The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett

Release date: March 5, 2013
Author info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Publisher: Tor Teen
Format: Egalley
Source: Publisher provided through Netgalley
Pages: 367
Buy the book: Barnes & Noble | Amazon | 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.

When I requested The Nightmare Affair on Netgalley, I was excited. But somewhere between then and when I began reading this book, I lost my enthusiasm. I have no idea why, but, luckily, I really enjoyed it!

The Nightmare Affair is definitely an insubstantial--not in a bad way, just light--kind of paranormal book, but it's one that is terribly fun to read. Dusty is a Nightmare, meaning she feeds off of the dreams of others. She attends Arkwell Academy, a school for magickind, where she is an outsider--for she is the only Nightmare there, and a half-breed. When Dusty feeds off of Eli, a boy she knows from regular high school, she finds that he's dreaming of murder... Then it comes true. Dusty and Eli are teamed together and work tirelessly to find the killer, before it's too late.

My only complaint with the book is that I found much of the mystery to be very predictable, though I did have one big surprise. At times I was banging my head against objects with my frustration, though.

I think The Nightmare Affair is a bit of (don't freak out, y'all) Harry Potter lite in many ways. With a form of governance over magic, students at boarding school, and a mystery for a special student to solve with their friends, it definitely reminded me of the first Harry Potter book or two. While it doesn't have the potential to delve anywhere near the ubiquitous Potter books, it was an enjoyable read with fun characters and a lot of whimsy. I'm definitely going to be reading the next book!