Life As A Dreamer

Ever read through a book and watch the characters lives fall apart and say: "If they just told the truth, none of this would have happened!" I found myself saying that a lot after finishing all three books of The Sarah Midnight Trilogy by Daniela Sacerdoti (yes, I read three books in a single week. You can't be that surprised). While I was hoping for a little less drama, I did find trilogy to be thought out and interesting, and I was eager to find out what would happen to all of the characters.

All pretty good covers, but Dreams is my favorite.

The Sarah Midnight Trilogy follows, well, a girl named Sarah Midnight, whose dreams are filled with nightmarish demons and visions of death. Her duty was to tell her parents what she had seen, sot that they could hunt and kill the demons before Sarah's dreams came true. After her mother and father's sudden deaths, Sarah is forced to take up the legacy her parents left behind. But Sarah's family weren't the only ones who had plans for her. The deadly King of Shadows has a purpose for Sarah, and is she and her friends can't overcome him, death will be a kindness compared to what he unleashes on the earth...

Since I don't want to spoil anything about the books in the trilogy, I'll sum up my thoughts about the series as a whole. I did enjoy the books in the end, but as I said before, there was so much drama. Everything could have been fixed if the characters had taken the time to be honest with one another, and I feel I could have been more invested in the story if I knew more about the society, or had a better understanding of the Secret powers, or Elementals, or anything else. I felt there wasn't enough depth into the world, most of the story being focused on Sarah and her love interest, the charismatic and loyal Sean.

For example, there was constant talk of the demon hunting society called the Sabha, whose job was to protect these gifted families– the Secret families– but who betray their hunters, even poisoning one of them. Though there was mention of this constant betrayal, we never actually met members of the Sabha. Even though it sounded like they should be considered dangerous, they never made an appearance or did anything to threaten the characters. It seemed like an empty threat to me.

Same with the powers. I wanted to know more about them and how they worked. One of my favorite characters ended up nearly drowning, only to come back in the next chapter and say their family couldn't die from drowning. What?! was my single thought.

There was so much creativity brought into the series, but not enough seemed to be done with them. I would have liked some time to go into more depth with the world and how various families were structured. The main story itself was fairly strong, however, and there wasn't a point where I wanted to stop.

The characters were all unique and fun, Niall being my personal favorite. They each had a dark side and a light side, and were well balance. Sarah had some particular quirks that made her different from most YA heroines. The one major issue I had with these novels was the shifts in perspective. Sometimes it would be told from third person, then from Sarah's POV, then Sean's, then someone else. It seemed jarring to me and took me out of the story a couple times, and kind of took away from the mystery because you knew what everyone was thinking all of the time.

Despite its flaws, The Sarah Midnight Trilogy is an engaging, action packed journey that many young readers will enjoy, especially if they want to see if love can conquer all.

Amy