The Raven Boys

I loved Stiefvater's Shiver trilogy and hoped this series would at least be as well written,  but unfortunately it fell short. The beginning was a mash of characters and backstory, trying to lay down the ground rules of the setting and world, but it never really explained anything well enough. I think Stiefvater had a clear picture in her mind and jumbled the translation to words. For instance, the scene where Blue meets the Raven Boys was poorly done. She tried to identify them by their characteristics instead of names, but I didn't know enough about the boys to tell who was who. This entire book felt as though it was a stream of conscience first draft that never made it to a second. Between the random things added to the plot, and useless life details from Gansey I wanted to just shut the book and walk away.

I tried to read this book twice. The first time I just got distracted and had to give it to the library. After starting it a second time I got totally sucked into it.
This story seems a little dark, but the characters are amazing I love them all. They all have a few characteristics I'd like to develop. The dialog is so fun, and I love the touches of mythology that's added.

I really struggled to get through the first half... It was slow and seemed pointless,even though I was enjoying the writing. Thankfully things considerably pick up later in the book as the supernatural takes up more and more space. The romance did not bother me, and the gang made me feel like I was a teenager again.
I will definitely be reading the rest of the series. For once, it was worth believing the hype!

I have been doing really well knocking out lots of series I've been planning on reading this year and having now completed all of the Cassandra Clare novels I was looking for an intriguing new series to pick up as we move into the second half of 2017 and I had heard such wonderful things about Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Cycle that it didn't take me long to delve into The Raven Boys.

This book was one I wasn't quite sure how I would get on with, sometimes as I'm an older adult reader of Young Adult fiction I sometimes do find some novels just don't quite grasp me due to the writing style and content but I have to be honest that The Raven Boys was a book I flew through in a few days and did enjoy very much. It's difficult not to be intrigued when the very first thing we learn in the narrative is that one of our lead characters Blue has been told that if and when she kisses her true love he will die.

This revelation leads us to a major discovery about this book which is that the paranormal and psychic worlds will play a large part in this series as Blue has been raised in a house full of psychic women and is indeed about to take part in the St Marks' Day ritual at her local ruined church where she and her mother go annually to see the spirits of those who will die within the next 12 months. Blue herself is unable to see the undead, instead she is an amplifier for the powers of those who can, however on the night of St Marks' she sees the spirit of a young boy named Gansey, a pupil of the local private school Aglionby. Her aunt informs her that if she is able to see him this means one of either two things, either he is her true love or she killed him.

With this revelation under her belt it is then somewhat worrying when Gansey stumbles into her life seeking a psychic reading from her mother in order to help him find the local ley lines which will lead him to the body of a dead Welsh king who Gansey hopes to raise from the dead with the help of his friends Adam, Ronan and Noah, the members of the books title The Raven Boys.

This book is full of twists and turns, all of them based in the supernatural and the mystery surrounding the ley line in their town of Henrietta and it's a gripping journey that you slip through without really realising how quickly the chapters are flying by. It is also helped by the sheer range of characters within and their different personalities. I loved Gansey who is seen as others as being the ultimate privelleged rich boy with his whole future ahead of him but instead he is the father figure to his friends, their rock and the one who has everyone's backs. In return they give him unquestioning loyalty and support him in his strange search for a dead Welsh king of whom they otherwise would not have known.

I also loved the character of Adam, the obligatory scholarship kid who has struggled his whole life to attend the school which will give him the opportunity to escape his lot in a small town life and run from his abusive father who beats him badly. I found it nice that despite the author moving immediately to bring Blue and Gansey together she allows a relationship to develop between Blue and Adam which leaves us wondering just how if Blue's true love is Gansey this will leave Adam feeling as the series moves on.

For me though one of the most intriguing characters was Ronan, the bad boy of the group, the one who is struggling to remain in school due to non attendance and bad grades who is at odds with his family. It is clear Ronan has just lost his father and is struggling to come to terms with this and it is clear that we have not fully uncovered the secrets in his story and there is going to be lots more to explore as the series progresses through the remaining 3 novels. I especially loved that Ronan, whilst often sullen and withdrawn is the one who ultimately stands up for Adam and helps him escape the abuse he is suffering at home.

