Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: The Raven Boys
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Series: Book One in the Raven Cycle Series
Published By: Scholastic Press (September 18, 2012)
Source: ARC Copy Provided by the Publisher (in exchange for an honest review)
Genre: YA Fantasy
My Rating: 4 Stars!

Goodreads Description:
 “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.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

My Review:    
  

I absolutely loved that this book started off with not only a quote from the master of ravens himself, Edgar Allan Poe but also Oscar Wilde as well. It really seemed fitting given the title and cover of the book.

I don't know why but this book had a slightly different feel to it for me. Almost like it had been written in a different time, a different place, a different era even though everything is very much in the here and now.

It just had a slightly old world feel to me. A little mysterious and dark at times. I read this over the Halloween holiday which, I think was a very fitting time to read it. It just added to the atmosphere of it.

A time when things go bump in the night and the spirits of those left behind roam the Earth once again.

This book turned out to be a lot more complex than I thought it would be. With tales of the dead, ley lines, kings and wishes granted.

The Raven boys, Ronan, Alex, Noah and Gansey were fabulous. All very different in their own ways. A group of boys all very much a mystery in their own right. With troubles, secrets and pasts that aren't as elite and fairytale as others would believe them to be. Yet they ban together and form a bond of friendship that truly is unique.

While you might think with the synopsis that this was a love story of sorts, you would be wrong. There is actually very little romance in this. Instead you are left with lots of mystery, action, magic and a never ending thread of secrets just waiting to be discovered.

Blue as well is a mystery. She is unlike anyone else in her family and has a past that is still out there to be revealed, with a father that she knows very little about. She too is an oddity that is thrown in with the Raven boys, yet she too, just seems to fits. She was a missing link that some how completes the group.

This really was an intriguing tale that wasn't always what it seemed. It could be slightly confusing (but in a good way!) at times with all its mystery and complexities during others with all the tales and secrets slowly being revealed.

The ending was nicely done. Leave me wanting to have the sequel in my hands. I want more of the Raven Boys and I want to know what happens next.