Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: The Raven Boys
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Series: The Raven Cycle
Publication Date: September 2012
Website: The Raven Boys
Read: November 2012
Rating: 5 stars



Initial reaction to reading the last page:
"Whoa." Seriously. I was upset... but not in a bad way. That was it? It's over? No more Blue, no more Gansey, no more Adam, Ronan, or Noah? For nearly an entire year?

I love when an author makes me feel that way. Like my best friends have left me (which happened to me earlier this year, but at least I still get to talk to her daily... granted, I could re-read The Raven Boys, but it won't be quite the same...).

Here's the scoop from Goodreads:

“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.

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This does not, and I repeat does not, do this story justice. In the sense that it tells you nothing yet it tells you just enough to pick it up. Well, the author alone did it for me (I bought it before I even read the jacket flap or the Goodreads or Amazon summary), but the synopsis clenched it. 

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"Today, Blue thought, is the day I stop listening to the future and start living it instead."

~ 

Why did I love this?  So many reasons, really. 

I was sucked into this world, from the very first page. I wanted to be sitting on the stone wall with Blue and Neeve, trying to keep my own hands warm, watching the future dead walk the corpse road.

The characters felt real to me, I felt like I knew them. Moreover, I wanted to know them, to hang out with them. They were human - flawed and imperfect in all their glory. I want to continue knowing them. I felt deeply when things happened to them, good and bad. I was excited for Gansey, shaken for Adam, impressed with Ronan, sad for Noah. I want to say so much more about The Boys, but I am trying really hard to not have spoilers here. :)

I could envision nearly everything, every action, every setting, and it felt as if I was there with them, experiencing the search, the excitement. I could smell the gasoline emanating from The Pig, feel the shudder when it would die. I felt the fear, the intensity, during certain exchanges. There were laugh-out-loud lines (seriously, my dog thought I was nuts sitting in a room, alone, with the tv off, reading, and laughing... so much so she came over to see what was up... she even licked the book... maybe she wanted a taste of the laughter as well) and there were profound lines.

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"There was nothing particularly intimate about the way they sat, but something about the scene made Gansey feel strange, like he'd heard an unpleasant statement and later forgotten everything about the words but the way they had made him feel."

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"You know how you sometimes don't remember everything right? Ronan says that memories are like dreams. You never remember how you got to the front of the classroom with no clothes on."

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I was sad when it ended. The adventure was over (for now), and reality bites.