All posts tagged Maggie Stiefvater

Blue Lily, Lily Blue

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment
Blue Lily Lily Blue cover

Blue Lily, Lily Blue is the third book in the fantastic Raven Cycle. I could just save you the time and tell you to read the entire series, but then this review would be really short, right?

Instead, I’m first going to warn you that this post contains spoilers for The Raven Boys and The Dream Thieves. If you haven’t read them yet, then don’t read on unless you want spoilers.

Okay, so now that I’ve got all the people who don’t mind spoilers, let’s move on. Blue’s mother is missing! This series is getting a little dangerous. So now the search is getting a little more desperate. In addition to looking for the Welsh king, they now have to find Blue’s mom. Fortunately, they’re probably both located in a magical cave.

In this book, we get to meet Gansey’s older friend Malory, along with a few other characters. Like the rest of the books in this series, the characters are great. I absolutely love how Stiefvater deals with the friend dynamics in this story. Blue and Adam were once an item, but over time, she and Gansey start having feelings for each other. That whole transition phase takes a bit of an adjustment, but I think in real life you’d see that too. We have another couple with a developing relationship in this book, but I’m not giving away spoilers… and this series is a very slow burn in the romance department. But if you’re Blue, do you blame her? If she kisses her true love, he’s going to die!

They’re getting closer to graduation, and some of them have to start worrying about their futures. Blue and Adam have to start worrying, in particular. Blue realizes that her family just doesn’t have the finances for her to go to any school that she’s interested in, and Adam has to worry about finances now. That’s going to cause problems. Adam’s father is a jerk too… more problems.

And then we have another villain, of course.

I don’t want to give out any spoilers, but I will say that, even though I borrowed most of the books from this series from the library, I bought The Raven King. I think it was because the library didn’t have it immediately available and I didn’t want to wait. And you’re going to want to finish this series too, because the book ends in a semi-significant cliffhanger. Blue Lily, Lily Blue does wrap up a lot of its issues, but more are coming. You’ll want to have the next book available if at all possible. At any rate, this is a great series and I wanted to continue reading straight through this one.

I have reviewed the earlier books in this series:

The Dream Thieves

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment
The Dream Thieves cover

2019 has been a pretty good reading year. One of the books I got to read this year was The Dream Thieves, the second book in The Raven Cycle. This book centers around Ronan. Before we continue, this book contains spoilers for The Raven Boys (link is to that review). So don’t read on if you haven’t read the first book and don’t want spoilers for it.

Okay, so now that we only have people that have read book 1 or are okay with spoilers, let’s continue. The Dream Thieves focuses on Ronan, whom we discovered can take things out of dreams. Being a dreamer can be dangerous, we find out in this book. A treacherous man is searching for him. Although they’re sometimes wild and uncontrollable, Ronan learns how to better harness his dream power in this book.

In addition to Ronan’s dreams, The Dream Thieves further unfolds the drama surrounding Blue and the true love she’ll kill when she kisses him. From the first book, we know who is destined to be Blue’s true love, although she’s with Adam. She won’t kiss him because she doesn’t want to kill him, but she doesn’t want to tell him about her curse either. There is a little bit of kissing in this book (not Blue and Adam though). Nobody dies from kissing yet. You’ll have to read on in this series.

Aaaah! How will this end? Fortunately, since the entire series is out, you don’t have to wait to find out. I loved this book and this series. These characters are great. The book is humorous. I wrote down more than two pages of quotes and reactions from this book in my book journal, including passages like:

Matthew Lynch was a golden, indiscriminate pit into which the world threw food.

The Dream Thieves, p. 170

This book makes you want to keep reading more. Will Blue realize who her true love is? How will that work out? Will Ronan be safe? And they’re still looking for the Welsh king… will Gansey find him and get his wish?

Oh, and you’ll be glad you don’t have to wait another year to read the next book. You might want to be prepared to read that right after this one.

If you liked The Raven Boys, then I highly recommend you continue on with The Dream Thieves. Especially if you like Ronan (but who doesn’t like them all?). It has magic, romantic drama, family drama, killers with a soft side to them, rich private school drama, and more.

My review of the first book in the series, The Raven Boys, is available here.

Call Down the Hawk

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment
Call Down the Hawk cover

Happy Thanksgiving! One of the books I’m thankful I had the chance to read this month was Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater. It is a new series that takes place after The Raven Boys tetralogy. You don’t need to read that series first, but you’ll probably enjoy this new series more if you read that one first.

Ronan Lynch, as you might recall, has the ability to take things from his dreams. They’re not always things that make sense in real life: as an example, electronics that don’t need to be plugged in. When he was a little boy, he dreamed up a baby brother for himself. His own mother was dreamed up, by his father, who was also a dreamer.

It turns out, there are several dreamers out there. There’s also a group of people that are out there killing dreamers. The hunters think they are saving the world by killing these dreamers.

We meet more of these characters that can dream in this book. We also meet the people that are hunting down the dreamers. At first, the book is disjointed in a way, with the dreamers and the hunted living separate lives, but at the end of the book, they find their way to each other. And Ronan has to save himself — and his family — from these killers.

While in the same universe, Call Down the Hawk is different from The Raven Boys. Adam, Gansey, and Blue play very small roles in this book (even though Adam and Ronan are still together). The book seems to be slightly less YA. It’s still good, but it’s different. There’s more pieces to puzzle together in this series. At the end of this book, there are still unanswered questions (which you’ll need to read the second book in the series to find the answers to).

Overall, I recommend Call Down the Hawk, especially if you liked The Raven Boys. There were parts of this book where I was rolling with laughter. Plus the Lynch Brothers are great. I’m thankful that I finally got around to reading Maggie Stiefvater’s books, including this one, this year.

The Raven Boys

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments
The Raven Boys cover

I finally got around to reading The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater! You know those authors that every week (usually right around Tuesday) you get a reminder that you have to read one of their books? Well, Maggie Stiefvater was one of them, and The Raven Boys is the book that everybody associates with her. So when I found out that there was a Raven Cycle readalong, I had to get involved. I wasn’t disappointed.

Blue is a non-clairvoyant girl in a family of clairvoyants. She does have a gift for making it easier for the other ladies in her family to be able to see into the spirit world more strongly. Her family isn’t wealthy, and she works a couple of jobs to help out.

She’s also been told that the first boy she falls in love with and kisses will die.

Also in her town is one of those stuffy-stuck up private schools for rich boys. The one in her town is Aglionby Academy. The boys absolutely rankle her when she has to help them at the restaurant where she works. So when a boy shows up and asks if she’d go talk to a friend of his (both from the Academy) she gets really upset. They don’t really hit it off on the right foot.

Until they realize that she actually has something in common with this particular group of boys. They’re in the process of going on this supernatural treasure hunt.

They’re not the only people going on this treasure hunt. And the other person searching doesn’t want to play nice. You’ll just have to read the book to find out more.

The Raven Boys is a great friendship book. Despite being from Aglionby, these particular boys aren’t stuck up or snobby. They allow her into their group, even though she’s neither a boy nor wealthy. The four boys themselves care about each other too. Additionally, these boys aren’t just caricatures… they all have little quirks, things they like, etc. that make them seem like real people.

At the end of book one, you don’t find out who Blue is going to kiss or who’s going to die, but you’ll want to read the next book to find out anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

Conclusion: read the book. Especially if you’re into the paranormal, great friendships, and cool settings with fairly small towns set near the forest. I’m glad I finally got the chance to read it.