Dreamslinger by Graci Kim

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Dreamslinger by Graci Kim
Slinger #1
Published by Disney-Hyperion on April 29, 2025
Age Group & Genres: Fantasy, Middle Grade
Representation: Korean American protagonist
Format: Physical
Source: Library

Amari and the Night Brothers meets Pokémon in this thrilling start to Graci Kim’s brand-new fantasy series where dragons and phoenixes roam the skies of Seoul; meals magically appear based on your mood; and dreams literally come to life.

Fourteen-year-old Aria Loveridge lives at the Resthaven Home for Dreamslingers, a safe haven for children born with a genetic mutation that transports them to a powerfully magical realm while they sleep. But this magic can be unpredictable—even deadly. After all, it was only ten years ago when members of the Royal League of Dreamslingers caused the Great Outburst—a tragedy that killed hundreds of people, including Aria’s mom.

Since then, Aria’s dad has become leading expert on Dreamslinger Welfare, which means Aria knows better than most what it takes to keep society safe from her, and others like separation, identification, and most importantly, power suppression.

So when the Kingdom of Royal Hanguk—home of the Dreamslinger League—announces the first Dreamslinger trials where teenage slingers from around the world are invited to compete for a chance to join the League and learn how to use their powers, Aria knows what she must join the trials and take down the League from the inside.

But the Trials introduce Aria to a world of wonderous magic and friendship, a world where she finally feels like she belongs. And as dark secrets from the past are revealed—ones that make Aria question her very identity—she becomes even more determined to discover the truth for herself. She just has to survive the trials first.

Trigger & Content Warnings: death of a parent (graphic), bullying, hate crime, blood

I adored Graci Kim’s debut trilogy, The Gifted Clans, so I absolutely had to read Dreamslinger when it came out (plus sign me up for the Pokemon vibes). This was such a fun, magical, and adventurous start to a new series, and it reminded me so much of what I love about reading middle grade books.

Dreamslingers are children born with a genetic mutation that transports them to a magical realm when they’re asleep and after the Great Outburst that killed hundreds of people, Dreamslingers have been outcast and treated differently than those who aren’t. Aria’s mother was one of the people killed during the Great Outburst, and over the past decade, her father has been developing the Resthaven Home for Dreamslingers, where Dreamslinger children like Aria stay and learn to manage their outbursts so the tragedy doesn’t happen again.

He becomes a leading expert in this, and just when things seem to be going well and an agreement is about to be reached where Resthaven can be expanded to other states, the Kingdom of Royal Hanguk announces the first Dreamslinger trials where teenagers can compete for the opportunity to join the Royal League of Dreamslingers. It’s a once in a lifetime event, as they generally keep themselves isolated from the rest of the world.

There, they can learn more about their powers and develop it, and Aria seizes the opportunity to join the trials so she can spy on them and help take them down after she experiences a public outburst that sends her father’s reputation and hard work over the past decade crashing down.

But instead of finding anything that could possibly show the Kingdom of Royal Hanguk is plotting another Great Outburst, Aria quickly finds that the kingdom has cultivated and developed Dreamslinger powers, making it a part of their culture and identity – much different than outside of the kingdom where they’re isolated and shunned, and much different from what Aria has grown up with, even if her father never makes her feel that she should be ashamed of of being a Dreamslinger. Here, Aria’s finding that she can truly belong and be herself with others just like her.

I loved getting to explore the Kingdom of Royal Hanguk and learning the different Dreamslinger traditions mixed with Korean culture and mythology as Aria and the rest of the trialeers navigate the three different trials. I especially love the dreampanions; the bloom dragons remind me so much of the tea dragons from The Tea Dragon Society by Kay O’Neill (which I also recommend!) with their fun personalities and shenanigans.

However, while I love exploring the kingdom and seeing how they’ve made a safe haven for Dreamslingers to thrive much differently than what Aria’s father came up with (a place that doesn’t really allow them to thrive; it kind of the narrative society already has for them since the Great Outburst), I do think the pacing and characters are a bit lacking in favor of worldbuilding. Similar to her debut trilogy, Kim explores themes like identity, friendship, and belonging here, all themes that I adore reading.

Family aren’t just the people we are born into. Family are also those we find in life, and those who find us. And sometimes, those bonds can be even stronger, more enduring, because they’re made by choice.

Found family is a central theme in Dreamslinger and while I love the friendship that develops between Tui, Lion, and Aria, where they both play an integral role in making Aria feel welcome and at home, it feels like we only get snapshots of this. It also feels like there’s a found family among the rest of the trialeers, but there were multiple missed opportunities to develop this a little further. In addition, there’s missed opportunities to add some backstory to Aria’s relationship with her mother considering Aria carries one of her journals of words that she flips to bring comfort and feel closer to her.

That being said, there is a huge and diverse cast considering the amount of trialeers, who are mostly hard to keep track of, so I do think it was intentional to really focus on the worldbuilding in this first book and explore while Aria is exploring. Most of the cast gets eliminated and don’t make it through the trials, which is the main plot of the book. With the trials complete, I’m hoping book two will have more opportunities to develop the characters further, and I’m excited to dive back into this world.