The Nightmare Affair

by Mindee Arnett

Dusty Everhart goes to Arkwell Academy, a school for magickind such as sirens, wizards, and demons.  Dusty is a Nightmare (and I don't know why Nightmare is the only one that's capitalized).  She sneaks into people's rooms every other week to feed off their dreams.  One night, she feeds off Eli Booker's dreams and everything changes.
They have a special connection that allows Dusty to see the future in his dreams, so Eli is brought to Arkwell Academy even though he is not magical.  I knew from the back of the book that Eli was a love interest, but it went a bit overboard.  Naturally, they could not fall in love immediately, so there had to be some tension.  Eli's is understandable; he is frustrated with being ripped out of his normal life, where he was popular, and thrust into this one, and he blamed it on Dusty.  Dusty's tension is less understandable.  She seems to object to the hotness of Eli.  She is simply mad at him for messing up her life, except he didn't really mess up her life, he just made it a little bit more bizarre, then Dusty way overreacted.
The most annoying thing about the book was that Eli got called hot so much.  Almost every time Eli came up, he was described as hot.  There are other adjectives for good-looking.  I didn't like the beginning of the book for this reason.  Dusty was uninspired, her relationship with the other characters were a bit flat and stereotypical, and the characters were shallow.
However, the book did pick up near the middle, and I'm glad I read the whole thing.  Things get more complicated, some of the characters develop a little, and the plot gets more interesting.  Things get to the point where Dusty can't simply go on the internet and find the answers she wants in two seconds.  There are interesting turns to the story, and I enjoyed the ending.
Overall, the book gets a 2.8.  Not quite a three.  It could have been better, and I wish it got interesting sooner.  It was like a snow cone.  The first few bites are good, which would be the back cover description, the cover, and the first chapter.  Then it gets to the icy bit where all the syrup is gone and it tastes like nothing more than ice.  At the end, however, there is all the syrup that slipped through the ice and pooled at the bottom of the cone.  Enjoyable, but not the best thing ever.