Saturday 19 October 2013

Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: The Raven Boys
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Series: The Raven Cycle #1
Publisher: Scholastic
Date Published: September 18th 2012
Buy: Amazon

Goodreads Summary
Blue has spent the majority of her sixteen years being told that if she kisses her true love, he will die. When Blue meets Gansey’s spirit on the corpse road she knows there is only one reason why – either he is her true love or she has killed him.
Determined to find out the truth, Blue becomes involved with the Raven Boys, four boys from the local private school (lead by Gansey) who are on a quest to discover Glendower – a lost ancient Welsh King who is buried somewhere along the Virginia ley line. Whoever finds him will be granted a supernatural favour.
Never before has Blue felt such magic around her. But is Gansey her true love? She can’t imagine a time she would feel like that, and she is adamant not to be the reason for his death. Where will fate lead them?

Note: This is an old review I wrote ages ago, I am posting this now because I am going to post the review to the sequel pretty soon.


I am guilty of reading this book because of the pretty cover. It took me a while to get to this though because at first I was really excited and then I kept on reading the synopsis again and again until I wasn’t sure whether I should read it or not. I hadn’t read any books by Maggie before this and well although people said Shiver was great, it didn’t sound like my kind of book (I went on to read it later and loved it). So I went into this book really hoping it would be good.

I think it’s the kind of books that captivates you at the beginning and then slowly becomes more interesting. The prologue and the first chapter were both amazing but then after that things became a little slow. In most books I would have given up, but somehow Maggie kept me interested.

She slowly revealed its and bits about what was going on and she built on everything. I loved how she focused on the characters, building on their relationships. I loved every single one. I loved Blue’s relationship with her aunts and with her mother. I loved the friendship between the boys and how they opened up to Blue slowly. I also loved how Maggie explored each individual character. Some may say that Ronan wasn’t explored enough but I think she did that on purpose. It shows the mysteriousness of his character. He is the dark brooding boy and I loved Maggie’s approach on this kind of character. Ronan is so different from the cliche brooding guys and that’s why I love him.

Then we also have Gansey. I wish there were more guys like Gansey in modern YA because I loved his determination. I loved how he messed up and he wasn’t always sure how to act around people (like with Blue in the beginning) but he always cared about his friends.
Adam. Adam was a rather interesting character because even though most people say he is a sweet boy. He isn’t. I love how Maggie makes him seem more real because no one can be completely nice. Everyone has a dark side and so does Adam.

Noah the last boy in their group is one of my favorites. I find him cute. How he is always petting Blue’s hair because it is always messed up. I wish we would get to know a little bit more about him.
Now for our female lead Blue, I like her. From the summary you would think that all she did is swoon over the guys. It’s actually the last thing she does. She is pretty involved in the whole research and even though there is something going on between her and Adam, it isn’t focused on because there is something a lot bigger going on. I liked Blue’s character as well, she was determined and stubborn.

I really cannot wait for the next book because even though this book is concluded rather well there are a lot of questions hanging around and I haven’t even talked about some of the other things going on in this book because well I could go on and on about it. This book is pretty complex and I know that quite a few people have trouble with the “slowness” of the book but hold on because it is worth it.


2 comments:

  1. So glad you liked this one Rashika. It's one of my favourite series at the moment and yes it is slow but you know it is building up solidly, line by line, chapter.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's so fun seeing it build up, it's worth the wait when you get to the good stuff :P
    I fell in love with the book last year :')
    Although The Dream Thieves didn't live up to my expectations (I still loved it though!)

    ReplyDelete

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