REVIEW: The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett

Title:                       The Nightmare Affair
Author:                   Mindee Arnett 
Release Date:      March 5/2013
Genre:                YA Paranormal Fantasy

Publisher:           Tor Teen

Page Count:        367

Acquired:            NetGalley

Format:              Ebook

Read From:         Feb 13-Mar 14/2013

Goodreads:         ADD

Purchase:           Amazon/Indigo/The Book Depository

Sixteen-year-old Dusty Everhart breaks into houses late at night, but not because she’s a criminal. No, she’s a Nightmare.

Literally.

Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for magickind, and living in the shadow of her mother’s infamy, is hard enough. But when Dusty sneaks into Eli Booker’s house, things get a whole lot more complicated. He’s hot, which means sitting on his chest and invading his dreams couldn’t get much more embarrassing. But it does. Eli is dreaming of a murder.

Then Eli’s dream comes true.

Now Dusty has to follow the clues—both within Eli’s dreams and out of them—to stop the killer before more people turn up dead. And before the killer learns what she’s up to and marks her as the next target.

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I wanted this book to be so much more than it was. Every aspect in The Nightmare Affair seemed to be lacking the juice and spunk it needed to be something spectacular. The world building was non-existent and contrived, the characters were thrown at you with little to no back-story, and I turned the last page feeling pretty...hollow. There were many frames put up in this book, but there was no solid foundation, or walls, to support the ideas.

Dusty Everhart is a nightmare, she survives by feeding off of the "fictus" (substance) in people's dreams. When I first read the synopsis, I thought "WHOA, that is so freaking cool, and original!". Inside, I began to brew up feelings of mystery and magic and a whole other slew of things I didn't get ONE ounce of once I actually started reading. Dusty was your typical, hormone-enraged, slightly awkward in her own skin, teenaged girl. Take away the fact that she goes to a school for "magickind," and you're left with a premise that has infested almost every single fantasy/paranormal YA fiction novel about a teenager with magical powers. I was SO prepared for something different with The Nightmare Affair, and I believe that it fully intended to offer that to me, but unfortunately, it fell short, in so many ways.

The characters in this are, for the most part, gifted with all sorts of magical powers. There are fairies, sirens, demons, wizards..the works. That fact alone left me a bit overwhelmed-there were just TOO many types of characters trying to exist at one time. It felt like the author was trying to throw as many in as possible, which caused character development to suffer as a result. While each character's ability definitely warranted awe, it all seemed a bit over exaggerated in the end. I also thought it was a little strange that every character, no matter their kind, attended classes to learn how to do the exact same magic. This is me nit-picking, I know, but combined, all of the little discrepancies added up to a huge snag in my mind.

Dusty's character was a mile away from me, and while I enjoyed the entertainment aspect that she and Eli provided as they worked to solve a murder case, I felt no connection with her as a person. We were given a slight glimpse into the stilted relationship she had with her mother, but even that, was all it was: a slight glimpse. Her mother might as well have been an ex-best friend, or a roommate-that's how inconsequential their relationship felt. I don't think that dynamic was intentional, I think we were, as readers, supposed to feel the underlying love Dusty's mother had for her, but unfortunately, I felt nothing.

The Nightmare Affair was not a complete bust, the storyline aimed outside the box, but sadly, hit the walls and fell inside of it. Okay, I'm talking about walls way too much. Bottom line here: I was entertained, but I wasn't jumping out of my seat.

Recommended for fans of: Fantasy, Contemporary, hormone-enraged romance, and been-there, done-that, magic.