ARC Review: The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Stiefvater

My brain, my heart and my soul isn't fully functioning a few minutes before I wrote this review. I am THAT affected by this book.

Title: The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Stiefvater
Release Date: September 17th 2013
Published by: Scholastic Press
Source: Publisher (Thanks Ms. Joyce!)
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Summary:

Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same.

Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life.

Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after...

I don't really know where to start, but this book has just made me feel so much emotion that I am not sure what to discuss, what to say, and what to feel. All I know is this, The Dream Thieves is very, very good.

After reading The Raven Boys, I have gotten used to the very slow pacing of the story, and instead I enjoyed my time reading as I discover more about the relationships and the bonds that bind each Aglionby boy to the other. Ronan has been dreaming of things, and has discovered that he can take things out of them. Gansey is still hell bent on his quest to find Glendower, Adam is slowly suffocating in the life he's leading, and Noah is flickering in and out of their lives. The prophecy surrounding Blue's doomed love life is slowly becoming a real obstacle as she struggles to figure out her feelings for at least two Aglionby boys, and lives begin to unravel in this lovely, amazing sequel.

Oh Ronan, Ronan, Ronan. How I loved you in this book. See, if you feel that The Raven Boys is (still) lacking of Ronan, then you will get so much more of him in this book to the point that you think you might just get sick of him, but you wouldn't. I just loved reading about him, the things he could dream of, the nightmares, the struggle with his own pain, anguish and longing for his family while figuring out just what he really is and what he could do. My feelings are as intense for Gansey, who was as delightful as he was in the first book and more. You get a more complete picture of the faces he keeps as Dick, the child from a wealthy, influential family, to the Gansey who was Ronan's rock and Adam's friend, the boy who only feels free when he's in Henrietta, to the boy who was slowly but surely feeling emotions he shouldn't. And Adam, which I am slowly distancing myself from. Maybe it's because of the changes he has undergone in this book, the feelings he had to deal with and the acceptance of who he needs to become. He's not unlikable, but I find myself just pitying him most of the time. And no one should forget Noah, who appeared so little in this book but is still as enjoyable to read as the other three.

I loved how the Gray Man inserted himself in Henrietta and the chaotic lives of the boys, Blue and her quirky family so easily. A man who was supposed to be invisible, unnoticeable and full of mystery. He's a character that I find very interesting, a dangerous hit man who has a dark past of his own and ghosts he's running away from, but I can't seem to bring myself to dislike him. His unfazed attitude with Maura and her sisters' abilities, and his eventual feelings for her felt so unconventional and unexpected and delightful all at the same time. I can't say he's a bad guy though he's done horrible things.

The Dream Thieves moved in a much faster pace than The Raven Boys and along with the introduction of The Gray Man and Kavinsky, secrets and clues are a lot easier to come by in this story. There were major moments in the book that will make it faster for the reader to figure out what's going on and yet with some answers come more puzzles, more questions to add to the intrigue and allure of the story and you'll just find yourself neck deep in and you just push on and read and try to know more with each turn of a page. The Dream Thieves had everything I was asking for in the first book, and I appreciated the story more because of it. More intrigue, more tension, and most importantly, more romance. Blue's rocky relationship with Adam and her inevitable realization that Adam will not be the boy she'd like to kiss was something that made my heart clench in this sequel, more than Gansey's search for Glendower, or Ronan's longing for his mother. Because we all know what the prophecy says when it comes to Blue and her feelings for the boy she will kiss, and she knew now who she wants to kiss. And along with it comes the complicated ties of friendship, the magic, the future.

The Dream Thieves is such a fantastical follow-up to an already amazing first book! I can honestly say I've enjoyed reading this book much, much more. It's magical, intriguing and a bonafide page turner. Again, hats off to Maggie Stiefvater for crafting such a story that made me feel so much and give me such a big book hangover afterwards.

My favorite quote:

She felt bigger than her body. High as the stars. He leaned towards her - her heart spun again - and pressed his cheek against hers. His lips didn't touch her skin, but she felt his breath, hot and uneven, on her face. His fingers splayed on either side of her spine. Her lips were so close to his jaw that she felt his hint of stubble at the end of them. It was mint and memories and the past and the future and she felt as if she’d done this before and already she longed to do it again.

Oh help, she thought. Help, help, help.

He pulled away. He said, "And now we never speak of it again."

My rating:

Content (plot, story flow, character):

My heart began to cry out in pain and anguish from page 360 onwards. Oh, by the gods, it was agony from then on, when I think of Blue and Gansey and all the things that surround them.

