Dealing in Dreams

by Lilliam Rivera

“A novel exploration of societal roles, gender, and equality.” —School Library Journal (starred review) The Outsiders meets Mad Fury Road in this “daring and dramatic” (Victor LaValle, author of The Changeling) dystopian novel about sisterhood and the cruel choices people are forced to make in order to survive.At night, Las Mal Criadas own these streets. Sixteen-year-old Nalah leads the fiercest all-girl crew in Mega City. That role brings with it violent throwdowns and access to the hottest boydega clubs, but Nala quickly grows weary of her questionable lifestyle. Her dream is to get off the streets and make a home in the exclusive Mega Towers, in which only a chosen few get to live. To make it to the Mega Towers, Nalah must prove her loyalty to the city’s benevolent founder and cross the border in a search of the mysterious gang the Ashé Riders. Led by a reluctant guide, Nalah battles crews and her own doubts but the closer she gets to her goal the more she loses sight of everything—and everyone—she cares about. Nalah must choose whether or not she’s willing to do the unspeakable to get what she wants. Can she discover that home is not where you live but whom you chose to protect before she loses the family she’s created for good?

Genres: Young Adult, Dystopia, Science Fiction, Fiction, Latinx, Fantasy, LGBT

222 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 5, 2019

About the author

Lilliam Rivera is an award-winning author of children’s books including her latest Never Look Back, a retelling of the Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice set in New York by Bloomsbury Publishing. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and Elle, to name a few. Lilliam lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Elle (ellexamines on TT & Substack)]

“the Outsiders meets Mad Max” who even comes up with these and why do they know exactly what I want out of literature lmao

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dealing in Dreams by Lilliam Rivera is a young adult dystopian in which women are controlling the world. Mega City where the main character, Nalah, lives is controlled by a female ruler who sends out teams of five girls each to control the streets.

Nalah is the leader of the strongest of these female fighter groups, the LMCs but her dream has always been to earn her way into the exclusive Mega Towers where only a chosen few live. When given a mission to leave the city Nalah sees this as the chance she and her crew need to prove themselves worthy of the towers.

Dealing in Dreams wasn’t a bad dystopian read overall but I also didn’t fall completely in love with this one as my rating shows. The thing is this whole book felt more like world building for something bigger to come but from all I can tell this is a standalone so needless to say I was left wanting more. Really in over 300 pages there isn’t much that happens giving it a slow pace and then ends just when other books would be heading into the action which is a shame since it was a creative world.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.com/

[CW ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't write a review, but I wrote a critical analysis of the book's themes, which I really enjoyed! You can find this in my book blog, The Quiet Pond.

This is not a bad book - I can see where Rivera was going with the story and the themes, and the themes are indeed profound. However, like most people who have read this book, I wish the story took the time to develop and grow.

- Follows Nalah, better known as Chief Rocka, who leads an all-girl gang in Las Mal Criadas (LMC) in Mega City, a dystopian landscape centered on the opulence of The Towers.
- Thematically, this book is fantastic. There's so much to unpack in this book - how this is a huge metaphor for capitalism, why the American Dream is a lie, classism and class violence, and how the oppressed can become oppressors.
- And yet, I unfortunately didn't jell with the story, felt that the pacing was incredibly fast, leaving behind opportunities for parts of the story and characters to develop and grow.
- I might write an analyses of the themes?

Trigger/content warning: physical violence, familial abandonment, murder, blood mentions, child abuse, trauma

[Adah Udechukwu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dealing in Dreams is an interesting novel. The plot is quite good.

[Sana · Rating 3 out of 5]

'I won't fight you, and I won't give up on you.'

All right, there were some awesome things about this book and some not so awesome so I'm going the list route here:
- A WHOLE-ASS CITY WHERE WOMEN RULE
- Things aren't as cracked up to be as I thought, though because of mistreatment of men
- Still, it was great to see women in such positions of power rather than men which is basically all of our history
- Nalah is a tough character who has been burned by family before and it shows, but I will admit that I didn't really feel all that much for her and her situation and you know when that happens...
- It was actually refreshing to see Nalah go from where she was at the start of the book to where she found herself at the end but all in all, it was a little too simple for my taste
- Her stance on family was pretty interesting to read about, though
- Plot-wise, Dealing in Dreams reads like the first book of a dystopian series that sets everything up so I feel like it fell short in standing up as a book on its own and that's sad
- There are definitely Mad Max: Fury Road vibes which !!! However, the world-building wasn't built up enough for me to easily bring up the imagery in mind. Like all I saw in my head were huge piles of garbage and random huts and ? IDK ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- I loved the concept of all-girl crews and violent throw downs but not so much as to the reason behind it so yeah
- Truck, my fave
- Smiley and Shi, the WLW we all deserve
- Nena, daaamn
- Really wish Desse was developed more than just being this looming, mysterious figure
- There aren't that many male characters in this book, of course but I still got immediately attached to Books. SO FUCKING PRECIOUS
- A LEGIT GENDER FLUID CHARACTER, I LOVE
- So, so great to see gender fluidity being explored in a YA novel, beautiful
- OG, the badass-est 12-year-old ha
- I found the tragedy siblings dynamic to be slightly lacking, but still the whole thing was kinda fire

Overall, I'm glad to have read a dystopia by a POC author featuring a POC main character, queer characters and a gender fluid character like that clearly doesn't happen often enough so \O/ The book also explores addiction, equality and staying true to yourself which were all great to read about

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COVERRRR

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Here for the 'fiercest all-girl crew' and 'violent throwdowns' \O/

[USOM · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgalley. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)

Dealing in Dreams is one of those books where you immediately want to begin the story all over again. Whether it to see where things started dissolving, to spend more time with your favorite characters, or to bask in the world a little while longer, Dealing in Dreams is it. It is a story about revenge and ambition. In a world where the masses drug themselves away from reality, Nalah is searching for a different future - a place above it all.

full review: https://utopia-state-of-mind.com/revi...

