The Raven Boys – Maggie Stiefvater- Review

Blue has been told that if she kisses her true love, he will die. She has made a resolution to never kiss any boy, especially not one of those Raven Boys. Raven Boys represent everything she hates; privilege they take for granted, power they don’t know what to do with and just plain arrogance.

That is until she actually meets some of these Raven Boys. It’s interesting how your opinion of people can change once you get to know them. She is pulled into a world that she thought she understood. She learns there is more beneath the surface of these boys. She joins them on a  quest for magic and power and learns there are always more secrets to uncover.

What I loved:

I don’t usually comment directly on a writing style. I will mention it if there is an issue that I had but usually the writing style itself doesn’t stand out to me. I always feel it is more about the world created and the way the words make the images and story come alive versus exactly the way they are used. I know people fall in love with books because of the writing style alone but I have never been that kind of reader.

This book is one of the few books that I find myself reading not only for the story but for the writing style. I read a review that mention how Stiefvater is very precise with her writing. She doesn’t mince words and everything written has a use. I wholeheartedly agree with that review.

The writing invokes images that are bright and alive. She makes comparisons that are unique and new. Nothing about her writing feels like I have read it before. I read all the time, I am never NOT reading a book. This is one of the first times I felt like I have not read something like this before. I couldn’t find writing like this in another book. It is precise and it creates images with little effort. It pulls you along word by word. It is smooth and fulfilling no matter what the paragraph is about.

I realized by the end of this first book that this is a character series. It was interesting because by the end of the book I didn’t quite realize how little actually happened in this story. I was so enthralled by Gansey, Noah, Ronan, Adam and Blue that it didn’t matter that the story didn’t move very far.

This was an introduction to each of the main characters. Gansey is someone who is rich, knows he is rich, likes being rich but doesn’t quiet understand how to use his money in a proper way. He is someone who thinks that handing out money shouldn’t insult or hurt others. He just wants to help but he doesn’t quite understand at this point that money doesn’t always make things better. He has a great heart but he has trouble showing that full heart to the world without his money being part of that gesture.

Adam is someone who is desperately trying to find his own place in the world. He grew up in an abusive home. He never had any true self-worth. He works day and night to prove that he is as worthy as everyone else around him. Adam doesn’t want any type of charity or pity. He doesn’t want help because he thinks that help makes him weak. I am eager to see him realize that help means someone cares, something he hasn’t truly seen in his life until now.

Ronan is my favorite type of character. Ronan is a tough character to write. He is tough and abrasive on the outside. He could have come off as someone we shouldn’t care about and should put off as the jerk friend. Stiefvater does a great job at showing his true, soft side early. We see his tragic past and realize where his anger and hurt comes from. We see why he has a wall up and as I read the series I am loving seeing that wall start to crumble.

Blue was hard to get a grasp on in this book. She is kind of in the middle for most of the story. Everything seems to play out around her. She is the grounding effect for most of the characters. In this book she didn’t seem to have much of her own character. I could tell she is someone who is struggling to find her own place, much like Adam. She is learning that what is on the outside rarely represents what is on the true inside of someone.

Noah was the enigma in this book. I tried for most of the story to figure out his story and was shocked when I learned who he truly was. I like his addition but I am hoping to see more from him in the other books (though as I am on the third book his character hasn’t evolved much).

I enjoyed getting to know each of these characters and picked up the second book right away because I wanted to be in their world again. I wanted to see them live their lives. I am not as invested in the plot line as I am in their lives.

What I was just okay with:

I enjoy books that provide multiple POVs. I think it really helps to full tell a story like this one. You can’t get close to a number of characters if you only ever see the story from one set of eyes. I did have trouble though discerning who we were supposed to be following sometimes.

A chapter would start and it would be about a page to a page and a half before I knew who exactly we were following. It didn’t completely throw me out of the story but I did find myself having to skim the lines again to put what I had just read in the right context.

What I wished was different:

I didn’t initially pick up this story because the summary seemed very generic. It seemed like a simple love story, a bit of mystery but nothing overly exciting or anything I hadn’t seen before. The summaries of these books do not do this series justice. I don’t know who wrote them or approved them but they did not do the best job at letting you know what type of book you would be reading.

The whole true love’s kiss aspect is an extremely minor part of the series (I am almost down with the third book and it has gotten about a chapter’s worth of coverage total). It is more about these boys and Blue finding out who they are set against this back drop of find the ley line and the sleeping king.

I know that romance is a draw, especially in the YA genre, but I felt like that was a cop out for this series. I would never have read this series if I hadn’t read reviews stating how much deeper the story was.

I gave this series 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. I am in love with the characters and am eager to see them continue to grow and find their true selves. I am interested in where the magic plot line goes but in the end I am more concerned where each character ends up.

 

Quotes:
“A realization that even if you had discovered the future, it really didn’t change how you lived in the present.” (pg. 2)

“Rags to riches isn’t a story anyone wants to hear until it’s done.” (pg. 131)

“They were always walking away from him. But he never seemed able to walk away from them” (pg. 351)