Review Detail

"I didn't do anything wrong. I swear."
He grunted. "Like I've never heard that before. Funny, but I expected a little more originality from Moira's daughter."
"Yeah, well, the dog ate my notebook with all my good excuses."

I should have taken notes on The Nightmare Affair whilst reading, but it was so amazing that I simply couldn't put it down to write about my thoughts. I had to read this straight-through.

The story starts off with Dusty breaking and entering -- well, not really breaking and entering -- into Eli Booker's house to plant nightmares into his dreams. You're probably reading this with a baffled expression like, 'first off, why is this child named "Dusty" and what do you mean by "plant nightmares?"' Hold on to your underwear, please, and let me explain. Our protagonist is a Nightmare -- the kind of mystical 'creature' that, in order to survive, must plant nightmares into a person's head and basically feed off the energy. This is what Dusty has to do, but her 'feeding' totally backfires with Eli's dream because something out of the ordinary occurred and changed their lives for ever.

Dusty is a very witty and sarcastic sixteen-year-old who attends Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for the magickind (i.e., werewolves, demons, witches and wizards, fairies, sirens, etc.). She is the only Nightmare there, so it's really hard for her to fit in. The Nightmare Affair was amazingly written and absolutely hilarious. I found myself wiping the tears from my eyes from laughing hard. This book is oozing with magic and I am very upset at the fact I have to wait a year for book two.

You can tell Mindee Arnett was inspired by the Harry Potter series (in fact, this book sort of reminds me of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets combined). It's not as though this was a rip off to the HP series, god no, but you'll notice Ms Arnett snagged a few ideas from them. You'll know what I'm talking about once you've read The Nightmare Affair. Nevertheless, it was such a fun and charming read. Also, I usually abhor love-triangles; however, I will let this one slide because I enjoyed it.