Raven Boys by Maggie Steifvater: I REGRET BEING SCARED OF THIS!!!

Raven Boys

 by 

Maggie Steifvater

Can I just say WOW! I know very eloquent I’ll be here all week. 

But seriously wow. I was so scared to start Steifvater’s stuff because (I mentioned this in my first Top Ten Tuesday) I have such bad luck with hyped authors. But wow she is hyped for a reason. I mean the writing and the characters and . . . gah! Everything else. Okay let’s do this in a slightly more orderly fashion.

The characters.

Blue Sargent 

Why? I mean I loved her she was great but why “Blue”. 

Your mother is a psychic dear not a hippie. Well maybe she’s a bit of both. Anyway Blue was great. I loved how she tried to look eccentric and strange like her mom but in reality she was very sensible. And I think she loved and hated that part of her which was very real. Basically she looked like Luna Lovegood but acted like Hermione.

Gansey 

His name is abnormally long poor thing. 

But amazingly I loved him too! Each character seemed to have two sides and Gansey was no exception. He could be a complete prat about everything under the sun and then he’d be a noble little git which is I’ll admit a bit of a weakness of mine. 

And he’d still have room to doubt himself?! And add in beautiful soliloquies that didn’t sound out of place in a kid! How! I must know this secret of having not one, not two, but like six different facets of a character and still keep them consistent. Dang I am impressed.

Adam

 Sweet Adam. You know how there’s always that one character that, even though your pretty sure they can take care of themselves, you just want to gather them up and take care of them. That’s probably just a girl thing isn’t it? Anyway Adam was so abused and sweet but he could be a complete jerk at times too. Still I like when characters are jerks, as long as you can see where they are coming from and understand.

Ronan

How?! Steifvater basically took a foul mouthed, obnoxious, alcoholic teenage boy and made me love him. 

With the piddling addition of a small bird. WHAT?! Yeah somehow Ronan and I get along it is a small miracle. And not just get along he was (I think ask me in a few days) my favorite.

Noah 

 You guys who showed up because you’ve read this know what I’m talking about okay. There is literally nothing else for me to say.

Things I liked

Holy mother of PLOT TWIST: Again you guys who have read it know what I’m talking about. Sorry I know I’m going a bit over board on this but it has been forever since I have been genuinely surprised by a plot twist. Well surprised but satisfied because foreshadowing happened. There’s a difference between ‘surprise PLOT TWIST!’ and ‘Holy crap I can see where they alluded to this’ you know.

The relationships: Okay so the romance was kind of cutesy but really it was the friend dynamics between them all. They were gorgeous. Give me solid, healthy friendships over romances any day guys.

See Friends 

 Each of them had a different connection to the others in ways that were explored and messed with and all tangled up and it was so beautiful.

The writing: I know that this is kind of subjective but specifically I’m talking about those soliloquies of Gansey’s. They was such beautiful description and just ugh. I mean these lines!

“My words are unerring tools of destruction, and I’ve come unequipped with the ability to disarm them”

Or

“ . . . Drawn by a desperate but nebulous need to be useful to the world, to make sure his life meant something beyond champagne parties and white collars, by some complicated longing to settle an argument that waged deep inside himself.”

 And then it moves back to teenagers, and magic, and adventure and Ronan dropping cusswords like dimes. HOW! I know I’ve said it a lot. It didn’t feel inconsistent in fact these little jewels of description actually took my breath away a couple of times.

The Story: I know it’s not terribly unique. Kids discover magic, legend of ancient king sleeping in wait for the right person to wake him up, ley lines and ghosts and things. So yeah pretty run of the mill but still it worked so beautifully as a back drop for the rest of the wonderful things. (things I know I’m so professional this week)

Stuff I didn’t like so much.

  Seriously Ronan control yourself. Ronan was the cursing friend. I get it he’s the bad boy whatever. But come on. There were occasional curses dropped that weren’t from Ronan so it wasn’t all him but still. It felt cheap. I was surrounded by all this wonderful characterization with very little clichés or stereotyping, but then there was Ronan.  It felt like a quick and dirty way to cement his place as the trouble maker friend, the overly enthusiastic foul mouth. Honestly after finishing the book I was a bit disappointed in that short cut.

And that’s it. Seriously I only have one complaint about this book. And it wasn’t about the romance!! Yay! So definitely getting the second book when I make it back to the library.