All in all this novel really was hugely enjoyable, the ending did leave me with lots of questions about why characters made the decisions they did. The last sentence left me thinking if I'd just totally missed a page as it literally leaves you hanging on a sentence which is going to take lots of explaining but I'm sure is linked to the title of the second book in the series. I am definitely excited to dive into book 2, The Dream Thieves and would give this one a 4 out of 5 stars.

God, yes, this was so good! 
When I read this the first time, I had this idea that the story was “slow” but it worked in its favor. And now, as a more experienced reader if you will, I have figured out that that is only half true.
What is true is the fact that the book (and really, the series as a whole) is not as action-packed or fast-paced in the same way a lot of other YA fantasy is (think Throne of Glass, Heroes of Olympus, Shadowhunter Chronicles, etc.), but it's not slow. Tons of things happen, and the pacing is simply perfect. It works incredibly well for this type of mystery. I love how the reveals always feel earned because of all the foreshadowing. It's just so good!
Sigh. Moving on to the next as quickly as possible omg. 

The Raven Boys is a low fantasy young adult novel about four private schoolboys in Virginia and Blue, the psychic's daughter. I have heard about this series from probably everyone I know who reads and from half of the booktube community I follow. I decided to pick it up after being recommended it so many times over the years because I felt I needed to know finally if it was exactly as good as everyone said it was or if I'd find another over hyped YA novel.

And as with the trend this year, I immensely enjoyed the book. We begin focusing on Blue, the daughter of the local psychic in Henrietta, as she goes on the annual trip to the local churchyard to record the names of everyone in the town who will die in the next twelve months. The novel goes on to follow her as she meets the Aglionby boys and discovers their search for the Welsh king.

I found the plot of the book to be intriguing, however slow to start. For the first half of the book I didn't know when things would begin to happen. While this wasn't a negative experience as vital the backstory and characterisation was done in this half it did feel slow. In fact, at one point in my status updates I lamented that one of the male characters felt surplus to requirement as he had rarely been involved in the plot so far. This was quickly corrected as the second half of the novel ramped up the pace. The characters are actually where I think the book excels. The book is in the third person perspective, which I prefer, and it spends time in all of the main character's heads but focuses mainly on three. Of these three, Adam and Gansey were my favourite characters. The setting felt equally real, and I have no faults with the book there. My only complaint was that the author regularly used flowery writing to describe various things or feelings throughout the book that made absolutely no sense.

All in all, a pleasant surprise of a book.

3.5 estrellas porque me llevo casi 250 páginas engancharme bien en la historia.

En si, la narración y la historia es buena, el problema más grande que tuve fue que las primeras 200 paginas fueron muy pesadas de leerlas.
Podría decir que en libro comenzó a cobrar sentido, para mí, una vez que blue comienza a juntarse con los chicos del cuervo. Pero al fin y al cabo fue una lectura que disfrute bastante, no puedo decir que es de mi favorite tho.
Y ame a los personajes, nada más que decir

I did not enjoy this book as much as Scorpio Races. The premise was very intriguing, but I didn't get as attached to the characters. However, the lower rating is due almost entirely to the ending. It felt rushed and half-assed. After taking nearly half the book to set up the story, when you finally get to the climax, Stiefvater really glosses over everything with a “then a lot happened. . . .” It's very unsatisfying to not have an answer to the mystery at the heart of the novel. I can only imagine this is due to a planned sequel, because why else would you end the book on the sentence she chose? Why else wouldn't you reveal the answer to the mystery, or fill in the gaps between "oh, hey, we awoke the ley line" and “a lot happened after”?

I don't know exactly when it happened, but maybe nearly halfway through this, I started caring about these kids.

The story starts off slow, and I didn't really have much that made me want to keep reading it, other than that I had bought it and it's not very lengthy, but then at a certain point, maybe as soon as Blue starts interacting more with the Raven Boys and more of it gets explained, I had trouble putting it down.

I like the story, I like the potential of the story, and I quite like the characters, which are all things I honestly didn't quite expect when I first started reading it. I'm pleasantly surprised. And am now very interested in the rest of the series.