Bookreview: The Raven boys

Aren’t books wonderful beings that we have to protect no matter what? I mean they’re always there however they also cause a lot of pain. Looking at you J.K. Rowling. How dare you, you murderer. Anyway today we’re going to talk about The Raven boys written by Maggie Stiefvater!

“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.”

The Raven boys follows the story of Blue Sargent, daughter of a clairvoyant. Blue herself doesn’t have any clairvoyant abilities but she has something that helps her mom and her clairvoyant aunts: Blue makes magic stronger and visions clearer. Because of that every year on St. Mark’s Eve the entire family goes to the graveyard to keep track of the persons who will die. That’s the day when blue sees the first dead person and that is not a good sign. Blue has always been warned that she will cause her true love to die and that might be the reason why she could see the dead person who introduced himself as Gansey. Things are about to change drastically.

The book also follows the story of the not-yet-dead Gansey who is a student at the private boys school Aglionby. Students from Aglionby are also known as Ravenboys due the raven school emblem. Gansey has a goal: to find evidence of magic and that has him on a quest for the legendary tomb of Glendower together with his friends Ronan, Adam and Noah. All of the guys have their own stories but the quest is something that they share. And then Blue comes in the picture.

Opinion time

Lets start with the cover. I really love the cover. It has this mystique feeling and I love the way the colours are used. Beside that cover with kind of spiritual animals on them have always drawn my attention.

Now the characters. They’re all very different from each other and most important they’re all very human. We have Blue the strong  girl. She knows what she wants and is not afraid to open up her mouth. Secondly we have Gansey, Gansey is the glue of the group. He’s the mother type. He cares a lot about his friends. He’s very rich and very charming. At the same time he’s the crazy explorer. He’s very driven and works hard for what he wants to achieve.  Up next is Adam. My god I really feel sorry for Adam. Unlike the other Raven boys Adam is not from a rich family. He’s got it tough at home, but he wants to have his life in his own hands. He wants to do it by himself which lead to very stupid mistakes. Adam is a little bit more quiet and more a listener type Next is Ronan the badboy. Ronan is all dark and mysterious. He’s a very tough guy, who boxes and stuff but at the same time Ronan is the one taking care of a baby bird and it’s so freaking cute. Last but not least we have precious Noah. I think he’s my favourite. Noah is the shy guy, the one who has a deep secret and the one who is kinda in the background.

I really liked the writing style. There’s one side note that might be important: I read the Dutch version. The book started off a little slow. But it was nice to get to know Blue calmly and slowly get introduced to the boys. Maggie Stiefvater put a lot of effort in the characters and the story is something  I’ve never read before. It’s very adventurous, there’s just enough fantasy & there are many plot twists! Like I said before Blue and Gansey aren’t the only ones with a story. Every single Ravenboy has one and I love to read about more than one/two persons.

I am really looking forward to read the next book! I hope you guys liked this review. This was my very first review so please tips and pointing out stuff is very useful! Also comment your thoughts on the book as I would love to read them!

Love,
Sharon