The Raven Cycle Series Review

On this page, find all of my reviews of the four books in the Raven Cycle Series, by Maggie Stiefvater. Each review begins with a brief overview of the book's content (with a publisher-supplied blurb), before diving into my review. 

Maggie Stiefvater is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels Shiver, Linger, and Forever. Her novel The Scorpio Races was named a Michael L. Printz Honor Book by the American Library Association. She lives in Virginia. You can find her online at www.maggiestiefvater.com. 

*These reviews can also be found on my Goodreads page*

The Raven Boys

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 can see now why people raved about this series so much! The first book in the Raven Cycle series, The Raven Boys is an easily digestible yet incredible read. With fleshed out characters and an intriguing contemporary fantasy world, The Raven Boys is the beginning to what I will predict to be a great young adult series. 

I had never read this series before, and so I was really shocked when reading it that I hadn't! This is exactly the kind of fantasy I would have loved in high school—both a bit gritty but not overwhelmingly so, with characters that felt real enough to be relatable but also cool enough to inspire that sort of superfan type love, the younger version of myself would have snapped this up. As it is, I'm still very excited to see how this series progresses. The characters are in high school but have this sort of matureness to them that hints at how they might develop later on, and the story itself is very rich and lucrative that hints at all the plot twists to come.

Even as a first book, though, there are plenty of plot twists. It isn't just all introductory. There are some revelations about characters I didn't expect, and some progressions to the mystery that I was glad to see happen early on. It truly makes me curious as to what the rest of the series will be about, and makes me excited to get to reading them. 

The only thing for me was that there were some moments where I had no idea what was happening. I love Stiefvater's prose—her figurative language is gorgeous and gritty and dark and really thought provoking, effortlessly so. But there were other points in the book where I could tell that what was going on was important, but I couldn't always parse out why. Sometimes this added to the fantasy vibe of the book, but other times it just made me wish I knew what was happening! Not that I spent the entire book confused, and usually the next scene would have some type of refresher on what had just happened, but it made me wonder if I was the only one that felt that way, or if it was just me. Not enough to stop me from picking up the next book, though!

The series continues in The Dream Thieves. Continue reading for the review below! 

The Dream Thieves

Ronan Lynch has secrets. Some he keeps from others. Some he keeps from himself. One secret: Ronan can bring things out of his dreams. And sometimes, he's not the only one who wants those things. Ronan is one of the raven boys—a group of friends, practically brothers, searching for a dead king named Glendower, who they think is hidden somewhere in the hills by their elite private school, Aglionby Academy. The path to Glendower has long lived as an undercurrent beneath town. But now, like Ronan's secrets, it is beginning to rise to the surface—changing everything in its wake. 

The second book in the Raven Cycle series is just as whimsical and fantastical as the first. The Dream Thieves is about dreams and secrets, and we return to the world of Blue and Gansey, Adam and Ronan, in order to better set up what looks to be a book series about more than just fantasy. 

The second book is even more angsty than the first, as we really dive into the lives of Gansey, Adam and Ronan. This book is really an exploration in identity, and in teenagehood. Which is really compelling, I will say, in the sense that there is a great element of magical realism and fantasy combined with the search for the self, but the search for the self is grounded in enough realistic angst to make it relatable. I wish there was more Blue in this book, but I understand that these explorations into these characters was necessary for the story, and to understand the roles of each of the boys in the quest, and so I can only hope that their stories converge more with Blue's in the books to come. 

The Dream Thieves introduces a new character called the Gray Man, and I have to say that his character is moving to be one of my favorites. His chapters are appropriately creepy, told in such a way that makes one want to look over their shoulders, or across the street, to see if he is creeping around your town, too. I also love the aura of mystery he brings to the story. While we don't know what is always happening with Adam and Ronan and the rest, we know who they are; the same cannot be said of the Gray Man, which means that his mystery helps color the rest of the book. The Gray Man is a definite strength of The Dream Thieves. 

This book is only a four star read for me because sometimes, Stiefvater doesn't explain what is going on and it works well (like with the Gray Man), but other times she doesn't explain what's going on and it makes me more confused (such as with Adam's relationship to Cabeswater). Sometimes, I don't feel like we need explanations because it adds to the mystery, but sometimes there is too much mystery, and not enough answers or concrete explanations. This can make it sort of hard for me to describe what happened (to describe the plot at all, really), and hard for me to see what is coming next in the series other than, will they find the king? 

The series continues in Blue Lily, Lily Blue. Continue reading for the review below! 

Blue Lily, Lily Blue

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.

Maggie Stiefvater hits her stride in the third book in The Raven Cycle series, Blue Lily, Lily Blue. With the characters that we have grown to love, and with stakes that could not be higher, this book is the beginning of the end for this lovable cast, and it's every bit as anxiety-inducing and engaging as one could hope. 

