The Raven Boys is the first in the series the Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater. It was first published in 2012 by Scholastic Press. It is a Paranomal YA with ghost, psychics, leylines and magical powers. All along with having a weird love triangle.
The plot follows Blue Sargent, a girl from a family filled with psychics and she is the only one in her family who hasn’t the abilities of psychics. What she got is the power to amplify others gifts and a prophecy that she will kiss the guy she falls in love with, and he will die. Enter four boys from the rich Aglionbly school called the raven boys. Their leader Gansey loves following supernatural sightings and is trying to awaken a leyline but needs the help of a psychic. That’s where he meets Blue who is helping them find the leylines.
Blue’s real personality sums up being a poor girl with spunk and knowledge of the supernatural but she is mostly just along for the ride while worrying if she is about to kiss someone. The real main character is Gansey, who is awkward, ambition, smart, rich but keep saying the wrong thing out of lack of understanding others feelings. Frankly, this story should be about him. But then they couldn’t put in the half assed love triangle with Adam. Adam, is poor and from a family where the father abuses him. He wants to handle all for himself and hate the help Gansey keep offering.
We also we have the frightening asshole Ronan, the bad boy, and the shy boy Noah who both is there as side characters. Noah have a bit larger part but not by much. Ronan’s story is pretty much that he must keep his grades up, He is apparently not entirely straight (which I suspect is only there for representation since it doesn’t get mentioned again and most likely won’t come up in the future) and they never address the real question which is what’s wrong with Ronan. He keeps a raven, who he apparently “created” and is MORE raven than the other boy said Blue’s psychic mother. And it is never addressed.
The villains are really underdeveloped. Both of the villains are hinted add, making it obvious that they are bad but what their motives are is a bit half assed. One is ready to murder people so that her rival wouldn’t be more popular than her and another is doing it for… Reasons. They are not interesting, but frankly, that isn’t really a problem as the world and the magic is what’s of interest.
The romantic storyline is pretty much none existent, keeping up the storyline of Blue killing someone with a kiss, but the paranormal story is really good. I enjoyed most of it and will read the rest of them. There is some problem though, one is the writing of the author. Let me clarify, her writing is good and creative. Too creative. It reminds me of a conundrum in Swedish song writing about a lyric translated as, your breasts are like nesting swallows. We still haven’t figured out what that means, if it is a compliment or an insult. Well, the entire book is filled with description like this. They sound beautiful and creative but when you actually listen to them you realize that they don’t really mean anything.
“The wind through the leaves was like the bellows of an exhaled breath and the hiss of the rain on the canopy like a sucked-in sigh.”- The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater
You tell me what this really means, I certainly do not know. Frankly this takes away from the story. Especially when some of the descriptions became lengthy such as the description when Blue is reading Gansey’s notebook. It wasn’t annoying but it wasn’t interesting to listen how she described every line and doodle in the book. It was something that could have been removed to make the story flow better. Which is pretty much my verdict on most of the descriptions. This author just kept going for a bit too long.
All in all, I loved this story. I just wished that they had focused on the paranormal and avoided the death by kissing thing which seem to be Blue’s only worry and purpose in the story. I hope that the author won’t nag about it too long. I also hope that she will tie up some of the lose ends from the book, a bit to hint the second book is fine but when the end just feel none exitent because there is so many unfinished plotlines, that either got ignored or just explained in one sentence in the end, that the ending wasn’t satisfying to me.
I would give it a rating of 9 out of 10. I removed 1 point for the main character’s lack of personality and actually not doing anything but tag along in the story. All other critics I mentioned is really just about taste, it bothered me but might be someone elses favorite thing about the book. I will highly recommend this book if they like the paranormal stories with mysteries.
With Kind Regards
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