Review of Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak by Charlie Jane Anders

What’s that, did Kara wait four years to read a sequel again? Yes, yes she did. My bad. I enjoyed Victories Greater Than Death enough to buy Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak because the library didn’t have it. Clearly, though, I have dragged my feet on reading it, and I am regret. Charlie Jane Anders’s young adult science-fiction series about queer teenagers leaving Earth to discover an interstellar society at war is … wow.

This book picks up shortly after the first one. Tina, Elza, Rachael (whose name I spelled wrong in my first review, oops), Kez, and Damini are all back, having become interstellar news—and heroes, in a sense—for their adventure in the first book … which I do not recall at all, oops. I really wish there were a “previously” here! Anyway, Tina and Damini are excited to be in the academy, where Tina hopes to distance herself from the memory of Thaoh Argentian, the war hero from whom she was cloned. Elza trains to be a princess, a formal position that is more than just fetes and festivities. Kez has joined the diplomatic service. And Rachael … poor Rachael, who is the main protagonist of this book’s ensemble cast, struggles with how her role in the first book has rendered her seemingly unable to create any kind of art anymore.

I needed this book. Anders has deliberately stacked her cast full of diverse characters in terms of race, gender, sexuality, and ability, and I love it. She does it in a way that shows how natural it can feel. I love the society she has imagined here, as if she sat down and said, “OK, but how would a utopia made up of hundreds of distinct alien species really work?” At the same time, I appreciate how she highlights that even in utopia there are downsides—and people who will let down the side.

Indeed, if I had to level a criticism here, it’s that the villains feel very two-dimensional in their desires and actions. They aren’t quite cartoonish; Anders ascribes motives to them beyond nefariousness. However, those motives are … shall we say … a bit shallow. Their actions—especially Marrant’s—are also melodramatic. I could easily see him on a Disney channel cartoon show, palling around with Dr. Drakken. Sorry not sorry. Now, since the book is YA, I can let this slide: part of a YA novel’s remit is showing us how it’s OK to feel big feelings but, if you don’t process them, they will eat you up inside. That’s definitely what has happened to the antagonists here.

The protagonists’ relationships, on the other hand, are so good. I love the complexity and nuance here, the way that they navigate drifting apart as they pursue their own paths while still coming together to help one another. Rachael and Damini have a tough time because of her struggle processing her new disability and connecting with her boyfriend. Tina and Elza have the shadow of Thaoh hanging over them. While I hate what happens with that latter plotline by the end of the book (and found it extremely predictable), I understand and respect Anders’s decision. It makes a lot of sense, plotwise, and it also gives Elza the opportunity to shine.

The princess shenanigans are definitely my favourite part of the book. I enjoy the glimpses we get of the ineffable Ardenii, the supercomputers that are observing everything everywhere all at once. I love Princess Constellation’s tutelage, and the mysterious actions of the queen. When I read the third book, this is the part of this universe I am most excited to read about!

Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak is notable for not succumbing to middle-book syndrome. It’s better than the first book (inasmuch as I can remember the first book), and it left me aching for the third book. If you like space opera, especially YA space opera, you need to read this series.