The Raven Boys

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Age: Young Adult
Category: Fantasy; romance
Rating: 4 stars

Rosie Thinks: I don't quite know what I expected out of this book, but that certainly wasn't it - in the best possible way, of course. We start off with Blue, sitting in an abandoned churchyard with her psychic aunt. Blue has no psychic ability at all, but she acts as an amplifier for others. Her aunt is normally the only one who sees the spirits of those who will die pass, but this year is different - Blue sees Gansey. And the only reason a non-psychic would see someone is if he's her true love, or she killed him. Which is a bit of a dilemma, since Blue has been told since she was little: "If you kiss your true love, he will die." That has to be one of the strongest premises I've ever seen in a book!

For starters, this wasn't as romance-centric as I thought this would be, but I also wasn't anywhere near as disappointed by that as I thought I'd be. Instead, it focuses around Blue, Gansey and his group of friends as they search for a long-dead Welsh king. There are quite a few plots going on, with several POVs, and it takes a while to get the plot moving swiftly. It is definitely worth the wait! I had no clue what was going to happen next, and the ending half is just incredible. There was one plot twist that is so incredibly obvious now, but I had no suspicions of at the time. I am truly in awe that Stiefvater pulled this off.

The supernatural in this book is portrayed like nothing you've ever seen before. That magical aspect in the story is written perfectly to convey the beauty, suspense, and spine-tingling fear of it. Stiefvater's writing is pure genius. She has a knack of perfectly describing something in a way that is concise and not a cliche. The dialogue between all the characters was fantastic, and it also served to characterise each of them uniquely. I absolutely adore Gansey and his three friends: Ronan, Noah and Adam. Each of them are so different with their own set of problems, yet somehow they mesh together. Each of them now has a place in my heart! Gansey would have to be my favourite, although not by much. He has two sides to him: the posh rich boy with the world at his feet, and the boy who is passionate to the point of obsessed with finding Glendower. Poor Gansey doesn't always come across perfectly, as we see when we're first introduced to him and when he says: "My words are unerring tools of destruction, and I've come unequipped with the ability to disarm them."

Out of all the characters, however, I found Blue to be the most boring, which isn't so great since she's one of the most prominent characters. She's quirky and eccentric, and I think that could have stopped me sympathising with her as much as I ought to have: I am quite sick of reading stories about an eccentric loner and a group of wealthy boys. Thankfully, this story evolved way past that cliche within the first few chapters, but I still wish Blue had a few more defining characteristics.