Review – Greywaren (The Dreamer Trilogy, Book 3) by Maggie Stiefvater (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Paranormal
Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Release Date: October 18, 2022
ASIN: B09QC3SQRS
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd book in The Dreamer Trilogy
Source: Borrowed e-book from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars

“This is the story of the Lynch family.

Niall and Mór escaped their homeland for a new start, and lost themselves in what they found.

Declan has grown up as the responsible son, the responsible brother–only to find there is no way for him to keep his family safe.

Ronan has always lived on the edge between dreams and waking… but now that edge is gone, and he is falling.

Matthew has been the happy child, the brightest beam. But rebellion beckons, because it all feels like an illusion now.

This world was not made for such a family–a family with the power to make a world and break it. If they cannot save each other or themselves, we are all doomed.”

Series Info/Source: This is final book in The Dreamer Trilogy. I got this on ebook from my library.

Thoughts: I was eagerly awaiting this book and was soooo excited to get it from my library quickly to read! Sadly, although I did think this book tied things up nicely, I also felt like it was a bit boring. There just wasn’t much that happened in this book that shocked me and it felt slow. I struggled to stay interested and kept setting it aside to do other things. It is still beautifully written and I really enjoyed how things were tied up but some of the book felt like a bit of a slog.

The story picks up right where it left off. Ronan is lost in dreams, Declan is trying to hold things together with Matthew. Hennessy is working with Carmen to try to figure things out as well. All the living dreams across the world are in a deep sleep unless they have sweet metals to hold them awake. There is a serious danger of Carmen’s brother Nathan creating the ultimate dream that finally destroys the world.

This is beautifully written and provides some wonderful closure for all of our main characters. I did feel like the world as a whole could have used more closure; what exactly happened to all the sleeping dreams (there are some things implied here but it still felt somewhat unresolved)?

Unfortunately, a lot of this story is incredibly abstract with time spent in a sort of dream realm and time spent within the sweet metals. This makes it hard to visualize what is actually happening at times. There is also a ton of page space dedicated to the various characters hashing and rehashing thoughts in their own minds. It was this second aspect that made this book a bit boring and unegaging for me at parts. You could go pages and not really have anything happen aside from Hennessy angsting about her life decisions.

The complaints above aside, I did enjoy a lot of this book. There are some amazing revelations throughout. I also really enjoyed the prologue that brings in some characters from the Raven Cycle back and updates on their lives as well. While this book didn’t blow me away and was a bit slow at points I am still happy I read it and I did enjoy how it wrapped up the series.

My Summary (4/5): Overall this was a solid conclusion to this series and I enjoyed it. This book is the most abstract of the series and I felt like pacing suffered some because of this. You spend a lot of time in abstract space which can makes things somewhat hard to follow and the characters spend a lot of time in their heads which can get repetitive and boring. However, the wrap up was perfect and I enjoyed some of the amazing revelations along the way. Stiefvater’s writing style is completely unique and completely her own and I asolyutely love it. I am eager to see what she writes next.