Starred Review ALA Booklist (Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2019)

Starred Review In his family's farm in West Virginia, where he lives, usually alone, Ronan Lynch brings his dreams to life. It's a dangerous, unpredictable skill, but after years of practicing, he mostly understands how to control it. But lately, his dreams have been changing, and the people he is closest to s brother Declan, rigid and composed; his brother Matthew, optimistic and oblivious; and Adam, the boy who loves him, away at Harvard for school ve begun to worry. Elsewhere, art thief Jordan Hennessy is no stranger to dreams and their dangers, but a past she's running from and a future she fears are about to collide. And Carmen Farooq-Lane knows the end of the world is coming, and if she has to kill dreamers to hold it off, then for the greater good, she will. This spinoff trilogy was born from Stiefvater's Raven Cycle, and though readers of that quartet (especially those who favored The Dream Thieves, 2013) will of course be eager for this, this new series, somewhat astonishingly for a story this layered, exists independently of its predecessor. It's a different beast entirely, one that circles the complexities of family and the joys and terrors of creating. For all that is new, however, Ronan remains the same; a lodestar that old readers will be happy to return to and new ones glad (if nervous) to discover.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The Raven Cycle books were best-sellers, a TV show adaptation is currently in the works for SyFy, and, really, Ronan Lynch was always everyone's favorite.

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

Book one of Stiefvater-s Dreamer Trilogy, spun off from the Raven Cycle, centers on orphaned high school dropout Ronan Lynch. Ronan yearns to follow his boyfriend, Harvard student Adam Parrish, to Massachusetts, but until he can better control his propensity for manifesting elements of his dreams (-monsters and machines, weather and wishes, fears and forests-), he-s stuck living on his family-s Virginia farm. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., art forger Jordan Hennessy sleeps in 20-minute bursts for fear of entering REM sleep, during which she creates sentient clones of herself, each of which -physically cost her something.- Neither knows the other exists until mysterious fellow dreamer Bryde visits Ronan-s dreamspace and sends him to save Jordan. Also en route to D.C. is reluctant government agent Carmen Farooq-Lane, whose organization hunts and kills dreamers to try and forestall a widely prophesized apocalypse. Chaos ensues as their paths converge. Stiefvater delivers a stunningly imaginative tale that is by turns dark, funny, tragic, romantic, and surreal. Exquisitely drawn characters and witty, graceful prose complement the artfully crafted plot, which thrills while examining issues of individuality and mortality. Stiefvater delivers a dazzling fantasy, at once epic and intricate, from which readers will be loath to wake. Ages 12-up. (Nov.)

School Library Journal (Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2019)

Gr 8 Up-Once there were three brothersDeclan, the eldest; Ronan, the middle whose dreams became reality; and Matthew, the youngest who was dreamed into existence by Ronan. After finding a painting of their deceased mother at the Fairy Market, the brothers are drawn into a dangerous world where anything can happen. Magic collides violently with art and dreams in this novel, and every chapter pulls the reader deeper into a story that starts out dark and gets progressively darker, stranger, and more convoluted. Warning: May cause sleepless nights, strange dreams, and obsessive glances over one's shoulders to make sure nothing is creeping up from behind. A cliff-hanger ending will leave readers impatient for the next book in a projected trilogy. VERDICT Atmospheric, weird, disjointed, and difficult to follow but intriguing as hell and almost impossible to put down. Jane Henriksen Baird, formerly at Anchorage Public Library, AK