The second book in the series The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater. A paranormal YA, published by Scholastic Press, in 2013. The book is a direct sequel following in the steps of the first one, which means that the reading the first one is needed.
The plot seemed to shift from Blue’s perspective, it’s still there but less prominent, to the perspective of Ronan. A far more interesting character in my opinion than Blue. He has the strange power to pull things out of his mind and the book follows two plotlines. The first one is Ronan finding out of his powers and coming to terms with them. The other follows Adam, who has in the end of the first book become the bridge between the leyline and the world. Both are struggling to come into terms with their abilities and their new place in the world. The message is very much to face yourself and move forward.
Adam is turning into a bit of a brooding, frankly spoiled-acting child. Which is strange considering that he is far from spoiled, coming from a broken household and now living on his own. He still seemed to think that Blue is his girl even though he ignores her and treats her like shit. He is even showing some violent tendencies like his father. I find it interesting that everyone keeps saying that he is the nice one, which he is when he is compared to Ronan, but he just seems gloomy to me.
It turns out that Ronan is far more interesting and complicated than I first thought. He has a lot of secrets and they lay upon him layers upon layers, making him unstable and hostile. That along with constantly fearing to fall asleep since he can accidently pull out one of his nightmares, well, let’s just say that I understand him.
I must also say, that I mentioned in the review of the first book that Ronan’s sexuality won’t most likely not be mentioned again and I was pleasantly wrong. They do explore it here and Ronan is frankly rather open about it. The one thing that did leave me surprised, not necessarily in a good way, was the revelation at the end who was his crush. Frankly, I felt it came out of nowhere. There were no signs before, and it seemed a bit forced but we will see where it goes in the future.
The plot overall was a bit messy compared to the first one. Much of it comes from the author trying to put in too many perspectives. I mentioned the two I felt was the main ones but we also have Blue, still worrying about kissing Gansey, Gansey trying to find his long-lost king and we also have the new character Gray Man who has quite a lot of the book dedicated to him. Mr. Grey being a hitman sent to find an object said to be able to pull dreams into reality. He doesn’t know what it is but his search leads him to Blue and her family, and especially Blue’s mother Maura who becomes infatuated with Gray Man.
Most of these plotlines are either entirely separate or separated until the end. As just can imagine, many of them is entertaining but unnecessary and pulls from the main story making it unfocused. The book doesn’t feel like an entire entity but feels like several stories written in one book. I don’t know if that was the author’s intention, I doubt it, but I think it might actually be that the writer just wanted to have too much in the book without even considering if they are necessary or not.
Blue is still pretty worthless, and without one funny scene with Noah and her saying that she is worthless to the boys, pretty much becoming their mascot, she feels so out of place. The story isn’t about her and she along with Noah just feels like they shouldn’t be in the story and Blue certainly shouldn’t get any parts in the book from her perspective. They don’t add anything according to me and could very well be removed without changing a thing in the book.
Now that said, I do love the book. The first one was better, but this one was still good and I liked the character of Ronan a lot better than Blue so he added more to the book. Unfortunately, a better main character does not mean that the story becomes better. It is a weird chase, less mystery, less focus and a lot of long descriptions of weird things. The author stills adore weird descriptions that go on just a bit too long.
“Then the Gray Man was the knife. He was a blade in the air, gasping, and then he was a weapon inside, holding his breath. He was voracious, chewing, never satisfied. Hunger was a species, and he was the best of that kind.”- The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater.
And I don’t get them… But they sound good.
All in all, I enjoyed it but I cannot give it a higher rating than the first because of the messy storyline that often left me frowning, trying to understand why this is here or why I just spent what felt like an eternity reading about Gray Mans interest in old English poems. I will rate it a 7 out of 10. It can be entertaining if you enjoyed the first book, but some of what I consider problems from the first book still remained such as the bad so-called main character. Namely Blue and the disorienting stories all trying to take the spotlight from the main ones. For those who can overlook all those problems, there is a good story in there.
With Kind Regards
Senefer.
Read with Senefer 