Thank you to HarperCollins Children's for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book's premise was intriguing. This is a book I would pick up in a bookstore, read the synopsis, and nod, but be unsure as to whether I would want to pick it up. In this case, I'm glad that I did! I was never really sure where this book was headed, either. I enjoyed this new take on YA heroines through Ness. Her cowardice was executed well, but at times, it seemed like she was never really going to grow from it and stay stagnant. I figured this book would be a standalone so we'd see more of her confidence in the next book, and we did start to see it toward the end, but I felt like something was a bit lacking in all the characters. I will be tuning into the sequel to see how it all unfurls, though.

I had no idea what to expect from City of Nightmares, but it was getting a lot of hype and I was curious. I'm really glad I was, too, because I ended up really enjoying it! I loved the way the author blended YA fantasy with horror elements to create a truly terrifying city. The opening is so compelling, with the main character Ness watching her sister turn into a huge spider nightmare creature. I was hooked! The action really didn't let up and the writing was excellent. I definitely think this book is worth the hype it's receiving and I'm very excited to receive my own finished copy very soon!

Thank you to HarperCollins Children's Books, Clarion Books, and Netgalley for granting me an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

City of Nightmares

3.5/5 ⭐️

Overall it was an entertaining read. A good one for a weekend marathon. It reads quick and easy. A fantasy novel with lots of dry humor, monsters and morally grey characters.

What I liked the most about this story was the setting. The whole concept of the novel, that people become their worst nightmares is amazing in itself. And the ambience in the city, the corruption, monsters and general chaos makes for a very interesting read. I though it was ingenious and clever how the author describes the worst of humanity in a world in crisis.

The MC I struggle with a times. I actually can’t decide whether I liked her or not. She has very good lines and some funny moments that make it worth it but she also annoyed the hell out me most of the time. Honestly I think the city itself makes the best character.

The plot is fast forward and twisted enough to keep you reading till the end, though. So I would highly recommended if you’re into plot driven stories and not much care for character driven.

I am totally going to read book two that much I’ll tell you

City of Nightmares is published by an imprint of HarperCollins and as such I will be withholding my review at this time in support of the HarperCollins Union strike. I look forward to reviewing this title once HarperCollins has worked with the union and agreed to a fair contract.

3/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!

I really enjoyed this! City of Nightmares is an original, solid read that had me from start to finish. The concept is super cool, the protagonist isn’t a not-like-other-girls Strong Female Character™ that punches her way through things. I also enjoyed Ness and Cy’s dynamic, even though I think he could have been a better character.

There were definitely ideas that were a bit too on the nose and forced, but I appreciate the author’s intent.

Excited to read the next installment!

Not my typical read but I wanted to see what it was like. I love the cover. The story was thrilling and a page turner. Definitely would recommend.

I loved the premise of people becoming their worst nightmare. The author creates an interesting, steam punky, gothic world based on the chaotic city of Newham.

This story was well paced and cleverly conceived, Ness’s humor and wry outlook were a welcome counterpoint to the grim world around her. It struck an excellent balance between “trust no one” and “your friends are there for you.”

I went into this book knowing it was going to be different from anything I normally read. I will say overall I loved the book. It is a coming of age and learning not to fear living. The story was perfect analogy (for me) on living in the pandemic. I appreciated the characters showing their fears slowly instead of info dumping. I can tell this is an opening to a new series/duology.
I really liked the characters connections to each other and how the story didn’t turn into a romance with some plot. The friendship between the two girls was sweet while also being realistic.
What I disliked was the pacing felt off at some points and sometimes the writing felt it needed more editing. I understand the story is told first person but I felt like I was reading a typical teenage girl who put herself down constantly. I wanted to see more depth in her character development. I felt like the internal monologue was forced at times. Telling the audience what to think of instead of letting them draw that conclusion. I felt like the dialogue sometimes pushed to be edgy and say things for shock value. It felt like there was so much chaos and information packed in but not a reason for it. Maybe it will explain more in the second book but I wanted more context on the nightmares instead of that’s just how it is.
Overall the premise was great and I hope to read the second one. I felt like once you get to the boat the story really picks up and honestly could have started there for me.

I loved the premise of people becoming their worst nightmare. The author creates an interesting, steam punky, gothic world based on the chaotic city of Newham.

