The Sandman: The Doll's House (2)

I finished the second book in The Sandman series this morning, and it was easily as weird as the first only with a less well-defined plot. I still haven't met Delirium, and supposedly she is one of the major reasons I'm reading the series...because she is somehow like Luna Lovegood (whom I have decided is half my personality = half Luna half Hermione). I did meet Desire though and that was interesting. I guess I need to back up. Overall, the series is apparently about the Endless, those who are not gods because they cannot die. And their names all start with D: Death, Dream, Desire, Delirium, Destiny...I don't know many of them yet. The series focuses on Dream, but the other characters, like the Greek gods of myth, interfere a lot.

In this book, Rose and Miranda Walker are reunited with their grandmother/mother, Unity Kincaid. Unity is a character from the first book who was infected with the Sleepy Sickness that went around while Dream was incarcerated by the cult. While she was asleep, someone or something raped her, and the child (Miranda) was put up for adoption and taken to the states. This story really begins when Unity summons Miranda and Rose to England to tell them the truth. For whatever reason, Rose and Miranda decide that they need to find Miranda's son, Jed. Jed seems to have become the plaything for a lot of horrific dreams and humans alike. His mind has been blocked off by Brute and Glob in order to recreate the dreamworld that was lost during Dream's imprisonment. His foster parents lock him in the basement so that they can collect the foster money for taking care of him. Then he is picked up when he tries to run away by Corinthian, an escaped nightmare turned serial killer.

Proctected by Fiddler's Green (who ends up being a place personified), his sister Rose rescues him and returns him to her new home where she is staying awaiting more information from her mother and her dying grandmother. He is lost in a world of dreams. But the big plot line is that supposedly Desire and his/her sibling have conspired to make Rose the new dream vortex, which means that she has to be destroyed by Dream himself. When Rose eventually does fall asleep the dreams of all the occupants of her buidling fold together to become one. Dream picks her up and takes her to the dreamworld where she is to be killed, but she is rescued by an unexpected person.

Yes, weird. The weirdest part by far was the convention of serial killers that Corinthian attends with Jed in his trunk. BUT it was balanced out by a nicer diversion about a man who is granted immortality so that Dream can meet with him every one hundred years in a tavern. Dream is still my favorite character, and I expect it is supposed to be that way. Death was very cool, but she only showed for a moment in this book. And like I've said, I haven't met many more of the Endless. I'll have to pick up the rest of the series soon, but I also have one of those pesky mid-year evaluations tomorrow that I need to prepare for, and the quarter ends in just two weeks. Bummer! Less reading. :(