by Seanan McGuire
Series: Wayward Children #4
Published on January 8, 2019 by Tor.com
ISBN: 9780765399298
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 204
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.
When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she's found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.
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After Lundy was initially introduced in Every Heart a Doorway, I hoped she would have her own origin novella and that’s exactly what In an Absent Dream is. While not my favorite of the series, I did enjoy this one much more than Beneath the Sugar Sky and found the world of the Goblin Market intriguing (if not what I expected).
I think part of why I didn’t love this one quite as much as Down Among the Sticks and Bones (my favorite) was that I expected it to be… darker. The expectation that the Goblin Market would be twisted and venture into the shadows drew me into In an Absent Dream but what I found was a very different sort of world. Whimsical and otherworldly, yes, but beyond that, Lundy finds herself somewhere that closely examines fairness and the subjective value of all things material or otherwise.
Each of the Wayward Children books has had some sort of lesson to share or tough topic to bring to light. In an Absent Dream looks at fairness, and how our world isn’t always fair but what if a place existed that was. Lundy’s entire world becomes ruled by “fair value,” exchanging items and promises based on the subjective meanings of such things to the individual. She ended up caught between this world and her own, trying to make sense of what is fair and what she wanted from life.
Now In an Absent Dream is set decades ago but the concept of forcing children, teens, to decide what they want to do with their life so early on is still relevant and that’s what happens to Lundy. She has the choice and when the time comes, she isn’t ready to make it. If you’ve read Every Heart a Doorway, you know what happened to her. This is a girl who has seen more of the world than most, yet is still young at heart and those expectations to choose between friends and family, a world that makes sense and a world that doesn’t. I really connected to all of it and Lundy as more than a supporting character.
I flew through this novella, though the story didn’t always hold all of my attention. The ending in particular was a bit of a shock with its abruptness. While I knew where Lundy ended up, the story had taken a slow stroll through her childhood and her adventures in the Goblin Market, only to suddenly wrap things up in a few pages. I didn’t think the monumental decision Lundy made deserved such a quick mention and would have loved to see it expanded on, at least a little.
But I still enjoyed In an Absent Dream quite a bit. The Goblin Market wasn’t as dark as I had hoped but that’s more of a personal taste issue. Otherwise, I think Lundy was the perfect character to explore with her own book and now I just wonder which one, if any, will get their own book.
About Austine
I'm a 20-something research proposal developer with a background in the life sciences and education. Reviewer of books since 2011, amateur photographer by day, and aspiring author by night. I believe animals (and books) are better than people.
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