Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

My Rating: ✯✯✯✯✯

Genre: YA, Urban Fantasy 

Publication Date: September 2012

“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."

Short Synopsis 

Blue Sargent is the only one in her household that can’t predict the future. Surrounded by a family who's talents are sought by the townsfolk of Henrietta for various reasons, Blue has had her future read more times than she can count. Every time, from every psychic she has ever met, her future prediction is always the same. She would kill her true love.  

But this story is not just about Blue. Its just as much about the group of four boys she becomes entangled with, their brotherly relationships with one another and their quest to discover the secrets of Henrietta. 

Review 

Gah! Im in love with this series. 

Maggie Stiefvater has created a beautiful and mysterious story thats so engaging I just cant get enough. 

Similar to her Wolves of Mercy Falls Series, The Raven Cycle is set in a real world America where there is just a bit of magic bellow the surface. This series is about a quest to uncover and understand that magic.

I felt like The Wolves of Mercy Falls series focussed so much on the romantic relationship between Grace and Sam, the remainder of the world is almost secondary. The Raven Cycle is all encompassing. The environment of Henrietta is like a character itself and is just as important as any of the people in the story. Blue and where her romantic interest could be is important but for reasons that have nothing to do with the usual Paranormal Romance. 

The characters in this series have so many layers and intricacies to their personality, I haven’t been able to decide if anyone is bad or good or if everyone is supposed to be somewhere in between. I feel so attached to them all and I love the psychic women that live in Blue’s house. The exchanges between them and their relationship is so entertaining. 

This book is so well worked and developed, it feels a lot more serious than anything by Maggie Stiefvater that I’ve read thus far, so much more mature in terms of writing style. 

I started the second instalment of the Raven Cycle Series (The Dream Thieves) straight after finishing this book but I’m going to have to wait until some undefined point in 2014 for the third yet unnamed book. 

Sigh. I have developed a need for this story.