Blue Lily, Lily Blue does exactly what I'd hoped—it combines the magic that we learned about in The Dream Thieves while also bringing all the characters back together. Blue didn't have as big a presence in the previous book, and so I was glad to see her more prominently in the forefront, along with the boys' magical abilities. It was nice to see all five of them working together again, especially since Stiefvater raised the stakes in this penultimate book in the series. It makes me deeply curious as to how their bonds will shift and change in the finale, for sure.

Stiefvater has been slowly introducing new peripheral characters, not quite revealing their purpose to the overall story, but also not giving readers any chance to doubt the importance of these new introductions. We see that with Colin Greenmantle and Piper in the story, as we did with The Gray Man in The Dream Thieves. What's awesome about these characters is the way Stiefvater writes their chapters in a creepily new voice. It reads almost older than YA for those chapters, which really heightens the stakes for the YA-aged characters. I love these chapters, and I love these characters, because their perspective and their presence just adds something to the story that makes it even more anxiety-inducing than it already is.

At the end of The Dream Thieves, I was uncertain about the path Blue Lily, Lily Blue would take to advance the series. I think this is mostly because The Dream Thieves felt like taking a detour for a moment, to dive deeper into the magic system, and so I was unsure how Stiefvater was going to get the series back to the focus of Gansey possibly dying and Blue's true love and Glendower. I gladly noted that she placed all of this right back into the forefront in Blue Lily, Lily Blue in such a way that these three original storylines were definitely compelling, but also in a way that highlighted the other characters' stakes in the situation and their interests as well. I'm curious to see how the story ends for Adam, for Mr. Gray, for Ronan, for Maura. Stiefvater is able to combine all of these driving forces into a novel that literally felt impossible to put down.

The series continues and concludes in The Raven King. Continue reading for the review below!

The Raven King

For years, Gansey has been on a quest to find a lost king. One by one, he's drawn others into this quest: Ronan, who steals from dreams; Adam, whose life is no longer his own; Noah, whose life is no longer a life; and Blue, who loves Gansey . . . and is certain she is destined to kill him. Now the endgame has begun. Dreams and nightmares are converging. Love and loss are inseparable. And the quest refuses to be pinned to a path. 

Writing the final book in a series as intense and well-loved as the Raven Cycle must not have been easy—and yet, Stiefvater absolutely nails it with The Raven King. A story that is both a tribute to the series as well as being completely true to itself, The Raven King is the finale that fans have been dreaming about, and one that does not disappoint.

The Raven King has our usual suspects—Blue, Ronan, Gansey, Adam, the Gray Man, the Greenmantles—but we also get introduced to even more characters that help make this ending a successful one. Most notably, Henry Cheng comes along and provides some clarity on Gansey's past, while also playing a key role in the future. Henry is a late-comer to the found family that Gansey has cultivated, but the story would not be the same without him. As interesting addition as a late comer, and yet I love how that demonstrates that Stiefvater was not closed off to the idea of this narrative evolving. Rather than only playing with the characters and world at her disposal, the introduction of new characters and scheming around prophecies shows how committed Stiefvater is to a story that ties up all the loose ends, and one that can continue to grow long past the last page.

I really love how Stiefvater writes—there's something both matter-of-fact and magical about her figurative language. My favorite demonstration of this balance/combination is when she wrote the romance in The Raven King. One of my favorite things about this series, I think, is how there isn't a whole lot of romance, despite how much love there is in the series. You can't walk away from the story without knowing how deeply and unconditionally the Ronan, Blue, Gansey, Adam, and Noah love one another. That's what makes this a perfect example of the found family trope. Regardless, there is some romance in the very last book, which some would say has been a long time coming! And I love how Stiefvater is able to use her balancing act of magical and matter-of-fact tones to deliver on those moments, without detracting away from the purpose of the novel itself.

My only critique on this book, and the only reason it does not get a full 5 stars, is because of how rushed the ending is. We are working are way up to something we were introduced to in the first book—there are a lot of emotions associated with that search and subsequent discovery, and I felt like we didn't get to sit with those discovery emotions long enough (I'm trying not to spoil, here, if you can't tell!). We are immediately pushed to the next part of the story, which also had a lot of lead up and warning to, and once that (inevitably) happens, we aren't left with those emotions long enough either until we hit the epilogue. I think that the plot of the end was done well, I just think it should have been longer, and should have dove more into those emotions at the end, because those emotions were the purpose of the novel, 100%. The discovery and the self-identity bits at the end were the true lessons, takeaways, what have you, of the ending, and I just wish we'd had more time to contemplate those with the characters before the full end.

If you aren't ready to leave this world, or simply don't want to, don't fear. Stiefvater wrote The Dreamer Trilogy just for you, featuring Ronan as the main character. Check it out if you're interested, but this is probably where I'll leave my experience with the Raven Boys, as it was on such a good note, and in a good place.