Stunning: Worthy of a Goddess' Praise!

Book Cover:
Hello, Ronan!

ARC Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

My first Maggie Stiefvater book and I'm not sure how to put into words what I feel. I think she's one of the very few authors I've read that rendered me speechless.

Title: The Raven Boys (Raven Cycle #1) by Maggie Stiefvater
Pages: 408
Release Date: September 18th 2012
Published by: Scholastic Press
Source: Borrowed (Thanks Jena!)
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Summary:

“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.

Blue has quite a gift: she amplifies the powers of her clairvoyant mother and her psychic friends. The night of St. Mark's Eve was one Blue will never forget. She met Gansey or more appropriately, a manifestation of him, walking on the Corpse Road. Gansey is an Aglionby boy, and he is going to die soon. All her life, Blue has been told that she's destined to kill the person she'll love with a kiss, and that's why she's staying away from boys, especially those in Aglionby, the Raven boys. But soon enough, Blue's paths crossed with the real, breathing Gansey and she was swept along his lifelong desire to find what has been eluding him all his life: Glendower, who, according to tales will favor the one who wakes him up. Finding Glendower alone was difficult enough, now Blue finds herself in the middle of the complicated lives of these boys. But she knows one thing: she will not let Gansey die.

It's quite stressful to read this book. I mean it in a good way, because Maggie Stiefvater just has this knack for making the readers feel so much emotions coming from her story all at once, especially her characters. I had to stop quite a few times to catch my breath. Maggie Stiefvater took great time in developing each and every character in this book, giving them believable, and oftentimes very complicated, back stories. Maggie had a knack for laying bare a lot of things about her character and still leave room for guessing, for mystery. The depth of each and every one of them is one of the reasons why I held on reading. They all seem so broken, like a fundamental part of them was missing and only the search for Glendower will make them whole.

I was so absorbed in Gansey's search for something more, that something beyond having power and money, that something worthwhile, that reason why he was born the way he was, privileged. Ronan was, in all intents and purposes, broken beyond repair. The anger and the hatred he had appeared when his father died, that devil may care attitude, his penchant to challenge death every single chance he gets, his sarcasm. How did he become like that? These two characters are my favorites, so different but oddly meshing together. Adam's life was marred by violence, all his life he wanted to prove that he can be something better, that there's something big and positive to look forward to than letting his father hit him, that even though he's poor, his credentials from Aglionby will create an opportunity for him to be someone, to be like Gansey, maybe even more. And then the empty shell that was Noah, extremely shy, barely there. Each and every Raven Boy had something dark shadowing their pasts, and it felt like I was dipping my toes in a pool of extreme sadness, forlorn feelings each and every time a bit of their lives is revealed.

If you are the type of reader who easily gets bored, however, let me tell you now that the story took quite a while to coalesce. You will need a lot of patience before you see where the story is headed. There were parts that can easily confuse the readers and there seems to be a lot of elements that needed to be presented and discussed, the occult, psychics, magic and the individual lives of the characters that readers might find themselves lost a time or two. Hold on, dear readers, because after the struggle in the first half of the book and the lethargic pace of the story, there are things to look forward to. The way Maggie Stiefvater infused magic and intrigue into the story was very interesting. If you are expecting The Raven Boys to be an outright romantic book because of the prophecy surrounding Blue, then you might be in for a little bit of disappointment. The story goes beyond who Blue will kiss. It became a great frustration of mine that I couldn't seem to feel any chemistry between Blue and Gansey. There were momentarily glimpses of possibilities on romance, but even those were fleeting and unsure. And there are just a lot of elements in this book that are very uncertain and unclear that it might seem a torture to a lot of people to know what will and will not happen.

It was very tiring to cope with the feelings this novel conveys to the readers, but I wouldn't have it any other way. The magic in Maggie Stiefvater's writing is evident in her strong character building, with enough depth to entice the readers to get to know them more. There's a certain eloquence in her writing that you will just admire. The plot and its pace was a sweet torture, but it's one that will almost immediately make the reader have that driving need to find out what happens next. The Raven Boys is a very promising read, and with the first book, Maggie Stiefvater opens the story to a lot of possibilities.

Content (plot, story flow, character):
The only issue I really had with this book was the pacing. Everything else was perfect.

.5

Shining: Worthy of a Goddess' Love!

Book Cover:
Major clues in the cover!