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The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1)

Maggie Stiefvater

Start date: April 1, 2014

Finish date: April 30, 2014

Discussion: The Raven Boys

Why we're reading this: Thanks everyone for voting!! The Raven Boys will be our April book of the month!
[close] Thanks everyone for voting!! The Raven Boys will be our April book of the month!

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The Raven Boys

FINISHED!
By Octavia · 11 posts · 36 views

last updated May 04, 2014 05:14PM

Chapter 48
By Octavia · 1 post · 11 views

last updated Apr 23, 2014 07:47PM

What Members Thought

Sep 01, 2013 Julie rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: bookclub-reads, audio, outdo-yourself-challenge-2013

I listened to the audio version of this book, thanks to the Sync summer audio pairings. Unfortunately, this audiobook was awful. I am going to have to remember the narrator's name (Will Patton) because I will not listen to anything else he narrates. Let me tell you why:

*He whispered most of the time. WHISPERED. Meaning, you can barely understand what he is saying when he decides that whispering is good idea (seriously, the producers of this audiobook should have told him how stupid that idea was I listened to the audio version of this book, thanks to the Sync summer audio pairings. Unfortunately, this audiobook was awful. I am going to have to remember the narrator's name (Will Patton) because I will not listen to anything else he narrates. Let me tell you why:

*He whispered most of the time. WHISPERED. Meaning, you can barely understand what he is saying when he decides that whispering is good idea (seriously, the producers of this audiobook should have told him how stupid that idea was).
*When he wasn't whispering, he was using the same voice for all the male characters. So, it became really difficult to tell which male character was speaking, especially in conversations.
*He was just dull and emotionless. I'm told there were some silly conversations, some things spoken jokingly. Well, that never came across. I never connected with the characters, but I suppose it is hard to connect emotionally when you do not experience their emotions properly.
So what does my brain do when the thing listening I'm listening to is not interesting? It tunes it out. I had to rewind to try to get the gist, but honestly I know I missed a lot of what went on. I got to the point where I just didn't care about the story anymore. Yea, that bad.

I do want to add that I've "read" four other Maggie Stiefvater books on audio and enjoyed them. Yes her work is generally slower paced than I prefer, but the previous books I read had interesting things take place and I liked the characters. So this book was particularly disappointing for me.

The premise was really intriguing to me (a girl destined to kill her true love with a kiss? so cool!). I did read other reviews and many said the book starts out slow and then takes off, so I was patient with the slowness of the narration at first. But it never took off and I got more frustrated with it as I kept listening, or tuning it out.

Some of the parts that I did pay attention for were pretty good. For example, I did like Gansey and thought his search for the ley lines was interesting. He is very much a "on a quest" or "searching for the grail" type of character, but he was cool too. Noah's story line - wow now that was a pretty exciting reveal in the book. Probably my favorite part of this story.

However, the ending was just strange. I actually listened to the last group of chapters several times and really tried to focus in case I missed something. But no, each time I had a "WTF" moment. It just didn't make sense to me the way that whole shebang went down. It was a let down since the book seemed to be building to some major event, but that event just didn't happen. So the 2 star review isn't just because the audio was terrible, but also because I found the ending disappointing. ...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Stormy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2014, passes-bechdel-test, young-adult, owned, genre-paranormal

I always approach Maggie Stiefvater’s books with a bit of hesitation. People laud her creativity and her prose and while I see it, I also get the feeling I don’t quite get it like most other people do. That’s the experience I’ve had with The Scorpio Races(which I loved), and Shiver(which I thought was painfully boring). However, I knew I couldn’t stay away from The Raven Boys, not after I learned it incorporated Latin and Welsh kings, two interest of mine(though sometimes in my past Latin hasn’t I always approach Maggie Stiefvater’s books with a bit of hesitation. People laud her creativity and her prose and while I see it, I also get the feeling I don’t quite get it like most other people do. That’s the experience I’ve had with The Scorpio Races(which I loved), and Shiver(which I thought was painfully boring). However, I knew I couldn’t stay away from The Raven Boys, not after I learned it incorporated Latin and Welsh kings, two interest of mine(though sometimes in my past Latin hasn’t been as much of an interest as a threat to my GPA). I mean, the main character is named Blue, after all, and there’s all these preppy school boys with their bromances and legends. I knew I’d be reading The Raven Boys at some point.

The thing I’ve learned about Stiefvater’s books is that they always start slow, and The Raven Boys was no exceptions The first forty or so pages were only vaguely interesting as I waited for the story to start. But once we delved a bit more into the group of the Raven boys and as soon as Blue inserted herself into the group, I became enamored with their quest almost as much as Gansey is. There’s a very timeless and lyrical substance to Stiefvater’s writing. It’s clear it takes place in the present day, but you think you could just remove the cell phones and the cars and you could easily see the story taking place two hundred years ago or three hundred years into the future. It’s the sense that some stories just have where you can get lost in them, with their sticky words and lingering images. The Raven Boys is one of those stories you can’t quite shake off so easily.

The Raven Boys has an ensemble cast, and while I think that made it feel easier to read than some of Stiefvater’s other works, it also took me a bit to find the rhythm of the story. There’s Blue, the physic’s daughter with no powers of her own except to be an amplifier to paranormal powers, who I thought was the main character judging by the description but soon becomes just one of the group. Then there’s Gansey, the ringleader of the group and the own who wants to search for the Welsh king in the first place; Adam, the scholarship student; Ronan, the tortured soul, and Noah, the roommate who tends to fade into the background.

Over the course of The Raven Boys we spend some time with each of these characters, though The Raven Boys in particular seems to be Adam’s story. Over the course of the book, the main conflict of searching for the Welsh king is central, but each of the boys has their own lives and problems as subplots as well. I have to give props to how well Stiefvater weaves it all together–that’s a lot of threads to hold in book one of a series.

Despite my adoration thus far, I have to admit that something in The Raven Boys didn’t quite take hold in my heart like I had hoped, and I’m not sure what exactly that was. There’s just a certain quality that feels. . . missing, like this story is so thin and ethereal it could just float away from me. I mean in the end, it DID linger in my mind, but until I finished I felt I could abandon the story at any time and go along my day. Perhaps what I’m trying to say is that this story never felt grounded, like something wasn’t quite there, which is basically the opposite of how I felt about Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races. Perhaps it’s unfair of me to compare the two, but I loved The Scorpio Races so much that it’s impossible to help my brain from going there.

This review originally appeared on Book.Blog.Bake. ...more

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Jul 18, 2013 Jess at Such a Novel Idea rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2014-reads

Before I start the actual book review, I need to talk about how amazing the covers on this series are. When I bought this book, I just saw the raven. It wasn’t until later that I would see the incredibly detailed work that is featured on these books. They are quite literally works of art. Ironically, the third book’s cover is out this week, so I have yet another to drool over.

On to the review.

This book has a fascinatingly unique and fresh perspective on YA paranormal. We’ve got a girl who is des ...more

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Feb 07, 2015 Stormy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned, read-in-2015

Jun 29, 2017 Jess at Such a Novel Idea rated it really liked it · review of another edition

3 likes · Like

Apr 01, 2014 Shannon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-discuss-repeat, read-in-2014

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