How do you solve a problem like having to write a review about the last book in a great YA series? It feels impossible. Thank god I wasn’t doing Cannonball Read when the 7th Harry Potter book came out. My review would have just been a string of “I don’t knows” and “oh my gods” and “I can’t evens.” I don’t want to summarize the book because spoilers, so maybe I’ll just talk around the plot. Stiefvater took on the Herculean task of wrapping up […]
The head is too wise. The heart is all fire.
Spoiler warning: This is the fourth and concluding volume in The Raven Cycle. Readers starting with this book will get very little out of it, and while I am going to try to keep this review as spoiler free as possible, it probably will reveal some things about the previous three books in the series, which may ruin your enjoyment somewhat. It’s a great series, made even better when read as a whole. The Raven Boys is the place to start – go read it […]
Teach me how to say goodbye
The stakes are high in this one, for Blue especially, as her mother has gone missing. She’s underground, figuratively and literally, and no one can find her. SHIT IS GETTING REAL, Y’ALL. Not only is Blue dealing with the loss (misplacement?) of her mother, but her feelings for Gansey are getting harder to ignore. The two are playing with fire, really, growing closer and trying to hide it from their friends and themselves. They still can’t kiss, due to Blue’s prophecy that she’ll kill her true […]
I’m running out of time, I’m running and my time’s up
This is the second in Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle series, so will most definitely (probably?) contain spoilers for the first novel. At the end of The Raven Boys, we learn that Ronan, Gansey’s difficult, hot-tempered friend and (ware)house-mate, pulled his pet raven, Chainsaw, directly out of his dreams. (That was a weird sentence I just typed.) This novel picks up that thread and runs (and runs and runs) with it and IT IS DELIGHTFUL. And also sort of horrifying and worrisome. Ronan inherited a […]
They’ll tell the story of tonight
I’m rereading all of these since the final book comes out TOMORROW (EEEEEEK!). I liked this book much more this time through. I think it has something to do with having spent more time with the characters in the following two books. I’m finding myself more wrapped up in this series than I thought I would be and I’m not gonna lie…I’m a bit worried about how everything is going to shake out. (I’m also getting closer to being able to spell Stiefvater correctly without […]
Something different, something familiar, something magical.
With the fourth and final book in Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle coming in April, I finally gave myself permission to read the series I’ve heard so many good things about over the years. I must say, the first three books managed to exceed my expectations, and now I’m afraid I’m going to be very impatient for the remaining weeks until I get my grubby fingers on the last book. One of the less obvious advantages of waiting as long as I did to read this […]