The Dallergut Dream-Making District

In the light and somewhat underwhelming follow-up to The Dallergut Dream Department Store, Lee moves away from episodic accounts of customers and their dreams to instead focus on the ins and outs of the dream-making industry itself. It’s Penny’s first anniversary at her job at Dallergut’s dream store, and she renegotiates her salary with her boss. One of her additional benefits is the privilege of entering the Company District Central Square, where dreams are manufactured. There, she and her colleagues drop by the Civil Complaint Center, where Penny gets a feel for handling complaints from some of the store’s longtime customers. As she becomes even more deeply involved in the business of dream selling, she must help her colleagues discover what made these customers so unsatisfied and how to bring them back. The stakes are characteristically low, lending the plot a slice-of-life feel. While Penny proves an appealing protagonist and there’s some joy to seeing Lee expand her whimsical worldbuilding, the plot feels disjointed and the setting is strangely sterile. Though it lacks much of the first book’s charm, series fans looking for a cozy reunion with Penny will still find something to enjoy. (June)