Review: The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater
This series means so much to me so I will go through the series, book by book. Light spoilers may be present.
This series is Maggie Stiefvater’s ballad of love to the automobile; cars are a constant theme and are practically play characters themselves. Three major characters are in love with cars with a fourth that knows how to fix them- the vehicles get a lot of page time and I think even if you aren’t a car person this book might start to turn you into one. The writing is so lyrical and scenic and I can’t get enough of it, even when Maggie is describing the inside of an engine the words sing. Each main character seems to represent a part of her life, each have interests and morals that reflect her own and because of that they feel so real. I have read and reread this series many times, and doing yet another reread since Greywaren will be blessing us this year and bringing these lovely raven boys to a close.
The Raven Boys (1/4)
The beginning of a story of love, friendship, loss, magic, and new adventures. The story of Blue Sargent, the non-psychic daughter of a psychic. The story of Richard Campbell Gansey III, the boy who was given a second chance at life, literally. The story of Ronan Lynch, the personification of a steel dagger with something broken inside. The story of Adam Parrish, the poor boy who works himself raw to have what others were born with. The story of Noah Czerny, who wasn't alive to begin with. Together they trounce through the hills of Virginia in search of a sleeping Welsh king. Discovering the how and why of magic while exploring the ley line. This book is mostly an introduction to the world and the characters. The three and a half boys who are close knit like a family; Blue and the ladies of Fox Way who are part blood, part water, but found a way to mix the two. Blue who dreams of merely going to exotic places to study the ecosystems, finds a chance with the boys to, for once in her life, actually see magic. She's surrounded by it in her daily life, but has no psychic ability and only enhances the powers of others. She knows it exists, but never gets to see it herself. Blue encounters the cream of the Aglionby crop at her day job waiting tables. She despises them, she despises all Aglionby boys. But one of them is a little different. Adam. She finds herself going on a date with Adam, sort of: a helicopter ride with the rest of the boys to find the ley line. Upon finding the line and a magic-infused forest, they realize they aren't the only ones looking. A teacher, filled with the darkness of his once-glorious family going bankrupt, and him killing his best friend. He wants to wake the line just as bad as they do, and he'll kill to get what he wants.
The Dream Thieves (2/4)
This is where I really became obsessed and invested with this series. The Dream Thieves dives deeper into the souls of the characters and spends more time in the POV of the boys, specifically Ronan Lynch. I love an edgy bad boy that actually has reason to have a abrasive personality; finding your father dead in the driveway and mom cease moving at the same time will kind of do things to a kid. Ronan ‘befriends’ (using the term ‘friend’ loosely here) another messed up kid from Aglionby, Joseph Kavinsky. Like Ronan, Kavinsky can pull things out of his dreams, but unlike Ronan, Kavinsky doesn’t have much will to live. I think Ronan Lynch is the best written YA character that exists, and he fully comes to life in this book and his character growth and depth just keeps going through the series. His internal struggles, and therefore his motivations, are vivid and realistic and his family and friend relationships are multi-faceted. The way he interacts with each character, how he treats each one differently, and the choice of words for his internal monologues, so subtly reveals his true intentions towards them. Despite this series starting with Blue, and revolving a lot around her fate, this series is more about the boys than her. She definitely feels like a storytelling vessel at times.
Blue Lily, Lily Blue (3/4)
While the Dream Thieves was extremely character focused, Blue Lily, Lily Blue takes off into progressing the plot. Here, the Gangsey start to make more progress on their hunt for Glendower. Honestly, when I first read this I didn’t know what was going on because I was like 14 or something. The plot of this series is complex and not something commonly found in YA, so it took a reread to fully appreciate it. BLLB, while focusing on the plot, gives Adam Parrish some glorious spotlight time to develop as another well written character. It also creates some extremely realistic friendship dynamics, and some annoyingly realistic teenage angst. Blue is someone with big emotions because she is frustrated, she is confused, she is just trying to figure out things and hello she is just a teenager. She honestly doesn’t have the best role models in her life, because none of them have done anything ordinary ever. Some times her thoughts and decisions are infuriating but because of that, she feels tangible. In with all these fun developments, some new characters and antagonists are added, as well as exploring more into the existing ones and I love that.
The Raven King (4/4)
Maggie wrote this book while literally dying, and knowing that contextualizes why there are complaints about it being a weak ending. “I generally enjoy looking back over my old work. I always know that I could do better now, but I find that comforting — if I’m not getting better with each book, what’s the point? But The Raven King is different. I was just beginning to lose my mind when I wrote it.” Personally, I enjoyed it. I also enjoyed All The Crooked Saints, which she also wrote in this period of time. I think in a way it adds some accidental ethereality to it. TRK gives Henry Cheng his moment; a character who has been mentioned but not much else. Henry acts as something of a plot device to help get to the conclusion. It isn’t the strongest method but it works. The character conclusions were not as strong as expected. Blue didn’t have a lot of growth throughout the series but got her conclusion of going her own way and finally being ‘unstuck’ in the path she was heading, Gansey also did not have much character growth, but as a rich kid had to deal with not getting something he dedicated his life to. So again I say, this series is about Ronan Lynch. Ronan and Adam go through full growth cycles and have conclusions that make sense. I think Maggie had more interest in writing about them than Blue and Gansey but it was too late to make the whole story about them at this point. I especially think this because she then went on to write another trilogy about the Lynches. I wish there was closure on the Fox Way ladies, they played such a crucial part in the main plot but then just disappeared. I think this book was excellent, but as a series finale I wish for more.
I don’t reread a lot of books, but this series I think may be best enjoyed twice. Being YA it is fast paced and then it has a lot going on with these in depth characters and also complex plot, so a lot is missed on the first pass. I see endless reviews on how the plot didn’t make sense or was boring etc. But I entirely believe that is just because it is a LOT and people didn’t understand it. The brain-fog-written ending is even more confusing if you weren’t totally on board with the plot to begin with, so a second pass pulls it all together. This series is like nothing else I have encountered, it is truly magic.