The Raven King Review

This week's novel is The Raven King, the last book in The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater.  Since I haven't talked about the first three books on here, I'm going to talk about the series as a whole, but focus on the last book.

Blue Sargent is the only non-psychic at 300 Fox Way, a house full of her mom's psychic friends and relatives.  Everyone sees the same thing in Blue's future: that if she kisses her true love, he will die.  She doesn't pay it much mind until she gets involved with a group at the prestigious boarding school for rich and connected boys just outside of town.  Gansey, Adam, Ronan, and Noah are on a search for the Welsh king Glendower, who's rumored to be in a magical sleep on the lay lie somewhere in the area.  Forces on the lay line tell that Gansey is going to die within a year.  Together they search for Glendower, while each of the boys deal with their own traumatic pasts and come into their own magical powers.

I have to say that the second book in this series, The Dream Thieves, is far and away my favorite.  It focuses on Ronan, who is a great, complex character.  He could have so easily slipped into a half dozen stereotypes of "the bad boy" or "actually a big softy once you get to know him" or other boring things that would be a complete disservice.  Instead he rides the edge of these and presents himself as a solid, nuanced, consistent character.  His power set of bringing things out of his dreams is also really cool.  Plus, that book had the tightest self-contained plot while still moving along the wider narrative of the series.

The thing I loved most about this series was the relationships between the characters.  I loved the women of 300 Fox Way.  Blue and her mother are close, and her mother is involved in her life and listens as Blue confides her troubles, yet her mother still gives her space to lead her own life and have her adventures.  They trust one another, but still get frustrated with each other.  All the women at 300 Fox Way are like that.  They're all up in each other's business and pecking at one another, but they form a solid front and band together.  There's a great scene where Blue comes home to find all the ladies sitting together fully dressed in a full bathtub where they were trying to scry.  It didn't go well, so they just stayed in the bathtub and had some wine.

I also loved the boy's friendship, their flavor of brotherhood.  Again, even though they got frustrated with one another, their every action was shaded with love.  Even though they were living through horrors and traumas and grief, they still managed to joke around and act like teenage boys.

None of the relationships were just one thing.  That is to say, they didn't react to each other the exact same way every time.  Their feelings changed, while the relationship, the sum of all those feelings, stayed consistent and strong.

The other thing that stood out in this series was the prose.  Stiefvater has beautiful, lyrical descriptions paired seamlessly with completely accurate dialogue.  The setting is wondrous, but still set in modern Virginia.  The kids are magical, but they're still kids.

"Because Adam practiced many things, Adam was good at many things, but this--what was it even called?  Scrying, sensing, magic, magic, magic.  He was not only good at it, but he longed for it, wanted it, loved it in a way that nearly overwhelmed him with gratitude.  He had not known that he could love, not really.  Gansey and he had fought about it, once--Gansey had said, with disgust, Stop saying privilege.  Love isn't privilege.  But Gansey had always had love, had always been capable of love.  Now that Adam had discovered this feeling in himself, he was more certain than ever he was right.  Need was Adam's baseline, his resting pulse.  Love was a privilege.  Adam was privileged; he did not want to give it up.  He wanted to remember again and again how it felt."

And elsewhere,

"For a strange second, none of them spoke.

Finally, Ronan said, 'Jesus God, Sargent.  Do you have stitches on your face?  Bad.  Ass.  Put it here, you asshole.'"

 Four stars.  Would recommend!

***

Next Week: Huntress, YA high fantasy by Malinda Lo