Well! It looks like this is my first book review of 2014! Rest assured, it’s a good one!
I’ve always loved Maggie Stiefvater’s books. She’s one of my favorite authors, hands down. I love the twists and turns. I love the folklore she weaves in her books. I love her style.
And I’m going to have to say THE RAVEN BOYS was definitely my favorite of her books so far. (I’m going to read the sequel soon, so we’ll see if it gets better or not).
In THE RAVEN BOYS, the reader follows the life of Blue Sergent, a psychic’s daughter that isn’t psychic. But, she is powerful, just in her own way. She makes things “louder” for psychics or anything magical. She’s awkward and really weird. Even her psychic mom thinks she’s weird. At least that was what I caught from Maura (the mom).
There’s something else about Blue that is powerful and very dangerous.
Her mother, and other psychic family members, have all told Blue that if she was to kiss her true love, he would die. Blue pledges to never kiss anybody. Ever. At all. And this plan goes well for Blue. That is, until she meets them.
Blue never liked Raven Boys. Raven Boys were rich and snobby and went to Aglionby Academy, which is where they get their name “Raven Boys” because of the school’s emblem: a raven.
Blue notes the four Raven Boys she met aren’t like most snobby Raven Boys. They are different–like her.
Adam isn’t rich, and he works really hard to go to Aglionby to get a good education. He’s the one that Blue first opens up to, because she realized he’s not what she thought a Raven Boy was, and she liked him. He was nice to her.
Ronan wasn’t nice, but Ronan wasn’t nice to anyone. His parents were dead and his older brother Declan was a bully. Blue realized that all he had were his three Raven Boy friends. They were the only ones that tolerated him, that cared.
Noah was stranger than all of them, even Blue. He was quiet and pristine. Not much bothered him, and it almost felt like something was wrong with him. Like, really wrong with him.
Gansey was the leader. He cared deeply about Adam and Ronan and Noah. They were all weird, and he loved them for that. Maybe because he, too, was weird. No one could understand why he was so obsessed with finding Glendower’s body (an ancient Welsh king) hidden on the Henrietta ley line. He needed to find Glendower. No one, not even his friends, could really understand that. But his friends tried to understand, and they helped him in his quest.
Blue was one of the rare people that they met that understood and accepted their weirdness. Especially Adam and Gansey. Though Noah and eventually Ronan grow to like her in time. Noah, in fact, preferred her to be around more than nearly anybody else. (Read the book to find out why; I will not give that information away.)
Blue and “her” Raven Boys search for the ley line together. When someone, a bad someone, seems to be searching for the ley line as well, trying to awaken it with a sacrifice, Blue and the Raven Boys have to act quickly.
I can’t express how much I loved this book. The characters were freaky and beautiful, and sometimes I related and realized how freaky and beautiful I am, too.
THE RAVEN BOYS is lovely, marvelous, and enticing.
Five out of five stars! ★★★★★
Kaitlyn Deann 