Happy Fae Friday! I’ve been a little silent on the blog lately, and I wish I had a good excuse, but I don’t. I’ve just been lazy. It happens. But Fae Friday is my favorite weekly tag, so I couldn’t miss it this time!
Strange the Dreamer
Fae Friday is hosted by Caffeinated Fae, and this week’s prompt is inspired by faerie fruit. The world is a tough place, and sometimes we need a little escape. So the question is, what is a genre you keep coming back to so you can keep moving forward?
The short answer is fantasy!
I can’t just leave my blogpost at just that, though. That would be the shortest blog post ever! I love many kinds of fantasy: epic fantasy, urban fantasy, magical realism, fairy tales, and so on. Strangely, it’s not so much one specific sub-genre of fantasy I always return to, but rather one specific book. I don’t even reread it, I just think about it and kind of reflect. Anyway, y’all probably want to know which book it is, huh?
It’s Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor!
I’ve read this book (and the sequel) quite a while ago, but I still find myself thinking about it very often. Lazlo is truly one of the most optimistic characters I’ve ever come across. A poor orphan somewhere in a drab northern country, he is perfectly content spending his life in the library where he works. However, he also has a sense of adventure and when the legendary Godslayer from the legendary city of Weep asks for assistance with a …. problem, Lazlo manages to secure a sport in the caravan.
The reason why I love to think about this book when the world is a little darker, is because every character in this story has something going on. Their circumstances are all so very different; some are born into privilege, some are born poor, and some are born half-gods whose only crime is being alive. And yet all of them have gone through something traumatic at some point. The actions they take are often a reflection of those underlying experiences, and that makes for quite a story.
In short, I love thinking about this book because even though the background of all the characters is super dark, they still hold onto hope. They all want something better for themselves and refuse to be victims of their own circumstances. It makes me realize that I can get up too, and achieve all my goals and dreams!
Strange the Dreamer
By Laini Taylor
Published 28 March 2017 by Little Brown Books for Young Readersfantasy | young adult | adventure
The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.
What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?
The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?
Welcome to Weep.
That’s it for this Fae Friday! What is a genre or a book that gives you comfort when the world is a little darker?
Find more of my Fae Friday posts here!
Fantasy is such a good escape genre – I picked it too!
Author
Fantasy is great because it has all the cool things like magic and dragons!😄