Review: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: The Dream Thieves

Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Series: The Raven Cycle #2
Publisher: Scholastic
Date Published: September 17th 2013
Buy: Amazon | BookDepository

Goodreads Summary

Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after...

“He danced on the knife’s edge between awareness and sleep. When he dreamt like this, he was a king. The world was his to bend. His to burn.” 

It took me about a week to finally gather my wits about and write a review for this book. Believe me it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It’s just so hard to sum everything this book did to me in just a couple hundred words but it’s not just that, how do I even describe what this book put me through, how it made me feel?

This book was actually completely different from what I expected. I was also scared out of my mind when I went into it because what if it didn’t live up to the first book? What if it didn’t make my heart soar the way the first one had? What if I only came out with a heavy heart because this book didn’t live up to my extremely high expectations?

The funny thing is even as I say that, I know this book didn’t live up to my expectations. That is not to say I was disappointed, I just expected so much more (if that makes any sense). There was this (seemingly) big chunk in the middle where I just never wanted to open the book again because I was so frustrated by what was going on. It made me want to scream on top of my lungs. But I (wo)manned up and continued reading (after I took a break for a couple of days, I am not THAT brave).

If you’re reading this you’ve (hopefully) read at least one book by Maggie and you know the magic she is capable of working. It was there in this book too. She just writes in such a way that you get goosebumps and she knows just how to tug at your heartstrings. In fact I just opened my copy of Dream Thieves and read a certain scene that has my heart pounding.

“In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her raven boys.” 

I wasn’t a huge fan of Adam in the first book and throughout most of this book I still ‘disliked’ him but by the end of it, Maggie changed my mind. I have no idea how she does it, how she can manipulate my feelings so easily. Adam, as we know, sacrificed himself at the end of the last book and you can really see how that has changed him, he is so angry for most of the book and a lot of the frustration I felt was because of what he did, which is why I was so happy when he finally came to his senses.

In the last book we didn’t get a lot of insight into who Ronan really was but this book, this book was his. And I grew to love him and his complexity. You wish you could give him a bear hug and make it all go away but you know he’d hate you for it.

Sadly there wasn’t nearly enough of Noah in this book to make me happy. He is one of my favorite characters and I really felt his absence. Hopefully the next book in the series will remedy that.

Gansey, the center of the puzzle, the glue to everything else. He has a special place in my heart as some of you might know. This book only reinforced everything I felt for him. He was just so lonely in this book that it broke my heart, Ronan was busy messing around with Kavinsky, Adam was busy being a prideful jerk and Noah was basically flickering in and out. I still think that won’t change in the next book. Gansey is so busy holding everything together and taking care of everyone that I don’t think anyone realizes that someone needs to be there for Gansey as well.  

Blue showed a lot of character development but honestly I don’t even know what to say about her. We all know she is a strong and awesome female lead. Plus I paid a lot more attention to the Raven Boys then I did to her (guilty).  I have to say though, I never get tired of reading about her family. They are just such a weird and fun bunch.

The only anomaly I felt was with The Grey Man. I know most people loved him but I didn’t. I really hated how Maggie portrayed him; as a hit man with a troubled past who with love could become a good person. Haven’t I read about too many tortured 'bad boys'? The fact that Maura gets involved with him bothered me even more. I, like Blue, seem to feel a certain protectiveness (I don’t think that was the word she used but I cannot remember which one she DID use so don't mind) for Butternut and I have my theories about who he could be. If they pan out, I wouldn’t want her to be with The Grey Man. Plus there are some stories that just need a bad guy. Everyone cannot be good.

The plot of this book isn’t actually that great. All the different POVs make it feel like it’s all over the place. Like with the Raven Boys it is initially slow and then speeds up but unlike the Raven Boys even though the plot was initially slow, it didn’t bother me because there was so much exploration going on into their characters.

While I wouldn’t say this book suffers from the middle book syndrome, this was definitely a bridge, a good one at that, but one nevertheless. This one was more about the players then about what they were seeking.

It all works to make us anticipate the next book even more because the way this one ended and it sucks that I have to wait another torturous year.