Book Review: The Raven Boys
So I’m going to try to post more book reviews. I guess I’m hyper-aware right now of how much reviews mean to an author!
The other day I read The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater.
From the book description:
“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love…or you killed him.”
It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive. Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble. But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little. For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.
I really enjoyed this book—it’s well-written, with compelling characterization, a great setting, a twisty plot, fresh and interesting ideas. My only complaint is that the ending was pretty abrupt, and left a lot of the novel’s main conflicts unresolved. It’s the first book in a series so I assume the dangling plot threads will all pay off in later books, but I would’ve still liked more closure at the end of the book.
