Sibling Rivalry and Myths: My Dream Country Review

Hey friends, wanna take a sibling rivalry and dial it up to 11? And frame it all with some intricate mythology and a dash of murder mystery? WELL let me tell you all about the wild ride that Dream Country by Ashaye Brown just took me on!

Book Title: Dream Country
Author: Ashaye Brown
Publisher/Year: Onwe, 2021
Genre: Fantasy
Number of Pages (According to Goodreads): 391
My Rating: 5 out of 5

Book description (from Goodreads):

A sibling rivalry to fuel your worst nightmares.

The dysfunctional triplet gods of Sleep, Dreams and Nightmares are kept separate by the deadly Gates of Horn and Ivory. Only one fact keeps them tightly bound: each of them is a suspect in their mother’s murder. Their knife-edge feud worsens when a mortal enters the world with astounding abilities that threaten to change the game for them all.

In this thrilling young adult fantasy, Ashaye Brown brings to life a visionary world infused with Kenyan, Brazilian, Caribbean, and Grecian cultural references. A story like no other with stakes as high as they come.

I'll be honest, the Goodreads summary makes the plot sound more vague than it actually is. Long story short: something weird is happening to the barriers between three heavenly realms, and it's up to the three gods who rule those realms to find out. Trouble is, they don't trust each other AT ALL. What could go wrong? (A lot, it's a lot)

Meet the Family

The book centers around three Major gods -- Theo the god of sleep, Fanta the goddess of dreams, and Tores the god of nightmares. I loved all three of these characters for their complex and deeply flawed natures. Theo is a soft bean who needs to believe in himself. Fanta is generally distrustful of everyone, which manifests in her being delightfully mean sometimes.

And Tores. Oh, my misunderstood, misguided Tores. I can't say too much about him cause of spoilers, but suffice to say he was my favorite character by sheer virtue of being A Complete Disaster. If you like complex morally gray characters, this is definitely a book you should pick up!

Whisk Me Away to Dream Country

Gotta be honest, I usually have a hard time getting into high fantasy because of the intense worldbuilding. But not only did Ashaye Brown do a GREAT job of weaving the information in as needed, the writing was super smooth and kept me whizzing through the pages.

If anything, I might have liked a little *more* description of the different realms, but honestly I'm here for the story and not the pretty word pictures so it wasn't a big deal to me. 

Trigger and Content Warnings for Dream Country

This book may not be for you if you're sensitive to discussions/depictions of violence, blood, nightmares, death of a loved one, birth/childbearing, and kidnapping/abduction.

Final Thoughts

The ending of this book pretty clearly sets it up for a sequel, and honestly I can't even be mad at the cliffhanger because it was done REALLY well. There's a twist at the end that had been hinted at throughout the story, so when it came I was both mind-blown and felt very clever for having kind of seen it coming. Basically, I NEED the second book NOW!

Thanks so much to Onwe Press for the ARC of this book and for letting me be a part of the Dream Country blog tour (other stops shown in the graphic below)! Dream Country comes out on April 27th, so check out the links below if you want to snag your own copy:

Amazon | Goodreads

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