Tag: plot

The Raven Boys

5 stars. Excellent character development provided a natural and fluid way to become familiar with the characters, as if I too were one of the gang. Nothing ever felt rushed or overwhelming plot-wise. The story was original and captivating. I was pleased to see Welsh legend incorporated!

The Dream Thieves

4.5 stars. The words were wonderfully woven into some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever experienced in ya literature. Artfully dreamlike.
I loved the character development of Ronan, Noah, & Mr. Gray. All the characters are uniquely themselves and revealed so naturally.
I can’t say I was entirely fond of the story line or progression, especially with how angsty Adam got or how frustrated I was with Ronan and Kavinsky. Such is life, I suppose. But I was satisfied immensely just to have this place holder for the remainder of the series. Again, it was a delightful read.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue

5 stars. Stiefvater’s writing style is YA heaven! I don’t feel like I’m an idiot nor like I’m reading trashy filler books to achieve my goodreads yearly challenge. I am enchanted by her character development, which I’ve talked about in reviews of the first two Raven books, but wow! The plot thickens and these teens deal with it in the way teens should— if they actually lived in a world of magic.
Stiefvater is a master of words and pacing and everything that is good and holy in authorship!
All characters are learning and growing and I continue to fall deeper in love with each one of them.
Piper and Colin are my jam. I hope they have a heavy presence in The Raven King. I love their crazy relationship. Well developed villains are absolutely a delight to read.
Adam has changed the most and in BLLB, I feel like he’s finally found himself.
Ronan takes a seat on the back burner again, but the lessons he learned in Dream Thieves are not forgotten (thank goodness!).
Ganesy is still his same austere self, despite some slips when Glendower continues to evade him or Blue gets him to act his age. I really look forward to more development in the last book, I really feel like that will be his moment to shine.
And lastly (at least for this review), the growth Blue endures this book urges her to foot the path of self-discovery. She finally realizes the importance of her key role in this saga and that she is far from the not-psychic, short-one.

The Raven King

Is it possible to be disappointed in the outcome of this book and still give it 4 Stars? Yes. Because I just did it.
Lemme tell you why I was disappointed:
1- I expected much more character development for Gansey. We had so much about Blue in Raven Boys, Ronan in Dream Thieves, and Adam in Blue Lily, Lily Blue that I really wanted to see him become more. This was a disappointment because I think the point was that Gansey was fully developed before the series ever started. Too bad for me.
2- Gansey lives. So he has this realization that the only way to avoid Ragnarok/Apocalypse/whatever ancient Welsh people call it is to exchange his life for the death of the demon. Yeah, but then they just exchange it right back in a too-good-to-be-true fashion that kinda irked me. Like, why couldn’t we have at least mourned him? Just a little?
3- Piper and Collin are nowhere near the power villain couple I always imagined them to be. Piper is selfish (we knew that) but, like, incredibly cartoonishly so throughout all of Raven King. It makes me sad when she had so much potential in the previous book.

Now for why I think it still deserves 4 Stars despite my disappointments (also known as why I didn’t give it 5 Stars):
1- Despite my wishes for the changes in plot the book was still incredibly written and thought out. As always, I’m in love with Stiefvater’s style throughout the series.
2- I was disappointed that Glendower was dead this whole time. I absolutely loved it! This whole series has been building up to something for 3.999 books and POOF! no Raven King… or was there? Of course there was, it’s freaking Gansey and it has been this whole time; yet you could probably argue it’s all of them in some little way, but I’m not trying to write a fancy AP Lit essay right now. My expectations were challenged and it was refreshing.
3- Adam and Ronan!!! I love the way their budding romance was written. It was very natural in a non-predicted-my-whole-life (*ahem* Blue *ahem* Gansey—not that I don’t also love their romance) kind of way that made it endearing when Adam was so uncertain of how he was feeling and what to do. That’s young love! Thank you Stiefvater, thank you! Best written YA romance between “supporting” characters award goes to you! I wish there were a book about them, oh wait, there is!
4- No five stars because I didn’t absolutely fall head over heels for all of THIS. It’s actually probably my least favorite of the series.