Larkin's Book Bloggers

Let’s just start this review off by saying I’m a HUGE Maggie Stiefvater fan.  Really.  HUGE.  And here’s what I love about Maggie’s books – they are all original, beautifully written, have great characters, and the plot never sounds like anything I’ve ever heard before.  Lament, Ballad, the Shiver trilogy, Scorpio Races – all amazing, all different – I mean, wild, sea horses that viciously attack?  Enough said.  So when I got my hands on an ARC of The Raven Boys, I couldn’t wait to see what Maggie had created for us now.

“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.

I don’t even know where to begin, or how to describe this novel.  With Maggie’s books, I always lose myself in her writing – it’s her vivid descriptions, the way she uses words, her world building, her characters that you just latch onto and want to know more about – it’s really everything.  And a new element for me while reading Stiefvater, creepiness.  Yup – this book definitely had it.  There were some truly magical and eerie scenes – from the discovery of the car in the forest, to the confrontation with Noah, to Blue’s interactions with her mysterious Aunt Neeve.  You will love Gansey, and you will love Blue.  And this is book one of a series – so be warned, you will want the next installment immediately.

Maggie Stiefvater and her Raven Boys Tour happened to stop at UCONN, close to my home.  Maggie told us some great stories and then signed some books!  And I had her sign an extra one for a lucky reader…enter below and good luck!  The giveaway starts at midnight and ends on October 12th!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2012 at 1:15 pm and is filed under Fiction - Fantasy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.