Lots of potential, but ultimately disappointing
A Multitude of Dreams follows a (fake) princess named Imogen (actually Seraphina), trapped in a castle after a plague ravaged the country and the king commanded everyone in the castle to stay inside. After the real princess died, her sisters went out and found Seraphina, a Jewish girl who looks enough like their dead sister to pass as her. Outside, Nico, one of the few survivors of the plague that would leave its victims bleeding from every orifice, has been sent by a Lord to find any survivors that may be remaining in the castle. As Seraphina and Nico cross paths, they uncover a darker secret of the plague that threatens to kill everyone in the castle.
A Multitude of Dreams is set in a vaguely medieval European world, but most of it feels pretty confusing despite how simple it is. The world isn't very built out or explained at all, and the story isn't self contained enough for me to let that go. The entire time, I was wondering what everyone else has been doing this whole time since at the beginning of the book, it has been four years since the plague first swept through the nation. At a certain point, a prince from another kingdom is supposed to come by, but that just made me wonder why no one else from another kingdom ever came by either. It's been four years since the plague, so I expected at least some political intrigue at this point. But there was nothing but some vague mystery and action.
I did appreciate the Jewish representation, although some parts of it seem too specific for how vague the rest of the world is. But I can tell that Rutherford put a lot of love and time into the proper representation, which, as a Jewish person, I do appreciate. The references to religion, traditions, food, and culture were well done.
The plague was very much in the background of the story, despite its importance, and I never really felt like there was any threat of plague. And no one, besides the crazy king, seems even remotely scared of a plague. No one is scared about contact, even after burying a corpse that I assumed died from the plague. Even Nico, knowing that he was entering a castle that had been boarded up (so people hadn't come into contact with the plague), showed no hesitation about possibly bringing plague inside.
Also, there's vampires. Not the worst reasoning for vampires, but nothing particularly special about them either. The mystery is a bit drawn out for how obvious some of the clues are, and I guessed that there were vampires way before the book actually realizes it. Besides the vampires' inability to die from normal causes, they never felt like as much of a threat as the book wants them to be. The vampires sustain themselves on non infected blood, not immune blood, but they all seem to take that as a hard and fast rule that means they can't attack immune humans either. Overall, the vampires were just... fine.
Seraphina/Imogen and Nico were perfectly respectable protagonists. Seraphina feels more fleshed out than Nico, but I didn't dislike his character. His slow realization of the horrors of the post plague world was well done, and I liked his interactions with his friends. Seraphina was somewhat bland, but I enjoyed seeing her interact with her 'sisters' and the king. Her internal battle between pretending to be the princess Imogen and feeling guilt for being taken from her family right as the plague hit them made for some interesting internal conflict. Seraphina did do one of my biggest pet peeves in books though, going into a dangerous spot despite having nothing to contribute beyond putting herself in danger, for absolutely no reason. I understand having spirit and being stubborn, but come on. That's just stupidity and it makes me completely unable to care about her being in danger at that point.
Their romance was somewhat at the background the entire time, but suddenly comes to the foreground in the end. It felt rushed and I didn't really think they had any chemistry together, but that could be because I didn't love either character.
The best part of A Multitude of Dreams was Rutherford's writing. It was smooth and flowed well, keeping me interested and reading long after I usually would have. This was a pretty quick read for me, so I don't really regret reading it. It does definitely feel a bit YA, but I can't fault it for being in the genre it was written for.
Overall, there weren't many egregious problems with A Multitude of Dreams, but there weren't many exceeding positives either. It was a completely in the middle book.
A Multitude of Dreams is set in a vaguely medieval European world, but most of it feels pretty confusing despite how simple it is. The world isn't very built out or explained at all, and the story isn't self contained enough for me to let that go. The entire time, I was wondering what everyone else has been doing this whole time since at the beginning of the book, it has been four years since the plague first swept through the nation. At a certain point, a prince from another kingdom is supposed to come by, but that just made me wonder why no one else from another kingdom ever came by either. It's been four years since the plague, so I expected at least some political intrigue at this point. But there was nothing but some vague mystery and action.
I did appreciate the Jewish representation, although some parts of it seem too specific for how vague the rest of the world is. But I can tell that Rutherford put a lot of love and time into the proper representation, which, as a Jewish person, I do appreciate. The references to religion, traditions, food, and culture were well done.
The plague was very much in the background of the story, despite its importance, and I never really felt like there was any threat of plague. And no one, besides the crazy king, seems even remotely scared of a plague. No one is scared about contact, even after burying a corpse that I assumed died from the plague. Even Nico, knowing that he was entering a castle that had been boarded up (so people hadn't come into contact with the plague), showed no hesitation about possibly bringing plague inside.
Also, there's vampires. Not the worst reasoning for vampires, but nothing particularly special about them either. The mystery is a bit drawn out for how obvious some of the clues are, and I guessed that there were vampires way before the book actually realizes it. Besides the vampires' inability to die from normal causes, they never felt like as much of a threat as the book wants them to be. The vampires sustain themselves on non infected blood, not immune blood, but they all seem to take that as a hard and fast rule that means they can't attack immune humans either. Overall, the vampires were just... fine.
Seraphina/Imogen and Nico were perfectly respectable protagonists. Seraphina feels more fleshed out than Nico, but I didn't dislike his character. His slow realization of the horrors of the post plague world was well done, and I liked his interactions with his friends. Seraphina was somewhat bland, but I enjoyed seeing her interact with her 'sisters' and the king. Her internal battle between pretending to be the princess Imogen and feeling guilt for being taken from her family right as the plague hit them made for some interesting internal conflict. Seraphina did do one of my biggest pet peeves in books though, going into a dangerous spot despite having nothing to contribute beyond putting herself in danger, for absolutely no reason. I understand having spirit and being stubborn, but come on. That's just stupidity and it makes me completely unable to care about her being in danger at that point.
Their romance was somewhat at the background the entire time, but suddenly comes to the foreground in the end. It felt rushed and I didn't really think they had any chemistry together, but that could be because I didn't love either character.
The best part of A Multitude of Dreams was Rutherford's writing. It was smooth and flowed well, keeping me interested and reading long after I usually would have. This was a pretty quick read for me, so I don't really regret reading it. It does definitely feel a bit YA, but I can't fault it for being in the genre it was written for.
Overall, there weren't many egregious problems with A Multitude of Dreams, but there weren't many exceeding positives either. It was a completely in the middle book.