100 years from now.....

Hello, Tuesday April 25th!

You are considered the perfect day because you are not too hot, and not too cold. All you need is a light jacket. At least in some areas of the world.

For once the weather actually held true to prediction here. Aside from some light breezes happening all day, the day was considered quite splendid. Ah yes, this day will forever be memorialized if for only that scene in Miss Congeniality.

All that aside, it's nearing the end of the spring semester with only 3 weeks left. Some classes start to weigh you down with lots of homework, tests, and final essays to write. And some realize you have already mentally checked out and are just letting you cruise until finals time.

My English class isn't one to cruise, but today we sort of went off tangent and discussed things not related to the text we were supposed to be reading. It was related to literature in general. My classmates and I have a tendency to show up 10-20 minutes before class starts to discuss the homework or whatever amuses us in that moment. Our group talk was over the current trend of books that have been really popular as of late. You know, the ones you seem to see in every store, including non bookstores. The ones that are bestsellers if only because they have such a high sales market regardless of if they have great content or not.

And then it went towards another thought. What literature will students be reading in English classes  for high school and college 20 years from now? 50 years from now? 100 years? What anthologies will editors put together to explain our current politics, art movements, music, in future generations? What would it even be called? This stumped us all for a moment, because in truth we have no idea. Our general vote of consensus was that this era might one day be considered the time of Great Technological Advancements. Or rather, the generation of Escapism.

Strange the Dreamer by Lani Taylor

Summary:

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 to 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?

There are few books that I have stopped my life on to simply sit and read the words on the pages. Usually I'll read for an hour or so at the end of the day when I have finished all that needs doing. And then go to bed at that somewhat reasonable hour. That wasn't true with this book.

I read this book in one sitting.

I spent most of my evening and half the night reading this book. I remember at one point I had to stop and ask my husband what time it was, feeling a bit like Cinderella outracing that midnight clock. What's funny is that I was just having the thought about how no one would want to read a book about a person who reads books. And while it is about stories, it is so much more than that, and I was both happy and surprised by those words I read.

First, I love how all the orphan children are given the surname 'Strange'. Already it tells us that he is no ordinary child. Lazlo himself is like any other child growing up in the monastery. He has chores to do, and prayer to follow. Were it not for a profound sense of imagination he would have faded into those dusty walls and lived out his life not unhappy, but not fulfilled by his purpose in life.

It's a curious, and alarming encounter that causes Lazlo to keep the stories of Weep alive in his mind and seek out the truth from the fiction. After all, what causes the name of a city to taste like despair and tears when uttered?

The city of Weep is beautiful and haunting in its description. A place of once mythic beauty, its now become haunted by the 200 years of isolation and the loss of its name.

I have to add I received the book in my monthly Fairyloot box. So I received the blue UK edition with the blue covered edges.


Rating: 5/5 Stars