The Raven Boys
Ratings408
Average rating4
God, yes, this was so good!
When I read this the first time, I had this idea that the story was “slow” but it worked in its favor. And now, as a more experienced reader if you will, I have figured out that that is only half true.
What is true is the fact that the book (and really, the series as a whole) is not as action-packed or fast-paced in the same way a lot of other YA fantasy is (think Throne of Glass, Heroes of Olympus, Shadowhunter Chronicles, etc.), but it's not slow. Tons of things happen, and the pacing is simply perfect. It works incredibly well for this type of mystery. I love how the reveals always feel earned because of all the foreshadowing. It's just so good!
Sigh. Moving on to the next as quickly as possible omg.
I tried to read this book twice. The first time I just got distracted and had to give it to the library. After starting it a second time I got totally sucked into it.
This story seems a little dark, but the characters are amazing I love them all. They all have a few characteristics I'd like to develop. The dialog is so fun, and I love the touches of mythology that's added.
I'm kind of mad at myself for putting off reading Stiefvater for so long. I've had [b:Shiver 6068551 Shiver (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, #1) Maggie Stiefvater http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1328839272s/6068551.jpg 6244926] sitting on my bookshelf for close to a year, but never got around to it. I only picked up The Raven Boys because it was available at the library when another book I wanted wasn't. I had been hunting for a certain atmosphere for the fall months. Something ghostly and witchy. I had no idea that The Raven Boys was pretty much exactly what I was looking for, it just kind of happened that way.I love the way Stiefvater writes, and am incredibly jealous. Her writing is smart and new and evocative all at once. I was trying to leaf through it to find some of my favorite lines, and pretty much the whole first part of the book is packed with gorgeous prose. The best parts are the introductions to the characters. “Ronan and Declan Lynch were undeniably brothers, with the same dark brown hair and sharp nose, but Declan was solid where Ronan was brittle. Declan's wide jaw and smile said, Vote for me while Ronan's buzzed head and thin mouth warned that this species was poisonous.”Admittedly, Ronan gets some of the best ones. He's easily the most dramatic of characters, and while we never get his point of view, he's on the cover of [b:The Dream Thieves 17347389 The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2) Maggie Stiefvater http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1367060081s/17347389.jpg 21598446] (and I have this image in my head of Chainsaw, his pet raven, all grown up and landing on his shoulder in a flourish of wind and black feathers. Real and unreal), so we have a lot to look forward to.Stiefvater is that kind of YA writer who gets young people so well that she goes slightly beyond their feasibility. I knew exactly what she was talking about when she references Blue's vanity, how she carefully cultivates her weirdness, because I did something similar as a young person, but I was certainly not that aware of it. Her characters are so dynamic, so vividly drawn, and they feel so real that it's like they're sitting next to you, but at same time you wonder, in what awful universe would these people find each other? It's real and unreal, the way fiction should be, in my opinion.This story moves in a strange way. It's not slow, and it's not fast, but at one point I realized that I was more than half way through the book and not sure how I got there, because I had no idea where it was going. While the motivations of the characters were clear, the major conflict was not. It wasn't even clear where the major antagonist was going to come from, if there was one at all. Would it be something supernatural? Something human? Is Cabeswater, the magical forest place they find on the ley line, something to be feared or protected? The book spends so much time contemplating what's going to happen between Blue and Gansey and they're supposed destiny, that the boy that actually is the most pivotal to the story goes mostly unnoticed until the very end. It's a strange unpredictable story and I really really liked it.The atmosphere is delicious. You can feel the magic dripping off the page, and the mystery is like chilly little fingers running up your spine when you least expect it. When you think you've got a hold of it, it twists and squirms out of your hands (Ronan! Ronaaaaan!), and proves you're as good as Jon Snow. And I want more.
I did not enjoy this book as much as Scorpio Races. The premise was very intriguing, but I didn't get as attached to the characters. However, the lower rating is due almost entirely to the ending. It felt rushed and half-assed. After taking nearly half the book to set up the story, when you finally get to the climax, Stiefvater really glosses over everything with a “then a lot happened. . . .” It's very unsatisfying to not have an answer to the mystery at the heart of the novel. I can only imagine this is due to a planned sequel, because why else would you end the book on the sentence she chose? Why else wouldn't you reveal the answer to the mystery, or fill in the gaps between "oh, hey, we awoke the ley line" and “a lot happened after”?
Ever since she was a little girl there has been a prophecy about Blue Sargent, if she kisses her true love he will die, and this prophecy has been around for so much of her life that Blue has grown quite used to it, at times believing it and at other times thinking it's a trick from her clairvoyant mother to keep Blue from kissing any boys. Then one night on St. Mark's Eve in a church yard Blue sees a spirit of a boy who will die within the year. But Blue isn't a seer and the only explanations for her seeing a soon-to-be-spirit is: one, he is Blue's true love or two, she is the one that will kill him. Blue has never met the boy however and all she knows about him is that he is a student from Aglionby, a Raven Boy, and that his name is Gansey.
Gansey is a boy on a quest, sort of like Indiana Jones but with less bad guys to beat up and tombs to raid, though, he is looking for a tomb. For many years Gansey has been searching for Glendower, an old Welsh king, why? I'd tell you but then that would spoil you. Aiding Gansey in his quest are his three closest friends Noah, a shy boy who barely speaks and does less of everything else, Ronan an angry boy with a broken past who seems to want to destroy his future, and Adam who tries his best in school and has multiple jobs so that he can truly be free and never have to depend on or belong to anyone.
The Raven Boys is a story filled with ley lines, magic, and old Welsh mythology and it is a story about friendship, complex characters and their complex relationships. And although The Raven Boys focuses very much on the plot of Gansey's quest, the story also equally focuses on the lives of the characters, not only their back stories but their goals and motivations, their personal lives and their starkly different personalities that seem to mesh perfectly even though logic says they shouldn't.
When it comes to her writing Maggie Stiefvater has a very subtle style where she will say a lot but with very little words making almost every word you read vital. I like this because it kept me focus on what I was reading and kept my mind whirring as I worked out what a character was doing or not doing. I also had to be careful though because when I got caught up in a scene I would need to slow down, re-read it and make sure I understood what just took place, which I didn't mind because I loved reading this book.
In my opinion this is Maggie's best novel yet, not only is her writing wonderful but the story is unique and the characters intriguing. I've heard there will be four books total in The Raven Cycle series and I know it's going to be torture waiting for each one of them.