The Raven Boys

The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle #1)

Maggie Stiefvater

Pages: 408

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Format: Hardcover

Source: Library

Age Group: Young Adult

Date Published: September 18, 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.”
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.
From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

Not gonna lie... this book was weird. But, so was The Unbecoming and you all know how much I loved that one. Moral of the story is that weirdness doesn't bug me as much as it bugs other people. Anyways, I found the weirdness endearing, and really captivating. I loved the boys and Blue and her family and all of it. I loved it. I wished I could have known more about Blue's family and about her school and work and whatnot, because I don't feel as though I ever really got to know her in that sense. (more on characters and such in a minute) Overall, this was an extremely captivating story.

The plot is nicely covered in the blurb above, and I'm feeling tired, lazy, and concerned about my English grade (the highest test score from the test we just took was a 60%....), so I'm just not really gonna get into it and head straight into my feels for the characters. Let's start with our heroine, Blue. She's witty, strong, independent and has a crazy fashion sense. Sounds kind of like a trend in YA fiction right now, yeah? But, I liked it in her, since no one really made a big deal out of the way she was. They just accepted her and all her eccentricities, and I definitely enjoyed that. She also made her own clothes, which always equals awesome. As for the boys, I gotta say either Ronan (fiery, Irish, and a brilliant fighter) or Gansey (rich, smart, goes by only last name- automatically attractive) were my faves. But, all the characters made me laugh out loud CONSTANTLY. I love this whole witty thing that authors are doing now (think Unspoken kind of humor), because it makes books so much more enjoyable for admittedly sarcastic people such as myself. The women who lived in Blue's house were definitely the funniest though. They were so odd (they were all psychics...) and they'd just say the strangest things all the time. I loved it.

That cover is freaking perfection if I do say so myself.

Despite an odd lack of information regarding the home and school lives of our characters, I highly enjoyed this book. The characters were brilliantly written, the story was incredibly unique, and I love prep school boys. So, I'm thinking this is one of my new favorites and it's getting a 5 stache rating.