[Namera [The Literary Invertebrate] · Rating 3 out of 5]

ARC received in exchange for an honest review - thank you!

This book has totally messed with my head, and I don't even know what to rate it.

It's a wild, surrealist book - just like the cover, actually. It was gritty and emotionally intense. The ending was kind of bittersweet, but that one adjective sums up the entire book: bittersweet.

I'm going to find it really tough to write a review. But here goes...

Nalah - or, as she's known, Chief Rocka - is leader of Las Mal Criadas, the most vicious and successful girl gang in Mega City. The city is very hierarchical and runs on throwdowns, or fights: the more you win, the higher up in the ranks you go. The ultimate goal is to move to the Towers, a luxurious complex where Déesse, ruler of Mega City, lives.

And one more thing: men, in this new dystopian reality, are worthless. They exist either as toilers, working away in the city, or as papi chulos, dancsaing in clubs for the girls' entertainment. It's the girls in the city who have all the power and the violence. Men cross the street to avoid them. The younger a girl is, the more violent and dangerous she tends to be, too.

Nalah and the LMCs are so, so close to making their way to the Tower. She idolises Déesse; after all, she was the woman who rebuilt Mega City after the men of the past destroyed it. There's only one task left for her to do. The Ashé Ryders are another gang suspected of encroaching on Mega City, and the LMCs must take them down. But in the process of journeying to their territory, Nalah learns some uncomfortable truths about herself, her family, and her gang.

Nalah was a wonderful character. She's violent, because she was trained to be, but not mindlessly so; she's single-minded in her desperation for a better life, but she tries to make the right choices. My heart broke for how she's been betrayed or abandoned by almost everyone she's ever known. Life isn't easy for her, and the ending of the book - while tentatively hopeful - doesn't really offer any answers. It reminded me a lot of Burgess's A Clockwork Orange in many ways.

The writing style was a little strange and stilted, but I assume that's a deliberate choice on the author's part - like Blood Red Road. After all, Nalah and the LMCs don't have much time for reading and writing.

This review doesn't really do justice to the book; nor does this rating, I suppose. I can only urge you to read it and see what you make of it. I don't think I've ever read a dystopian novel as vividly brought to life as this one.

[Blog] - [Bookstagram]

[Rashika (is tired) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual Rating 3.5

I honestly didn’t know that Lilliam Rivera had a new book coming out until earlier this year which just shows you where publishing’s priorities are in terms of marketing. In my eagerness to read anything Rivera writes, I actually forgot to read the summary and it wasn’t until a while later that I realized Dealing in Dreams was a proper dystopian novel. If you read my review for We Set the Dark on Fire, you will know I don’t do dystopia anymore but given that I’ve technically now read two dystopian novels for the first time in literal years, I THINK IT’S SAFE TO SAY I am doing dystopia again. BUT, to be clear, I am only doing dystopia written by POC.

Dealing in Dreams starts off super slow. I actually read 11% first and put the book down. I considered DNFing because it just wasn’t grabbing at me but my friend Shannon told me she had the same problem at first so I decided to push through instead of DNFing. I am so glad I did because otherwise, I would have missed being immersed in the vibrant, matriarchal world of Mega City.

First things first, even though Dealing in Dreams was much harder for me to get into than Rivera’s debut The Education of Margot Sanchez, I can still see how far she has come since writing Margot Sanchez. I love how complex many of the characters are, I love how how imperfect Nalah is and I really just love this world.

Dealing in Dreams is set in a matriarchal society gone corrupt, and not everyone is quite aware of how deep that corruption runs (including Nalah.) I genuinely loved this take, especially when it was later contrasted with another matriarchal society. I also adored the time and care Rivera puts into slowly unfolding all the systematic discrimination in this society. Not only did it provide a great lens with which we could look at our own society, but it felt a lot more realistic as Nalah slowly came to realize how much the system works against them.

Backtracking a bit, while Nalah’s crew is super complex, I found that some other major secondary characters weren’t? For example, Déesse, the villain, seems pretty flat. We don’t really know her motivation or what forced her to deviate off the track set by the other founders of Mega City.

Overall though, this book is both a remarkable adventure and a compelling dystopian novel. You’re sure to fall in love (or at least in like) with Nalah’s badass crew and sure to be taken in by the brewing revolution. If you’re a fan of dystopian novels or ready to give one a chance, Dealing in Dreams is not a book to be missed.

[Shannon Miz · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight

This started off... well, it was weird, okay? I hadn't a clue what was happening, where/when we were, or what the point even was. I won't lie, I almost quit. I tell you this so that I can also yell "don't give up!", because it gets so much better! This is one of those books that makes me never trust myself because had I given up, I feel like I would have missed a genuinely awesome story, just because I was a little frustrated by the beginning. And to be totally honest, I think my frustrations were on me more than the book? Like- I wanted answers, but maybe I hadn't earned them yet, you know?

