Blue Is For Nightmares
(Deluxe Spellbook Edition)
By Laurie Faria Stolarz
2003. Llewellyn Publications
Review by Debra Louise Scott
‘Blue is For Nightmares’ refers to the candle color to burn when having nightmares. Stolarz does a fairly good job of portraying a teenager who had the benefit of being taught magic by her grandmother, rather than by Hollywood.
Stacey, the protagonist, is plagued by terrifying nightmares, made all the more terrifying in that she realizes, from past experience, that her dreams often manifest in the real world. She knows her roommate Drea is in danger, and does what she can to protect Drea on the one hand and try to uncover the source of the threat on the other. Divination and protection spells play largely in this. It makes for a suspenseful story, from a young adult standpoint.
Reading it as an adult, however, I couldn’t get out of my head the thought that this was ‘Betty and Veronica’ (Archie Comics) meets ‘Scooby-Doo’. I’ve read young adult books that just blew me away in the depth and complexity of the story. (Neil Gaiman comes to mind as a master of the genre). This isn’t one of those, but Stolarz does weave a fair amount of complexity into the plot.
The bed-wetting is a bit disturbing, and I began to wonder whether this was perhaps a secret obsession for Stolarz to stress it so heavily. However, by the end it does actually make sense. As a very wise friend and magickal teacher of mine used to say, “There ARE no coincidences!”
The mini-spellbook in the back of this edition has some good things in it, and others that made me cringe as unethical uses of the craft. All of the bits had the flavor of having been written by teenagers with some fairly corny poetry thrown in. That said, the kids will probably love it.
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