Blue Lily, Lily Blue {An e-ARC Review}

Title: Blue Lily, Lily Blue
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Series: The Raven Cycle #3
Publisher: Scholastic
Publication Date: October 21, 2014
Source: NetGalley
Format: eArc
Rating: 5 stars

There is danger in dreaming. But there is even more danger in waking up.

Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs.

The trick with found things though, is how easily they can be lost.

Friends can betray.
Mothers can disappear.
Visions can mislead.
Certainties can unravel.

 

I am SO grateful that NetGalley exists and that Scholastic was awesome enough to grant me access to an e-arc of this. For real, I was SO excited that I was rereading  The Raven Boys & The Dream Thieves. For the third and second time, respectively. I love this series... I feel so connected to these characters, which is a feat considering I have VERY little in common with any of them. Seriously.

So, where to begin. First, if you haven't read TRB or TDT, obviously I highly recommend doing so. *If* for some odd, crazy reason you don't want to and you want to start BLLB, then go to Recaptains to read Maggie's recaps of her own stories (TRB & TDT).

Maggie Stiefvater creates a realistic world with impossible scenarios. But nothing is impossible. But it's still believable, which is really an accomplished feat, let's be honest. I've loved watching (well, reading) this story as it unfolds and seeing how the characters develop, change, and grow as it goes along.

I'm not going to say ANYTHING about ANYTHING, so as not to spoil it for ANYONE. Just know that you get more of your Raven Boys, more Blue, more of 300 Fox Way, more Mr. Gray, more... EVERYTHING. It's interesting how it mimics real life. No matter what happens - death, disappearance, changes - life goes on. So does this story. At the end of TDT Maura vanishes. But, true to reality, life for everyone goes on. The mundane, the good, the bad; no matter how irrelevant it seems in light of everything that is and has happened, life continues as the Earth makes its way around the sun.

Again, no spoilers, so this is very NON-specific... regarding every little thing. I want to go on and on about details, specifics, what happens to people, to Cabeswater... the twists Maggie throws in. Oh! But, I won't. I hate spoilers, as do most people. And at the risk of saying something that SOMEONE views as one, I'll just play it safe and not mention a single solitary thing. :)

Super excited for this baby to be on my shelf next to the first two. It's on pre-order, so it will come to my house in the next monthish. Woo-hoo!

The Raven Cycle Re-Readathon {AKA: My Apparent Obsession}

So I totally wanted to participate in this (re)Read-a-thon. Which, I guess, technically... I did. I just already finished BOTH books. Which, given my history of reading this past year, is really quite shocking that I ALREADY finished them. I do love my Raven Boys, tho, so being around them, and Blue... man. I missed them. I did not, however, miss Kavinsky.

I mostly listened to them this time around. I had a lot of stuff to do, stuff that didn't require a lot of thought (cleaning, putting crafts together, etc). This way, I could get reading in *and* work at the same time. I don't typically do audio books, as I tend to lose focus quite easily. But, apparently, using them to REread something is a go for me. :)

While I enjoyed listening to Will Patton read them, there was only one thing that bugged me. Kavinsky. Now I realize that Kavinsky is NOT a likeable character, and I didn't like him the first go around either. But the voice that Mr. Patton gave him... oh, man, it made my skin crawl. So it was either very effective, or poorly done. I'm going to say effective. But... yeah.

Basically I feel the same about the series as I did when I started it the first time. I LOVE IT. I've now read The Raven Boys three times. (The first time, the second time when The Dream Thieves was about to come out, and, well, now). And I've read The Dream Thieves twice. There were a lot of things that I had forgotten. Nothing major major, just a few details. Or like the how something happened. For instance, I knew there was a death, but I couldn't remember HOW. And then, when I was reading, I was like "DUH".

Anywho. I'm really excited because NetGalley is awesome. Well, I guess it would Scholastic moreso than NetGalley, since they are the ones who did the actual approving of me to read BLLB early. Since I finished The Dream Thieves yesterday morning, I started BLLB last nite. I didn't get all that far, but I'm super excited. I've already pre-ordered (I did that the moment it was announced that it was possible), and I only torture myself more by reading it early since then I'll have to wait even longer to read the fourth... but, I'm a glutton for punishment. ;)

Don't these look amazing next to one another? 

Happy reading,
B

The Dream Thieves: A Review

The second installment in the all-new series from the masterful, #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater!

Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after....

 

What feels like many moons ago, the lovely Maggie Stiefvater posted that you could pre-order a copy from The Fountain Bookstore (and it would come signed). So I did. Then I heard NetGalley had a copy, so I had to go request one. I may or may not have squealed and jumped up and down when I got the email I was approved (totally did). I nearly dropped everything to read it, but then I figured feeding my children *might* be a little more important. Might be. ;)

Giving up sleep, though, I plunged in and swam through amazing writing and interesting plot twists that I have come to associate with Stiefvater. Needless to say I'm screwed, though - I ended this one already wanting the third (and the fourth) book. But I can't rush dear Maggie, so I'll just have to (im)patiently wait. In other words, it was a great follow up to The Raven Boys (review).

I was going to summarize The Raven Boys for you, and actually I did. Then I deleted it. In her usual awesomeness, Maggie offered to do a recap for the Recaptains website. It can be found here. If you have read TRB and want to have a refresher before you read The Dream Thieves, or even if you have read both of them and want a refresher anyway, I strongly urge you to take a few minutes of your time and read the recap. She points out all the things you need to know before continuing on the journey.

If you don't want to go there, to quickly point out a few things: Adam and Blue have a "thing" going, Gansey is still on his search for Glendower - the lost Welsh King, Adam made a sacrifice to be Cabeswater's eyes and ears, and we discovered that Ronan takes things out of his dreams (such as his raven, Chainsaw).

All of that out of the way, on to the book at hand. :)

I was super excited to be around them all again - Blue, Gansey, Adam, Ronan, Noah... it was like being reunited with long lost friends. But, things are changing with Adam since the sacrifice he made at the end of book one. His friends are watching him carefully, noting the anger, the attitude differences. No one really knows what the sacrifice means, exactly, so they are left wondering, waiting to see what will happen to their Adam. He and Blue are teetering on the edge of something, and only time will tell which way their relationship will go.

Gansey... oh, Gansey. The focus isn't as much on him in this book, but he's definitely still the leader, the glue that holds the group together. He tries to save them all and it pains him when he can't, or they choose not to let him.

This book is mainly about Ronan, though. Ronan and his secrets, his family's secrets. We find out in TRB that he can take things out of dreams - such as Chainsaw. We get to experience some of those dreams, or nightmares, really, throughout the book. In doing so we learn so much about Ronan and we definitely get to see the Ronan that Gansey so desperately wants to save. 

I will be anxiously awaiting the next installment in the Raven Cycle. :)