The story follows Las Mal Criadas, a girl gang, and more specifically, their leader Nalah (aka, Chief Rocka). I love her. She is such a grumpy old man. "Get off my lawn", I imagine her yelling.  But it works, because all the girls have these strong personalities, and particular strengths that make the group cohesive. And Nalah being the consummate cynic is part of her role. She (and the others) grow so much during the story. Their bonds are tested, their allegiances questioned, their loyalty challenged.

"By what exactly?", you may be asking. And okay, this is the part that confused me when I started. There's a leader, Déesse, and she seems to be the motivating factor for Nalah. Oh and by the by, men mean nothing in this world. It's an interesting dynamic that is explored further. Anyway, as you can imagine, there's more than meets the eye to Déesse, which is easy for the reader to see, but less so for Nalah, who's been idolizing her for ages. There's an absurd gap between the elite and the masses (sound familiar?) and Nalah yearns to earn her place as an elite.

But she has a lot of journeying to do. Both in the literal and figurative sense, as Déesse sends Las Mal Criadas on a pretty harrowing mission. They cross some rough terrain with some even rougher adversaries facing them, and the whole thing becomes quite an adventure. One that you will not want to miss.

Bottom Line: After a slow/confusing start, I fell completely in love. And actually, can we maybe have a sequel please and thank you?

[Stella ☆Paper Wings☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars
People are sleeping on this book! I know the YA world is pretty burnt-out on dystopias, but this is freshest dystopia I've read in a long time.

The society is an oppressive matriarchy, which is such a fascinating concept to play around with. This is undoubtedly a feminist book, but it also shows the clear issues with a society where any one gender is dominant, and I loved that.

The characters are well-developed, and we have another of my favorite tropes: a squad. In this case they're basically mobsters who work for the dictator in the dystopia, but as the book goes on, their dynamic begins to change. They do get in a lot of arguments, which can sometimes be a recipe for disaster for me as a reader, but I didn't really get annoyed.

Although I was disappointed that the main character seemingly isn't sapphic (come on, that cover radiates queer energy) I love the casual inclusion of f/f and genderfluid side characters (and all the cultural diversity as well.) We rarely see that in a non-contemporary world, and it works really well here.

I did end up liking the main character a lot. She has a character arc that reminds me of Winston Smith from 1984... if Winston had actually known Big Brother and seen him as a mentor. Which just makes it even more interesting. Throughout the story there's this dramatic irony reminiscent of classic dystopias; the readers are let in on the dark aspects of the world while the characters remain wholeheartedly patriotic (or matriotic, I suppose!)

To anyone who likes innovative dystopias, a somewhat Six of Crows-esque crew*, and casual diversity: please give this hidden gem a chance!


*honestly just comparing it to SoC because that will make some people (myself included) read just about anything

Content Warnings: transphobia, sexism (against men mainly, but with real-world rhetoric)
(I forgot to take notes at the time and it's been a while since I read this so these may not be entirely accurate, sorry.)

[Fadwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating: 3.5 stars

AAAAAAAAAH! I'm frustration. I really wish this were a duology, and I'm rarely the person who says she wishes a book were longer, because then the author would've had time to set everything up properly and pace things well and I would've had time to care about the things that were happening and get invested in the stakes. But as it is the book was moving so fast that I really didn't have time to connect with anything happening.

That being said the concept is GREAT. I loved how the author challenged a binary society and showed how it would not work even with women in power as long as we keep reproducing the same violent and patriarchal (or in this case, matriarchal, I guess?) type of living, and most important of all if we keep confining gender and gender roles to a strict binary. I also mentioned in one of my updates I didn't like how addiction was treated but I realized soon after that that was just a part of this rotten system that had poisoned the MC's mind and way of thinking, by the time I finished the book that was challenged and she had broken out of that and started acknowledging every way this society she thought to be perfect was corrupted. Including the way people with addiction were treated, especially since everything was designed to keep them under the drug's strong hold and NOTHING was set up to help them out of it. So all in all this was a good read that would've been brilliant did it have more time and proper page space to develop.

