like trying to describe why your favorite candy or ice cream, flavor is your favorite, hard to find the right words to say what about it makes you feel good, no GREAT about it. Right off the bad I felt this endearing sort of love for Dusty who does not have it easy. I mean, how comfortable would you feel having to sit on people’s chests to get into their dreams? Not so great, and add on top of already being a klutz, well you get the picture. Dusty was comical and endearing and she kept that up through the whole book.

I think what made this book stand out among all the other paranormal high school books is that Arnett didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. She took symbols and figures that we would already be comfortable with and added her own twist to them, like the Siren who hates being objectified and the addiction to sugar. She was clever and original when trying to create the atmosphere of the Arkwell Academy. Even better is Dusty who is a Nightmare, what a clever an original idea, that a nightmare is a person. We know the type of affect that she can have on Eli, but I would love to see what her presence does to a normal persons dream. Is the point of her to create this nightmare in their mind or to just feed off the imagination in their dreams.

I also adored Dusty. She acted and behaved the way that a high school girl would. She was defiant and funny and was interested in the hot guy that she knew she couldn’t have and that she had feelings toward a boy who was just as wonderful to her that she could. Dusty was stubborn and pushed the limits the way that any 16 year old would. I got irritated with her for her stubborn behavior, but again, I don’t feel that it was outside the normal purview of a slightly abnormal teenager.

I adored the cast of character that we were introduced to including Eli who at first is difficult and obtuse towards Dusty and the whole magic world. I liked who he did eventually come into the magic world and accept it for what it was and how it operated. I really loved her best friend Selene, who was so wonderful and understanding a friend. If only more friends were like her. The way that everyone banded together to try to solve the murders was clever and cute.

The murder mystery was the real central plot to this book, and Arnett did a good job of dropping clues for us to figure out who did it. There were a few unsavory characters that I didn’t care much for and didn’t full out suspect until it was in our face that they were the one who was behind everything. Clearly there is more to Dusty’s story because there are quite a few unresolved plotlines. This is one book that I am for sure getting a Finished copy because I was only able to read an earc. But I can’t wait to see the pretty finished version! This was my first 5 star of the year and I loved it!

The Courts Decision: