However, as she approaches her 18th birthday, she faces a choice that results in the Lundy readers meet in the series's first book, Every Heart a Doorway.

They further highlighted how McGuire "beautifully portrays the overwhelming experience of being on the threshold of maturity, convinced (sometimes correctly, unfortunately) that the choices one makes now will affect one’s entire adult life, struggling to balance obligations to oneself and to others, and feeling paralyzed on that brink.

"[1] Booklist's Regina Schroeder called In an Absent Dream "a lovely installment of the series, with pitch-perfect fairy-tale logic".

Schroeder also noted that the whole series, including this installment, "has wonderful, internally consistent world building and characters, no matter how far in the background, with complexity and depth".

[2] AudioFile reviewed the audiobook, writing, "Cynthia Hopkins narrates this fantasy in a detached tone that fits the serious and logical perspective of Katherine Lundy".