Review: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

 

Series: The Raven Cycle (Book 2)

Hardcover: 416 pages

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Genre: Paranormal

Date of Publication: September 17, 2013

 

My Rating: 3 out of 4

Synopsis:

If you could steal things from dreams, what would you take?

Ronan Lynch has secrets. Some he keeps from others. Some he keeps from himself.

One secret: Ronan can bring things out of his dreams.

And sometimes he's not the only one who wants those things.

Ronan is one of the raven boys - a group of friends, practically brothers, searching for a dead king named Glendower, who they think is hidden somewhere in the hills by their elite private school, Aglionby Academy. The path to Glendower has long lived as an undercurrent beneath town. But now, like Ronan's secrets, it is beginning to rise to the surface - changing everything in its wake.

Review:

I hate to say it, but the second book in The Raven Boys series fell flat for me. I am so disappointed, because I really wanted to love this book. It took me two months to read it--which is really saying something because I read the first book in about three days.

I would argue that more than half of this book could be removed and the reader would still know what's going on. The unnecessary filler and "character building" didn't serve it's purpose. For the majority of the novel it felt as though the plot were at a stand-still. It was such a struggle for me to finish it. If I had not already bought the third book, I would have put it down and been done with it.

My love for the characters and the story is the only thing that really kept me going. There were moments that I enjoyed and moments I didn't, but I can't rate this one higher due to the drop in momentum.

Oh, and there were so many F-bombs I lost count. That is something else that annoys me. I know we are talking about high school boys here, but it took away from the beauty of the work.

I hope the third book redeems the series.


Check out my review of The Raven Boys

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Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Series: Raven Cycle (Book 1)

Hardcover: 416 pages

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Genre: Paranormal

Date of Publication: September 18, 2012 

Synopsis:

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue never sees them--until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks to her.

His name is Gansey, a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can't entirely explain. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul whose emotions range from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She doesn't believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

Review:

Brilliant.

I could not put The Raven Boys down. The concept of the novel is so intriguing. There are multiple points of view, but they are presented through Third Person, which I greatly appreciated. It created a smooth transition between the characters.

I have not read Stiefvater's Shiver series, but I will have to pick it up because I am blown away by her writing style. Stiefvater is an amazing story teller. The Raven Boys is a complex, multi-level story that combines mythology with the supernatural and adds a dash of teenage angst.

The characters are amazing. I can hear the accents in the text and the linguistic nuances that are unique to each individual voice. Each character has a back story that adds such depth and meaning to the events that push the story forward. Ronan and Adam tugged my heartstrings in a serious way. I was fully prepared to hate Gansey just like Blue, but I loved him. I opened the book fully expecting Gansey and Blue to fall into an infatuation that quickly led to his death. Well, I'm still waiting on it because who would have thought that she would get the butterflies for Adam. And realistically, their personalities match. It was perfection!

I haven't read reviews for the next two books, so I don't know whether Gansey and Blue will get together, but I have to admit that if they do I'll feel a little hurt. Betrayed. Because Blue and Adam are so stinking cute that I can't even handle it.

Other than that, I just really enjoyed everything about this book. It is hard to surprise me, but there were a few good ones in there. I have to put the warning out there, there is some bad language. The F-bomb is used about 4 or 5 times that I noticed. Just a disclaimer. Can't say that I didn't warn you.

The Raven Boys is an absolute must-read. Go buy it and read it. NOW!



Rating: 5 out of 5 Owls



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