The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

⭐⭐⭐⭐ / 5 Stars

Summary:

“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.

-goodreads

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I must confess that I heard of The Raven Cycle long before I ever picked up any of the boys. I was part of the 'second hand' fandom, consuming fan art and fan canons via tumblr from people who were more directly involved and had read the books. So I wasn't completely unbiased when I started the first book in the series. I expected the kind of payoff that would garner such a vivid and passionate fan following.

I wasn't disappointed.

The story from the get go is misleadingly honest with its readers; revealing some of the character's futures in bits and pieces throughout even the very first chapter of the novel. It's set up is one of a certain inescapable destiny that makes the reader and the characters themselves, when aware of this future, rage against it and resist it whenever possible. Yet even in the first novel, the sense of inevitably begins to rear its head. The knowledge of what comes to pass doesn't entirely allow the characters to escape it. The half truths begin to make more and more sense as the mystery unravels.

Part mystery, part supernatural series, and part romance; the book brings new twists to many of these genres' tropes that breathes new life into cores. The characters, though mostly boys, are incredibly fleshed out and made human and relatable in their actions and thoughts. The shifting perspective throughout the chapters grants each of them new depths. We learn not just how one character perceives the others, but how they all perceive each other, what makes each of them tick under the surface of those perceptions, and how those notions of themselves and their friends then colors their interactions with one another.

Blue, our lead female character, is open from the get go of her desire to stand out, be different and unique from others. She works hard to cultivate an air of 'don't give a fuck' in combination 'too cool for school.' Her hairstyle and wardrobe are all carefully constructed because of this and the acknowledgement that the character, and book, give to this fact peels away at the 'fakeness' of it. This makes Blue more real as a person than if she just effortlessly managed to roll out of bed with flawless style and fashion.

That said, I do feel that the first book spent too much time on exposition with pay off that seems to be geared for later parts of the series rather than the first novel. Not that it isn't wise to do just that with a series, but that the buildup far outweighed what related more directly to the story within The Raven Boys in a way that hurt this book. It made it feel weaker for it, although still absolutely a very good read and a series that I look forward to continuing shortly. I want the answers to the things I hardly knew were questions in this first novel

-a review by D