[Ashlen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow. This was a rough one. I thought I would like this. It started off with promise, and there were a few parts I kinda liked, but you can't think about it critically for two seconds before the whole thing falls apart.
So "Dealing in Dreams" hinges on the premise that the protagonist, Nalah, a.k.a. "Chief Rocka," lives in a dystopian, matriarchal society within Mega City, which is run by a dictator known as "Déesse." Girl gangs, consisting of five combat-trained girls, run the streets, keep people in line, and compete with each other in "throwdowns" (arena combat for the enjoyment of spectators) while striving to win a place in the home of the wealthy and privileged, the "Towers." Abandoned by her family at a young age and sent to the training camps, Nalah is a teenage girl who now runs her own girl gang, is devoted to Déesse, and wants to win a better life for herself and her gang in the Towers.
Ok, great. Sounds like an interesting premise. But the execution is just... *sigh*
A few points:
-Gender politics: Let's get this out of the way. "Dealing in Dreams" wants to have a conversation about gender, but gets a bit twisted up by its own world-building. In this world, Mega City was founded by women after patriarchal governments trashed the planet. So this is an inverted society, where the girls are vicious and the boys are objectified. Obviously, the moral we're supposed to get from this is that equality = good, matriarchy = bad. Ok, great. Unfortunately, the problem with these types of narratives is that - unless they're written extremely well by someone with a lot of maturity - they end up foundering on their convoluted premise and become nothing more than another tiresome narrative about "reverse sexism." A useless argument to make, since nothing like that has ever happened in the history of the world. It's irrelevant because there is no real world example. A vicious matriarchy has never sprung up to replace a vicious patriarchy. It doesn't happen in real life. So fictions warning us of the evils of "reverse sexism" at best contribute nothing, because they address a nonexistent issue without bringing anything more to it, or at worst, reinforce existing misogyny by "warning" men against the evil uprising of women trying to come oppress them and set up dehumanizing matriarchies - a laughable fallacy, since, again, nothing like that has ever happened in the history of the world, nor is there any actual effort to set something like that up. I have seen dystopian matriarchies done well in fiction (find something by Kameron Hurley if you're interested in that kind of thing, she has a few books with that kind of setting) but there has to be something else to it aside from the juvenile "sexism against men is also bad" message, which is obvious and unhelpful in the real world. Some of the statements in this book read like bullet points from some strawman anti-feminist diatribe howling that female empowerment is equal to male oppression. Lol. I get what Rivera was going for, but she trips up her message with her own inverted world-building and lack of depth or maturity. It just doesn't work, sorry. It ends up coming across as juvenile.
-World-building: The world-building in this book had some promise, but comes across very strange. Despite its name, Mega City must be tiny: every character seems to have a personal relationship with the dictator, Déesse. It's pretty easy to find whoever you're looking for, everybody seems to be piled on top of each other. The main action of the plot is Nalah being sent out by Déesse to infiltrate and gather intel on the mysterious gang that dwells somewhere in the wastelands outside the city, the "Ashé Ryders." This epic quest takes just a couple days. They literally walk outside the city limits and practically stumble into the people they're looking for. (And this is supposed to be a mythic group that Nalah isn't sure exists.) The whole book seems to take place in about a week and a half. Everybody is stumbling over each other. There is a point in the book where Nalah abruptly loses control of her gang (by doing something totally out of character) and this is supposed to be a big moment, because her gang "family" is supposed to the most important thing to her. But then she is literally reunited with her gang about a day later. A day. Why is everything so compressed? The author must have been in as big a rush to finish writing this book as I was to finish reading it. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Mega City and the surrounding area actually takes up about five square miles.
On the subject of world-building, the ages and names of the people in this world are just bizarre. I understand that this is a YA book, so the ages of the characters are obviously scaled to the ages of the readers, but some of the character's ages in this book are just implausible. At one point, they meet a major gang that is run by a 12 year old. A 12 year old. Running a gang. And people listen to her. People are afraid of her. A 12 year old.
I know that this is a fantasy, but it is just implausible that a dictator would put so much faith in gangs of teenagers to run her city streets. Why are children being trained for these jobs instead of grown adults? Where do the adult gangs go? They can't all die before they hit 18, can they?
The character names are just as ridiculous. I can't take "Chief Rocka" and her friends "Truck" and "Smiley" seriously.
-The Voice: "Dealing in Dreams" is told in first person POV, present tense, from Nalah's (sorry, I mean "Chief Rocka's") perspective. We are deeply embedded in her voice, which is unfortunate, because her voice is clunky, abrupt, and drowning in annoying slang. The language here is a mixture of Spanish terms and millennial slang. I quickly got tired of hearing phrases like "these guys are so basic" or calling people "chickenheads." The narrative is also incredibly stilted. Exposition is dropped in like chunks of cement. Nalah will just outright state something that in any other book would have been conveyed through subtext. It's an oddly written book. I've actually never seen anything quite like it, but it does become very tiresome, in my opinion.
-The Timeline: I hinted at this before when I said that the whole book seems to take place in about a week and a half, but the timeline of the events in this book is just way too compressed. We are supposed to be following Nalah on this life-changing adventure where she comes to all sorts of realizations about herself, her world, her family, etc. but the plot feels so abbreviated and constrained, there is just no time to build to any emotional peak. 'Abrupt' is the word I keep coming back to. So many things in this book are so abrupt. At least it makes it a quick read, but given the quality, it still ends up being a waste of time.
The author tried something out there and interesting, I give her credit for that. Unfortunately, Rivera just couldn't pull off what she was going for. Maybe in a longer book, for an adult audience, she might have had more time to develop the story into something better. This kind of subject matter just needs more maturity and depth to bring it to something worthwhile, and Rivera failed to get there.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

All girl gangs, throw downs, and a quest?  This description was unlike anything I'd read before, and with this beautiful cover, I couldn't resist.

Such intriguing and creative world-building.  Mega City is a matriarchal society led by a beloved woman, and men are primarily considered secondary citizens.  It's a gritty, dangerous way of life, with gangs gaining power and moving up the food chain through physical battles against each other.  At the age of seven, girls are sent to soldier training camps.  Many of the citizens are hooked on pills that induce lucid dreaming, that are also a used as a form of payment.  It's not an easy way of life by any means.  The only thing I had difficulty buying into was eleven and twelve-year-old girls having the capacity to take down much older teens - it just seemed too young.

Nalah and her gang are tightly bonded, and consider each other family.  The dynamics between the crew are messy, heartfelt, and difficult at times, but completely realistic.  Nalah's strong loyalty to them and need to secure their futures through obtaining a spot in The Towers is the driving focus of the story - until some hard truths are revealed.  Nalah's character arc is sensational, and really made the story for me.  Her journey from having such strong beliefs about herself and her environment to questioning everything she thought she knew is compelling.

Dealing in Dreams is dark at times, full of action, and surprising revelations, and a book I'd recommend to dystopia and sci-fi fans.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the digital ARC.

