“In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them.
Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness.
Her raven boys.” - The Dream Thieves
THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER-FREE
A funny story about this series: when I first tried to read it several years ago, I found it so boring that I couldn’t get past the prologue of the first book. In April of 2018, however, I decided to give the series another try. I had recently discovered the wonderful world of audiobooks and was hunting for recommendations, so when I came across someone talking about how much they enjoyed The Raven Cycle on audio, I thought to myself, screw it. It’s an extremely popular book series, so it must have some redeeming qualities, and perhaps listening to it on audio would make it more palatable.
More palatable indeed; I listened to all four audiobooks back to back. This urban fantasy quadrilogy follows a seventeen-year-old girl named Blue Sargent, the only non-psychic in a family of psychics, and the four prep school boys she befriends. Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, Noah Czerny, and Richard Campbell Gansey III are on a mission to recover an ancient king named Owen Glendower, as it has been prophesied that Glendower will grant a favour to whomever finds him first. Blue begins to fall for one of the boys, but she has a secret: all her life, every psychic she has ever met has told her that if she kisses her true love, he will die. Without a doubt, The Raven Cycle is now one of my all-time favourite series’, and I’d like to try to compact some of the overwhelming love I feel for these books into words, because I feel dangerously close to overflowing with it.
We begin with The Raven Boys, which is one of my favourite books in the series. The thing that amazed me about this book is how well it reads as a standalone. It’s the expository novel of a four-part series, yet it is also a perfectly well-rounded story in its own right; it could easily hold itself up as a standalone novel, which speaks to the quality of the storytelling. I thought I grew out of my ‘calling fictional characters my children’ phase at least a year ago, but then I read this book and realised that my paternal instincts had merely gone dormant. The characters in this book make my heart sing. I love Blue Sargent, five feet of indignation and feminist outrage. I love Gansey and his stupid, pompous, enormously generous heart. I love Noah and the fact that the only adjective ever used to describe him is ‘smudgy’. I love Adam, so gentle yet so troubled, straddling the line between admirably unyielding and stupidly stubborn. To be honest, I could care less about Ronan, but I still love that he’s such a tortured badass who is also fiercely protective of the baby raven he raises as his own, and that he named that baby raven ‘Chainsaw’, because that is hilarious. I also love Maggie Stiefvater. Maggie’s distinct and unique writing style is perfect for the atmosphere of this story; I’ve never read a story and a writing style that fit together so well. As a result, this was an incredibly immersive read for me. The mystical quality of Maggie’s writing and the magical elements of the story -- psychics and tarotology, ghosts and ancient kings, ley lines and dreams brought to life -- melded together in such a natural way that it was often difficult to remember that I was just reading a book, not experiencing a whole new life in Henrietta, Virginia. What I’m trying to say is that the writing style and the story itself go together so well that you don’t notice that you’re reading something that someone has written; you just feel like you’re in the world, standing next to the characters as they talk to one another, which is why it was so easy for me to become so invested in them.
Next up was The Dream Thieves. This book is kind of the Order of the Phoenix of the The Raven Cycle series, in that everyone was really moody and angry all the time. Unfortunately, this ended up being my least favourite book in the series for two reasons. The first: Ronan is my least favourite character, and a large portion of this book takes place from his point of view. The second: as I realised while reading this book, I don’t like reading dream sequences, and this book is literally called The Dream Thieves, so there are a lot of dream sequences. I find it really boring when people describe their dreams to me, and at least seventy pages of this book is Ronan describing his dreams to the reader. Although Ronan’s dreams are a major part of the story and the world-building, for me, the book really dragged whenever they came up. I also found the story less compelling in this book, and there were long stretches of repetitive action that I just didn’t find that interesting. However, I’ll be the first to admit that I was impressed by how well this book also holds it own as an isolated story, even more so than with book one. Often, the middle book in a series isn’t as good as the first and last ones; so many sequels just become filler, but The Dream Thieves definitely isn’t just filler. Even though I didn’t love the plot, I can still recognise that it is fully fleshed out.
After not enjoying The Dream Thieves that much, it was a relief to love Blue Lily, Lily Blue just as much as I loved The Raven Boys. It’s slower than the previous books and not as much action takes place, but the characters are explored in much more detail and depth in this edition, and as someone who prefers character-driven stories, I adored this change. Blue Lily, Lily Blue reads as more of a sequel than The Dream Thieves did. It definitely feels like a book between two books, a middle child of sorts, but I think that this gave it character as opposed to making it feel like a stepping stone between more important narratives. Because this book was slower and less focused on driving the plot forward, the characters were really able to come into their own, examining facets of themselves and their relationships that were put on the backburner in the preceding stories. The mood and tone of the book match this theme, and I think that the characters reflect it, too; they seem grateful for this pause in the pace, for this chance to breathe and settle in their waters after being shaken so much by the action in books one and two. I love the characters in this series so much, but I especially loved Blue in this book; she is such a tiny badass, and I am all about her feminist agenda and her diet consisting exclusively of yoghurt.
I had high expectations for The Raven King, and unfortunately, they were not met. It’s a shame, because this book had so much potential after the slow-burn of the book before it, but as a conclusion to the series, I found it pretty lacking. The plot felt weak and convoluted in places, and honestly, at some points, I was bored. I also felt that Maggie’s writing style became a bit repetitive. It remained just as well-matched to the story, but I started to find the whimsy of it tedious. My main concern, however, is that this book kind of wraps things up a little too conveniently for my liking. I can’t say much because I want to keep this review spoiler-free, but I think this book suffers from having been overhyped by the other books in the series. The stakes had been build up so much, but it felt like Maggie was afraid to take the steps necessary to carry out the realistic trajectory of the story. As a result, the resolution lost its emotional impact, because these high stakes we had been anticipating for three entire novels didn’t end up going anywhere. It was just too comfortable. The reader isn’t always supposed to get what they want out of a story, and The Raven King felt like fan service taken too far, to the detriment of the story. Luckily, this book didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the series; I was just underwhelmed by it as a conclusion.
Sometimes you read a book, and realise that you are reading it at the absolute perfect time in your life. It’s happened to me only a few times before, and if I can get away with a little hopeless romanticism, I’d like to hypothesise that this is what happened with The Raven Cycle series. It’s been years since I last felt as emotionally awakened as I did while reading this. Although it has its flaws, it is still a gorgeously written, compelling story with richly textured characters whom I love and adore with all my heart, and if it sounds in any way like something you might be interested in reading, I urge you to do so. And persevere. Don’t give up on this series like I did the first time I tried to read it. Sometimes I wish I had persevered that first time around, but I’m also glad that I didn’t, because I really do feel that I read this series at the perfect time in my life. It’s incredibly meaningful to me, and I hope you’ll like it too.