The more I read, the more I enjoyed this YA fantasy. The main character Ness evolves along with the plot. All the main characters were quirky and interesting.

Underlying is the idea of self empowerment and creating a life out of choice instead of being subsumed by fear.

I am thankful that Netgalley, the publishers and the author gave me the opportunity to read this ARC. Thus is my honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for a free copy of this ebook in return for my honest review,

City of Nightmares is a comic romp through a city where your dreams can come true - at a terrible cost. In Newham, you can awaken from a dream having turned into your worst nightmare. It’s a city of corruption, violence, and literal monsters.

Ness has been hiding from her fears ever since her sister became a Nightmare and killed their father. When she finds herself unwittingly on the run from assassins after becoming the target of a conspiracy, she has to overcome them all or die trying,

This story was well paced and cleverly conceived, Ness’s humor and wry outlook were a welcome counterpoint to the grim world around her. It struck an excellent balance between “trust no one” and “your friends are there for you.”

Thank you netgalley & harper-collins for the e-arc in an exchange for an honest review.

I was excited to pick this up because it's just such a different and unique fantasy than anything I'd ever read, and I was right. This was a wonderful weird read. Ya fantasy books are almost always a hit for me and this one was. K different.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins Publishers for provide me an Arc of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I really loved the idea of people becoming their worst nightmare and the different types of monsters that live in the city. It felt very futuristic and prehistoric at the same time which it was very refreshing.

This is the first book I have read by this author so I came here not knowing what to expect. I enjoyed how explicit the descriptions o the characters and the world building was but it was a bit too horrifying for me. Although that I love details I do not enjoy horror haha so I had a hard time reading through those scenes (a lot of them)

I would say if you are fan of the genre you would really enjoy it because the delivery of the story was good is just not my cup of tea. Since there is no actual romance in it, it made it way hardest for me because I was really hoping the romance could make up for the gruesome scenes.

A solid start for a series! The world building is brilliant, the characters are great but a bit too much chaotic for my liking. Unique story though!!

Thank you Clarion books for the e-arc

City of Nightmares brings to mind The Bone Season, Six of Crows, and A Darker Shade of Magic. A world where nightmares come to life, where you have to take pills to prevent the nightmares from creeping in and transforming you. I loved how there are things like vampires where you can maintain a human existence, or even be turned into a lizard creature but still be accepted in society. Some nightmares are killed, but only when they’re a danger to society. Society is regulated, yet government officials are easily bribed and the leader has a pet pterodactyl. There is an undercurrent of mystery, with a lot of horror and blood and murder. I loved Ness’s transformation from a coward into not quite a hero, but someone who is less afraid and more understanding of nightmares and how they are created.

The structure of society and the nightmares reminds me loosely of The Bone Season. The different classes of nightmares is less structured than the unnaturalness in TBS, but it’s there, making me curious about the nightmares that are possible and how they are classified. The city of Newham brings to mind the darker Londons in VE Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic.

Ness is a sympathetic character in my eyes. Though cowardly, she’s not annoyingly so. I would be the same in her shoes. Trauma in her past directs her actions and her cowardice makes sense. Cy is your classic vampire with daddy issues but he played off Ness well and was a gread addition of a non-problematic nightmare in a world of terror.

This book will be perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, VE Schwab, and Samantha Shannon. With subtle queer themes and horrifying monsters, this world is super compelling and well written for fans of young adult fiction.

I eagerly await the sequel later this year! Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

City of Nightmares took a world building idea I loved and just developed it even more. Every page there was something more to intrigue me. Our nightmares which become real, our fears personified in ourselves? I still get shivers thinking about it. But Schaeffer takes this idea and makes it even more fascinating. Set in this corrupt underbelly of a city, plus Ness' membership to this cult, there are so many disparate elements. And they just work so well together.

I will give my feedback when harpercollins union will pay their workers a living wage in NYC and diversify their house book picks. Until then i will be holding back my review. I love the book so i cant wait to share once this happens.

I thought the idea of nightmares coming to life after dreaming was such a cool concept, and one that was expertly explored. The world building was very well done here. You really got the feeling of corruption and general weariness of just living through another day, but making the best of things. The characters were well written and Ness especially had some pretty serious character growth over the course of the book. It was interesting watching her come out of her shell little by little, usually drawn out by Cy, who was very emotionally vulnerable himself. They definitely brought out the best in each other.