[Chessa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh man, I was really looking forward to this one - I thoroughly enjoyed the author’s debut and this sounded right up my alley. Alas, it was unfortunately Not For Me (I mean, obviously, I’m a 40-year-old woman and this is a dystopian YA SF book - but I love all of those things and yet this one just didn’t work for me). It’s not unusual for me to want to throttle protagonists for what seem like obviously poor choices being made - but this took it to a whole new level. I’m not sure if it was because this was told in first-person perspective that made it worse - we were literally in the main character’s head, so there was no distance to wonder if she were feeling a certain way - she felt a certain way, and it was usually 100% obviously misguided. I just found the plot pretty...worn. Again, this is coming from a person who is older and has read her fair share of SF & dystopia - I know the experience will be different if any of that is new to the reader, so obviously, ymmv. But I mostly just felt let down by this one - it never quite synced for me in any way - character motivations never clicked, the pacing was slow, the coming betrayal visible from 100 pages off. I hate to give a less than stellar review, but here we are. How about I just say, it’s not you, it’s me? And we’ll leave it at that.

[Gabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I found nothing new or outstanding in this badass girl dystopian story. It blurs in with all the others I've read in this subgenre.

[Hal Schrieve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rivera, Lilliam (2019). Dealing In Dreams. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

ISBN: 9781534411395

336 pages.


Nalah, also known as Chief Rocka, runs the hottest crew in Mega City, and she knows she's close to the top. After almost a decade of Spartan training, she is just one throwdown away from earning her place in the Towers alongside the city's benevolent ruler, and saying goodbye forever to the grueling work and constant danger that has always defined her life. Of course, she's not going alone: she's taking her girls with her. Decades after the Big Shake, Mega City is run by crews of teenage girls, who police the streets, defend the public, tag their logo on their patrol areas, and menace evildoers or outsiders. A semi-official police force, part gang and part government, the girl crews have status far above menial woman toilers, papi chulos (male dancers), or men. They are paid in sueños, or tabs which assist sleep and induce lucid dreaming. Of all the crews, Las Mal Criadas are the closest to the top. While it's a dangerous world, even within the city, Nalah trusts her teammates--especially her second-in-command, Truck--with her life. They're all she has, especially after her mother died and her father and sister left for Cemi Territory, never to be seen again.

But then the unimaginable happens, and Deesse, the ruler of Mega City, asks Nalah to intentionally lose to the Deadly Venoms in the upcoming big throwdown. Instead of welcoming Las Mal Criadas into the luxurious Towers, Deesse tasks Nalah with performing a dangerous recon mission in Cemi Territory to gather information about a menacing new movement--the Ashe Ryders--which threaten to bring down the tenuous structure that Mega City has relied on in the wake of the apocalypse. Nalah consents, but as she leads her team outside the protective city boundaries into a trash-strewn wilderness, she knows she's stepping into new dangers she might not ever be able to defend against.

Nalah's characterization as a traumatized, tough, strategy-minded fighter is crystal clear and totally consistent throughout the story, and her empathetic connections and undying loyalty to her crew drives the action of the story. Meanwhile, side characters have sharp, well-defined characterization of their own; as the action progresses, Truck and the others begin to doubt Nalah, while revolutionaries with alternate worldview attempt to empathize and connect with the position of Las Mal Criadas and persuade them to abandon violence in order to participate in a new, solarpunk eco-socialist society beyond the borders of urban space.

Rivera crafts a hot, action-packed new dystopian science fiction world which draws on a range of influences but which punches enormous new holes in traditional scripts in order to cut deep and talk about pressing questions in an age which often feels like the end of the world. The devastation that has rocked Mega City is implied to be environmental in nature, potentially related to climate change but also to economic collapse. In the wake of the devastation (we learn through different unreliable sources), a single family initiated a reconstruction of key infrastructures. Deesse has also offered work to refugees --manufacturing the drugs that allow the populace to cope with continual malnourishment and trauma. Mega City's matriarchal authoritarian state initially appears to be a gritty, feminist reimagining of a brutal survivalist trope, but as the story goes on, Rivera deftly explores how a rigidly defined gender-based hierarchy continually marginalizes those who don't fit within it and encourages violence and lack of self-examination in the ruling class. Rivera imagines a world where regulating government structures and corporations have fallen away, and the survivors of the apocalypse rebuild society under different organizational structures.

Essentially, Rivera presents two possible futures. In one, represented by Mega City, a hierarchical, violent order ensures the masses live in servitude or addiction and a dictatorial, narcissistic leader plays underlings off against each other in order to maintain power. The other possible future, meanwhile, hovers around the margins of the main characters' awareness but hangs in luminous possibility over the reader's head. It involves egalitarian community, discourse and discussion, cultural heritage and faith, self-defense and sustainable agriculture, and an embrace of both traditional family structures and LGBT inclusion.

Rivera steps loudly into the territory of recent major authors of hard, fast-paced, action-driven science fiction full of ideas (China Mieville, Cory Doctorow, Philip Reeves, Cameron Hurley, C.A Higgins) while also inheriting part of the legacy of genre giants Ursula K. LeGuin and Octavia Butler by working with similar themes of social speculative fiction. Her vision of a sustainable post-crisis future, in particular, echoes Butler's Parable of the Sower. Intense physical action sequences, meanwhile, evoke Brian Vaughan's Paper Girls, Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin's Tank Girl, or Diane Dimassa's Hothead Paisan. Super fresh, super visionary, smart, satisfying, and immersive. A necessary purchase for any and every teen and adult collection.

