The Nightmare Affair

From Goodreads:
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.

My Rating: ***

Copy for review provided by NetGalley. Thank you!

I liked The Nightmare Affair well enough, but as far as paranormal boarding school books go it did not "wow" me. I was hoping for Hex Hall level humor and awesome powers, but everything here was pretty bland. Dusty was trying really hard to be one of those witty, kick-butt, powerful heroines, but I wasn't impressed. First off, I was expecting the Nightmare thing to be more interesting. She doesn't give people nightmares - she essentially enters others' dreams and quietly observes them, gaining magical power from them. Kind of boring. Of course, with Eli it's a little different as she starts to see things in his dreams that foretell awful events in the future.

But the whole mystery thing? So predictable. I wanted to scream at Eli and Dusty because they were being so blind. Duh! You do not suspect the most obvious person!!! You do not fall for red herrings! You do not walk right into the real murderer's OBVIOUS trap! It was a little disappointing.

But it was a quick read and some of the powers people had at school were interesting and fresh. I'll probably check out the sequel, but I won't be rushing out, desperate to read it.

The Nightmare Affair is available tomorrow.