The Raven Boys

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater - ⭐⭐⭐

Description

"'There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark's Eve,' Neeve said. 'Either you're his true love...or you killed him.'"

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them — not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is 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 has it all — family money, good looks, devoted friends — but he's looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, 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 never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we've never been before.

YA Fiction, YA Fantasy

Scholastic Press. (n.d.) The Raven Boys details. Retrieved from https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/books/raven-cycle-the-1-the-raven-boys-by-maggie-stiefvater/

My Analysis

I have had this book on my to-be-read list for a while, and I am sorry that I didn’t read it before now. I was hooked at the very first line, “Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told that she would kill her true love” (Pg. 1). The characters were fairly interesting. Blue Sargent is the protagonist, and the three women she lives with, Persephone, Calla, and her mother, Maeve, are psychics. The Raven Boys, Adam, Gansey, Ronan, and Noah were fairly interesting as well. Blue thinks of them as “bastards” at the beginning of the book, and it was nice to see the character development deviate from her original opinion. The Raven Boys are on a mission to find a ley line, or corpse road, that is supposed to be full of energy that will help the Boys find the thing for which they have been searching. On their journey to find the ley line, Blue and the Raven Boys begin to bond, and they discover magic together as well as solve a mystery or two. Overall, I thought the plot and the story line were good. I also enjoyed reading the book through multiple points of view instead of just through the protagonist’s eyes.

I listened to the audiobook version of this novel. I wasn’t impressed by the narrator, and his voice was a bit monotone. I went back and reread passages as I was listening to the book, and I definitely liked reading the book better than listening to it. The audiobook would have been better had they used a full cast instead of one narrator.

I did have a few problems with the book. I went into reading this book thinking that it would be more of a fantasy romance because of the opening line and the prophecy about Blue killing her true love with a kiss. While I did enjoy the book, this plot line was barely touched upon, and I was disappointed by this because the novel went in a different direction. The character development and the plot weren’t as fleshed out as I think they could have been. I was confused through some of this book, and I am still not sure where this series is going. Because the plot can be a bit confusing, I would recommend reading this book instead of listening to the audiobook so that you can refer back to previous chapters. Because the character development wasn’t fully realized, I didn’t find myself with a particular attachment to any of the characters. Out of all the characters, Gansey is probably my favorite because he is the most “fleshed out” of all the characters. He has a quirky sense of humor and a large vocabulary, which is humorous at times. I am going to finish the series, because I think that it will improve in the next book. This one seems to be focused on setting up the series and building the magic in the world of the novel.