[Samm | Sassenach the Book Wizard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid 3.5-3.75 / 5 stars

I think I struggled with the start but it drastically improved as the book went on. It felt very info dump right at the start just dropping all the world & politics very abruptly and all at once. Once everyone left the city, things REALLY picked up. Very "treat everyone equally" message along with the dangers of drugs.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dealing in Dreams is about Nalah, also known as Chief Rocka, leads the toughest girl gang Las Mal Criadas (LMC) in Mega City. She is eager for LMC to climb up and get off the streets and into the tower. When Déesse gives Nalah and the LMC a task to find the Ashé Ryders and see what they are planning, she sees this as a chance to get her gang off the streets and into the tower where they will be able to lead a better life. Through this journey, she has to face other gangs and begins to doubt things that she has known for so long.

The world building was wonderful. Rivera has really thought about this world and was able to explain it will in such a short standalone novel. Mega City had this whole system she explained, from the hierarchical system that formed from the gangs fighting in throw downs to what the men did now that they were considered worthless. I was really impressed with how well thought out it was and all the questions that I might have had were answered. What I really loved about the world building, was how the discrimination within the society was slowly revealed. It added to the realistic feel of the world and really allowed for some development for Nalah.

Nalah was violent, but knew when she needed to be violent and try to talk her way out of trouble. She started off with one goal in mind which left her blinded to what else could have been going on as she was focused on that goal and only that goal. She tried to make choices along the way, but didn't always make the best ones. By the end of the book, we really got to see how much the journey had changed her. Her development really was something else.

THERE WAS ALSO A GENDERFLUID CHARACTER!!!! That's all I'm going to say about that, but I was thrilled to see someone outside of the binary represented in YA.

The one bad thing I have to say about this book is that it's a standalone. A lot of the book did feel like it was building up to a sequel. The ending while it did wrap up the story, it still left a few what ifs, which isn't bad and sometimes necessary, but in this case I'm biased as I really fell in love with the world created and the characters.

[Fizza · Rating 4 out of 5]

A near perfect dystopian (for me obviously). Nalah our protagonist was the single most impressive narrator I've come across and hope more characters like her too. I might sound silly but despite the dark and bleak ordeals she went through I ended up finding her thoughts to be witty and the snark really made laugh at some points.

I have been blind to what the city truly is. It is the people within it that count, not the Towers.

Rating: 3.7 ☆s
The matriachal world build-up was brilliant and corrupt to a default which brought the intensity of this story to grip you hard. I still feel the villain could've been written with more attention though.

[Dustin · Rating 3 out of 5]

begging for a sequel. i desperately want to see more of what happens

[readingsprints_and_chaisips · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

Recommended for ages 14 and up. It reads young. I actually enjoyed that the book doesn’t end on a HEA. Because life doesn’t work out in that way. There’s always a worthwhile cause that needs to be addressed. They lived to fight another day. This has queer representation.

[Oleg X · Rating 4 out of 5]

Блог: https://olegeightnine.wordpress.com/2...

Знаете, хотя я читал некоторое количество книг в маркетинговой категории «young adult» (выглядящие нацеленными на эту возрастную категорию исключительно из-за того, что протагонист входит в нее), мои руки пока не доходили до чего-нибудь подходящего под стереотипы «young adult». И, возможно, теперь это изменилось? Кто знает. [анимешно жестикулирует в сторону пролетающей неподалеку бабочки]

Итак, у нас антиутопия в лице Мега-Сити (не того), где после неконкретной катастрофы установился матриархат, поддерживаемый жестокими бандами девушек, и Нала, лидер одной из таких банд под названием «Las Mal Criadas» соглашается на рискованную миссию за пределы города, чтобы заработать своей команде место на вершине местной иерархии.

Общество Мега-Сити намеренно построено его правительницей на основе обмена гендерными стереотипами: из тех жителей, являющихся не просто рядовыми «работягами», брутальные группы женщин поддерживают порядок в городе (и намеренно стравливаются между собой), а мужчинам разрешена только проституция. Я вообще не фанат подхода «и затем угнетенные превратились в угнетателей» сейчас, и мне понадобилось прилично времени, чтобы понять, что автор пытается разговаривать о тщетности использования старых инструментов тирании для достижения свободы и необходимости строительства нового мира на руинах старого. В итоге не могу решить, насколько у нее получилось, насколько я не вижу очевидного, но эти мои сомнения неплохо отражаются на мета-уровне тем, что протагонист верит в вырастившую ее систему до самого последнего момента несмотря на все доказательства (спойлер: до свержения режима или хотя бы открытого восстания дело не доходит, книга заканчивается на первых шагах в ту сторону, потому что это не история борьбы, а история конкретной девушки и ее взросления), и вот эти эмоции скорее работают.

Мне нравится, как эта книга написана: агрессивно, отрывисто, как персонажи эти разговаривают. Как и с другими аспектами, понадобилось время привыкнуть, но после этого времени я получал заметное количество удовольствие от прямолинейной энергии текста, сдобренной испаноязычными словами и жаргоном (и не только? Я поймал еще немного французского, так что могу не осознавать всю лингвистическую широту).

Хорошая ли это антиутопия? Не особенно*, потому что здесь происходит очень простой механизм тирании, в котором не хватает некоторых деталей, но как минимум в основе этого механизма лежит интересная «плохая» эстетика (все явно началось с идеи про банды брутальных девушек, патрулирующих полуразрушенный город) и как минимум попыткой что-то сказать. И те части, которые работают — яркие с сильными, бурлящими, хоть и часто двухмерными эмоциями, с классическим настроением «депрессивно и оптимистично одновременно», и книгу в какой-то момент стало просто приятно читать.

