Book Review:
Title: The Raven Boys
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Publisher: Scholastic
“She wasn't interested in telling other people's futures. She was interested in going out and finding her own.”
Truthfully speaking, I have no idea on how to summarise The Raven Boys. The complexity and bizarreness of the book, makes it so hard to put the premise into words. But I'm going to try anyways...
The Raven Boys follows a group of young boys as well as a young girl and their journey to discovery. The group of boys, who include: Gansey, Adam, Ronan and Noah, are all on a mission to find a Welsh King named Glendower who was supposedly buried alive. It is said that the person who finds Glendower will have a favour of their choosing granted. The young girl, who is named Blue, happens to become a part of their search crew after she has a weird ghost sighting of Gansey in the churchyard.
Oh, and also, it has been foretold that if Blue were to kiss her true love, he would die.
I am normally the type of person who enjoys reading fast paced books, where something is always happening and there is non-stop action, so for that reason, I found it quite difficult to immerse myself into this book at first. The Raven Boys is extremely slow-paced, especially for the first 100 or so pages and I constantly found myself slipping out of the story and kind of just glossing over the words. There was point where I was ready to put it down and try again maybe in a couple of months. It just wasn't working. But then my friend threatened to kill me if I didn't continue, so I fought through it and carried on (because I'm clearly too young to die.) Let me just say how happy I am that I carried on. As the story progresses, things get a little bit faster, a little more complex and so much more beautiful. After those 100 or so pages, I found myself absolutely loving the story and all of the characters.
The characters are all complete opposites, yet they have the most wonderful, close relationship that is honestly heartwarming. The way they cared and looked after each other, as though they weren't just friends, but Family. Their bond is unbreakable and that it's probably the thing I loved most about this story. Not the plot and the search for Glendower, but the connection they all shared.
I think my favourite character would have to be Ronan, which I myself am quite shocked about, since going into this story, I thought my favourite would be Gansey. But there was something about Ronan that drew me in; maybe it was the way he looked after and protected Chainsaw. Nevertheless, although Ronan was my favourite, I absolutely adored all of the characters, and I cannot wait to see how the story progresses in the sequel, The Dream Thieves
Overall, though quite snail-paced at first, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
4 Stars
Goodreads