This book was a charming surprise. It had bits of everything - horror, action and adventure, and humor. Ness lives in Newham where you can literally become your nightmare. She walks the streets with more harmless nightmares like lizard-like people and different strains of vampires. She witnessed her older sister become a giant man-eating spider and eat her father, and since then she's been terrified of everything. She survived a boat explosion with a nightmare named Cy, and she begins to discover that not all nightmares are terrifying. They begin a quest to figure out what really happened on that boat, who was the target, and why.

The world-building in this book was inventive, and I enjoyed the slight touches of humor, when talking about the Newham corruption, I can see Ness rolling her eyes and saying, "Why of why Newham."

I look forward to the next book, where we hopefully learn more about the phantom and what the cult is really up to.

"Dreaming means waking up as your worst fear," you say?

Let's also add in some "eh, might die, but I can't afford to be anywhere else" vibes and I'm sold. This was such a fascinating concept and a really fun read.

Concept: ★★★★★
Characters: ★★★★★
Plot/Pacing: ★★★
Enjoyment: ★★★★★

Man, I really wish I'd gotten around to my advanced reading copy sooner so that I could have been an AGGRESSIVE promoter of it during its release week. I have fallen down on my duties!!

This book was such a good ride, y'all, and I am definitely paying attention now.

Ness Near lives in the City of Nightmares. No wait, Gotham. No wait, it's not either of those places—it's Newham. Either way, the vibes are the same: this is not the kind of city you'd like to live in.

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.

What if every time you dreamed, you rolled the dice on the chance that you woke up as your worst Nightmare?

Ness is very aware of the tragedy and horror of that gamble. When she was younger, one night her older sister, Ruby, went to sleep and woke up as a giant, man-eating spider. Ruby was gone, and the spider in her place killed their father and others in town.

Let's just say that Ness never quite got over that.

Now a young adult living at the Friends of the Restless Soul compound—a charity (cough cough, cult) organization that provides "pay as you can afford" therapies to Nightmare trauma survivors—Ness is eeking away a frightened and barely there existence in the country's most dangerous city and surrounded on a daily basis by her worst fear: Nightmares.

And then, to make matters worse, Ness ends up embroiled in an embroiled assassination attempt beyond her wildest imaginings and finds the little ground she's scraped and bled to assemble ripped out from under her.

Oh, and then there's the Nightmare that ends up in (and on) the same boat she's in, who just might turn out to be her only friend.

Yep. Things are about to get...interesting.

(And that's saying something for the city of Newham, where the current Mayor keeps a Nightmared-pterodactyl on a leash to eat her political enemies.)

Okay, so if you've made it this far into the review and are somehow NOT already interested, let me just say that City of Nightmares was such a fun and self-aware ride.

As a reader who burned herself out on traditional young adult books, it's getting rarer and rarer these days for me to find a hook that invites me into a story. I'd like something new—that I haven't read before—and I'd like it to be done well and with the right amount of believable character traits. I'm ruthless with my reading tastes when I want to be, and for the past year the genre under the chopping block has been young adult fantasy.

But not this one. This one, I devoured.

Ness is the right kind of character for this story. In a world where fear itself is the commodity of choice, Ness is true scaredy cat. She's a self-professed coward, one who can barely handle the benign Nightmares that walk the streets harmlessly, not to mention the actually dangerous ones. Ness jumps from safe zone to safe zone under the constant internalized threat of Death by Nightmare. She's a right mess, alright?

And that really worked for me. While we all like to pretend we're relatable to the hero of a fantasy story, we're really...not. How many of us would sign up for that dangerous quest, or that big bad boss showdown, or that heist against the odds? I'm self-aware enough to admit that given the actual facts, I'd be like Ness. "How can I survive this experience and avoid personal damage to the best of my abilities, please?" Sign me up for that self-preservation track. Yup.

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.

Did the pacing lag a bit? Yeah. Did we also kind of rush things there at the end of this first book? Maybe. But honestly, I had such a good time that I don't really care about that.

Book two, I'm waiting for you!

Thank you to the publisher for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book is strange to say the least, but in such an awesome and amazing way. The city is inspired by the city of Gotham with giant lizards, vampires and even pterodactyls. Its a strange mix of crazy along with a perfectly lovely girl who has joined a cult but after being in the wrong place at the wrong time she has to gain some courage to fight the nightmares of the city.