Recent Reading: The Raven Boys

Okay, I must admit, I didn’t love this book as much as THE SCORPIO RACES.

But I still loved it.

And I’m very pleased that the ending is not a cliffhanger, which I was afraid it might be. Sure, there’re important unresolved questions, but this book does come to what I think is a satisfying ending point.

The characters are just wonderful — not just the main characters, but definitely the secondary characters as well. Blue is a truly excellent protagonist, but she wouldn’t be so appealing if she didn’t have her whole weird family to play off. I love her mother and Persephone and Calla. I didn’t quite see that whole thing coming with Neeve, but on the other hand I wasn’t very surprised by it, either. It was very satisfying to see Neeve outmaneuvered by the rest of them!

I loved the raven boys, too. Especially Adam. And Gansey, and the way they really, really don’t understand each other, and the way that clash of principals plays out. I love Ronin, too, poor guy; so angry and damaged. And despite the tricky consequences, I’m glad he stepped in for Adam there toward the end. I hope things work out for him, and I am dying to know what in the world the truth is about his father’s death.

Noah was always more of a cipher, but of course Maggie Stiefvater handled him that was on purpose, and it worked beautifully.

Of course the viewpoint was much more scattered in THE RAVEN BOYS than in THE SCORPIO RACES. In this book we get not only Blue as a pov protagonist, but also Adam and Gansey and Barrington, though thankfully not very often for that last, since Barrington is not a very appealing guy.

The plot flows beautifully, from an excellent prologue that begins: Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told that she would kill her true love and ends “You’re Maura’s daughter,” Neeve said, and before Blue could answer, she added, “This is the year you’ll fall in love.”

How about that for establishing tension right from the beginnings?

Everyone in Blue’s family (except Blue herself) is a psychic, you see. I love the way Stiefvater handles this, by the way; she makes it seem crazy-weird and yet almost normal at the same time. And the we get this strange situation where we can’t tell how the heck this true-love stuff is supposed to work out: Should we be worried most about Gansey? Or about Adam? Or both, even? And yet there isn’t exactly a love triangle, either, and avoiding triangleness must have taken some adroit handling because the potential for major trianglehood is all over this situation. I’m glad Stiefvater avoided it, because I do find triangles tiresome, though continuing to sidestep the potential for triangleness (if she does continue to avoid it in the next book) looks it may take even fancier footwork.

So, anyway, I’m definitely right there for the next book. Surely it’s due out this year sometime? And I think I will go back and look for Stiefvater’s paranormal series now, because she is just an amazing writer and at this point I am ready to grab up anything she writes.