Мне в итоге не жалко потраченного на «Dealing in Dreams» времени, но я не знаю, кому порекомендовать книгу. Кроме фанатов YA-антиутопий, и даже в этом случае — за общее качество и живость, чем за какой-то новый вклад в жанр.

*Кстати, рекомендую недавний выпуск подкаста Чарли Джейн Эндерс и Аннали Ньюитц «Our Opinions Are Correct» про утопии и антиутопии. Там в частности поднимается хорошее наблюдение, что антиутопические сеттинги редко бывают продуманными и с глубокими предысториями («случились пара плохих событий, в результате ужесточились законы, и теперь у нас фашизм»), потому что эти истории не про них, а про борьбу с ними и про метафоры.

(Я не буду кричать про Snowpiercer, прошло меньше месяца с последнего раза, я сдержусь.)

[Ari (Books. Libraries. Also, cats.)]

Read my original review on my blog!

Nalah is so close to getting herself, and her crew of four other girls, off of the streets and into The Towers, where the elite live alongside Déesse, the female ruler of Mega City. As a child, Nalah watched her father & sister abandon her for Cemi Territory, the ruthless land outside of Mega City’s borders, and saw her mother die at the hand of drugs and poverty. Déesse has become an idol and a savior, so when she tasks Nalah with traveling into Cemi Territory to find a legendary gang, she jumps at the change. Believing that this is her ticket into the Towers, Nalah takes her crew on a harrowing journey, where she learns the truth behind the gendered society she lives in and the world that Déesse has built.

Lilliam Rivera has explored gender in a way I haven’t seen done before in YA. Mega City is dominated by women, with men are relegated to the bottom rung of society and taught to fear girls. Déesse has built a world where gender is only to be seen in binary, and there is no room for ambiguity or fluidity. Men are seen as greedy liars who are to blame for the downfall of Mega City, and women are seen as the soldiers who rebuilt it. There’s no room for exploration of gender, and those who do not fit the binary have been erased.

Female empowerment has come at the cost of other identities, and Lilliam Rivera presents the question of what it truly means to be free. Are we ever free if others are not? How do we fight for our freedom without destroying the freedom of others? How do we build a resistance that fights for freedom for all? As Nalah travels through Cemi Territory, she meets fluid and queer folks and begins to question how Déesse has allocated space to some identities and taken it from others; she has built a society that silences difference and makes no room for true self. Dealing in Dreams forces its readers to engage in complicated and uncomfortable conversations about gender and the rigid guidelines that Mega City upholds.

There is a thread of commentary in the world building of Mega City and Déesse’s leadership. The rigid guidelines she rules by extend beyond gender and to the borders and security of the space. Las Mal Criadas, and the other girl gangs, are tasked with protecting Mega City’s borders and keeping outsiders away. Déesse has cast out those who did not fit into her vision, and she has created cycles of drugs, consumerism, and violence that keep others powerless. Like all the girls of Mega City, Nalah has been conditioned to see Déesse as a savior, but as she learns the truth behind her leadership, she must question what price she’s willing to pay to align herself with the powerful.

Nalah is a strong young girl who has been hardened by the norms of Mega City and Déesse’s vision for women and girls. She feels so much older than 16, but she’s also still a young girl with dreams of her future and trauma from her past. I loved that this novel is very much about bonds between girls, and Nalah’s crew all felt so real. Truck, Smily, Shi, and Nena each had their own personalities and Nalah had a different relationship with each of them. Even Manos Dura, who dies before the book even begins, had a presence in Nalah’s journey. While the story is centered on Las Mal Criadas, there are other characters who feel fully developed and complex, inlcuidng Miguel, who serves as Nala’s guide to Cemi Territory, and others we meet along the way. The novel does start a little slow, but the story picks up its pace and continues to build in intricacy until the very end.

Dealing in Dreams has dystopian and speculative themes, making it very different from Lilliam Rivera’s debut, The Education of Margot Sanchez; However, fans of her work will still recognize her distinct writing style throughout Nalah’s story. This novel is a great recommendation for fans of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders or Marie Lu’s Legend, and readers who love the caste-based girl competitions of The Selection series by Kiera Cass. Dealing in Dreams is also perfect for teen readers who want an introduction to feminist speculative fiction or want to read about gender in a unique way. Lilliam Rivera without a doubt deserves a space in every library, and I’m truly looking forward to seeing what she writes next.

Thank you to Simon Schuster Books for Young Readers for the review copy.

[Gustavo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is dystopian science fiction novel, about a girl who is the leader of a group of 5 girls living in this futuristic dystopian world where women are the prominent and dominant group. She has to discover who she is in her trajectory. In the beginning I was annoyed by her but now I understand why she is so proud, kind of cold-hearted and naive.
The plot is so interesting and it lured me in until I finished it. I hope there will be a second book. I recommend it. 3.5⭐⭐⭐⭐

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

But that cover though.

Overall, I found this story unmemorable. To the point that I don't have a lot to say about it, other than I wasn't engaged throughout, and would've put it down if it were shorter.


Audiobook Narrator

The narrator was fine. She wasn't bad, but not memorable or particularly engrossing either.


Characters

The characters were pretty bland. The main character had the most personality, but they all felt pretty 2-dimensional to me, and that's what really let this book down for me.


Plot

I liked the idea of the plot with the girl gangs. This is in a world where woman oppress men, and the point is to say we should all be equal no matter our gender, and has representation for genders outside of the binary. It's a nice idea, but as a story it didn't intrigue me or make me learn anything new.


Overall

This was an underwhelming read. I'm always up for giving random new releases a shot, but this just wasn't to my taste. If you like a fast-paced novel that deals with social issues, then this may be worth a try, but ultimately this wasn't for me.

[francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review: https://bookpeopleteens.wordpress.com...



Dealing in Dreams was enjoyable from beginning to end, making challenging points about feminism and the “ideal” society. Las Mal Criadas were an electric group of characters, every one of them unique and raw. While the plot may have been slightly predictable, the ending was not, and it kept the book realistic and emotional. Lilliam Rivera is exponentially improving with every book she writes, and I truly cannot wait to see what she creates next. Rating: four/five

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprising dystopia exploring family and sisterhood, as well as gender roles and addiction. Add in some badass girl gangs—because Nalah runs the baddest girl gang in Mega City, of course—lots of secrets, and a not-so-benevolent leader and you’ve got Dealing in Dreams. This book also gave me some major Mad Max vibes which I loved.

An interesting and imaginative read over all. I’d recommend it to people who like YA dystopia, especially if they love girls kicking butt (see: aforementioned Mad Max vibes).

[Alice]

The cover is bomb, but I can't get into the writing quite early on likely because it doesn't jive with me. Might have to come back to this later.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tragically, as can happen if you take them on a random sheet of paper, I lost the notes I took on this book. It's been over a week since I read it, but I will try my best nonetheless. This is one of the three star reviews that are rated this way because, while I enjoyed it, I wasn't blown away. It's definitely still worth a read, but it doesn't jump out as much as other books I have read.

As the leader of one of the crews that secure the streets of Mega City, Nalah, better known as Chief Rocka, has fought long and hard to earn the prestige she has. Her crew is ranked right at the top, and now in Nalah's mind there's just one more step—to make it into the Mega towers. It's difficult to get in, reserved only for the best. The ruler of Mega city herself lives there, and it is to Déesse that Nalah must prove her loyalty to first.

The ruler sends her on a mission to infiltrate a gang called the Ashé Ryders and bring back information. Nalah and her crew set out from the city to accomplish the task, but their path is riddled with obstacles and secrets and Nalah must figure out what she must do to give her crew a home—and what home really is.

-----

If you are familiar with the dystopia genre, the plot of this book isn't that special. There are a few select people with special privileges and the power, who maintain tight control on the remaining poor population. It isn't a spoiler to say that along the way, Nalah begins to challenge the norms of the world she lives in, and wonder what is really right.

Something unique about the book, however, is that the city is ruled by a matriarchy. After the disaster that threw the world into chaos, women seized control, demoting men to the role of servers. Only women form the esteemed crews that keep order in the streets, while men work in clubs and support the opposite sex. This was an interesting change, as this put a twist on toxic masculinity and applied it to women.

Nalah knows she can show no weakness. She is tough, strong, and confident. But as is often the case, she's soft on the inside. She wants her crew to get to the Mega towers because she wants them to be safe there, and to have a home. She genuinely cares about them. I especially enjoyed seeing her relationship with Truck—it wasn't a perfect friendship, but it was heartwarming (and sometimes saddening) to see them navigate their loyalties to each other, and how Nalah struggled to decide when she could be a friend, and when she had to be the ruthless leader.

I think that one of the things that did take away from the story was how easy it was for the reader to see at first glance that the workings of this city were wrong. Instead of it being veiled and slowly revealed, I could see from the beginning exactly what was wrong. This made parts of the book feel slower—for I already knew it and had to watch Nalah realize it bit by bit.

The writing itself was a bit clunky and awkwardly written at times, and I wanted the side characters to be developed more.

One other thing that niggled at the back of my mind was that while the city seemed to have come into existence not too long ago (Déesse is still the original leader) the society already seemed so established. It made me wonder how all of this could have come about in such a short amount of time—unless I read it wrongly.

Before I end this, there was a point brought up in the book that I really enjoyed! Overall, this book had some lovely diversity. It's #ownvoices because the author is Puerto Rican, and at least two of the characters were lesbian or bi (it wasn't specified). The point brought up was how restrictive the gender roles in the book were—not just because there shouldn't be only one role for men and women, but because of how unfriendly this is for transgender people. One of the side characters in this book was a trans woman, and it was a new aspect that I have not seen explored in dystopias before.

[Enne · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

I don’t know what I was expecting from this book, but it defied my expectations in every possible way and I had a great time with it!! This book is set in what feels like a post-apocalyptic society where a matriarchy has been set up. We follow a gang of girls who are determined to make their way to the iron towers, aka the best living area in the city.

I thought the character relationships were written really well!! The sort of sisterly, found family dynamic was one of my favorite aspects of this novel because it was developed so naturally over the course of the story and I loved the places Rivera chose to take that relationship. Along with that, I also really appreciated the development of the main character. I thought her arc was planned out excellently and you really got to see how the plot was impacting her development over the course of the story.

That said, I wasn’t a huge fan of how the plot was paced, even if I did like how closely it impacted the main character. I just thought some parts of it were dragged out way too long and we didn’t get to spend enough time in others to make certain outcomes reasonable.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed this story!! I thought the commentary it had to offer on the current state of the world was very valuable and the way the world played into that was really smart, in my opinion. Definitely recommend this one!