The Raven Boys (Raven Cycle #1)

This book is absolutely amazing! Beautifully written and compelling, with memorable characters. I was completed invested in each of them!
The story started out slowly, but then I couldn't stop reading. The Raven Boys is a book that deserves to be savoured, a lot more complex and mysterious than I thought it would be. The ending left me wanting so much more!!

Seriously, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this Series.

"The Raven Boys" is a haunting, lyrical masterpiece. Blue is a young woman whose mother is a genuine psychic. She has grown up being you'd that she'd kiss her true love and then they'd die. Later, she finds out this person is a "raven boy," or a student at the elite boy's school, named Gansey. Gansey is obsessed with finding ley lines. Together with Adam, Noah, and Ronan, they explore the mystical area around them and find more than they bargained for.

Altogether, this is a beautiful fantasy novel that hooks you and keeps you waiting for more. It's haunting and lovely. There are more issues and events than I can discuss here, but it's really an incredible book and I can't wait to read the next. I'd definitely recommend not reading it close to bedtime if you are a wimp like me (I have a low threshold). But definitely read it!!

I really enjoyed reading The Raven Boys. It was filled with mystery, magic and adventure.

The Raven Boys had a great plot that was well written. It had some unexpected elements and twist to the story. And I loved the combination of psychic elements, ghost, magic and more!

Gansey and his friends are on quest to discover a king and Blue is somehow connected to it. Together they try to find out where the king is buried but someone else is also searching for the king too.

I loved the characters. The friendship between Gansey, Ronan, Adam and Noah was real and truly something great. I also liked how Blue fit in with them and clicked immediately. Blue's family; Maura, Persephone, Orla and Calla were also as interesting and unique as Blue.

I really loved diving into The Raven Boys and can't wait to see what Blue and the raven boys do next!

Guys. Guys. GUYS! This book. OMG this book! So I tried reading this sometime last year and could not get through the first 100 pages. I will say that this book is very slow to start, it actually stays pretty slow for a long time but it's building the characters and the world is very well built during this time. It really enriches the story.

I love all the characters so much! I will say that Adam is sad as can be. I understand where he's coming from and it's great he wants to be a self created man but I don't understand why he doesn't except the help from his friends. They only want to help!

Ronan is... I don't even have words for him, at first I thought he was kind of an ass and then you really get to know him. You see why he is the way he is. He's such a strong and well developed character. One of the best I've ever seen honestly.

Then Blue, I love her! I love how she's so different from the average girl. I really love her family. They are too cool, I would love to live her family, There would never be a dull moment at all. Though I feel so bad for her, her true love will die if she kisses him.

That leaves Gansey. Oh my wonderful sweet and strange Gansey. He is such an old soul, so different from anyone his age. I love him so much. He's so caring and kind and also I feel so bad for him. Enough said.

I'd never heard of Ley Lines before this novel, so I went and actually looked up some of this stuff. I'm one of those people that like all this strange stuff. If you meet me in real life... I'm weird guys, I find this kind of thing really cool. Do I actually believe in any of it... not really. But it's cool to learn new things and these ley lines are pretty cool. So that was awesome to see.

I love the plot, it's well thought out and flushed so perfectly, that I honestly saw no mistakes and that's rare for me. Usually every book has a few mistakes or at least one. This one was awesome! I'm already reading the second one and it's just as good.

So if you've not read this book yet, then got onto it! You won't regret it!

4.5

I loved this book. It was so typically YA and then it changed and I was delighted and surprised. I haven't read many books like this, because so I haven't read much paranormal ghost stories. And then there is quite a bit of urban fantasy, romance and magic thrown in too. It was fun and every now and then you go, wow I didn't see that coming.

The only reason I'm reluctant to give it 5 stars is because the end disappointed me a bit. I get that a lot still has to happen in the second one, but it was just too abrupt.

Highly recommended though - I'm buying the second one immediately.

Maggie Stiefvater’s “The Raven Boys“ is hands down my favourite book of all time. So much so that if I could only ever read a single book for the rest of my life, this one would be it. Not any of the Harry Potter series or “The Lord of the Rings“, but “The Raven Boys“. Why?
Well, I’m a firm believer in that the best story cannot possibly work without great characters, and boy, do I love these characters to pieces. There’s Blue, the slightly odd, sensible daughter of a psychic, and of course her Raven boys - seemingly entitled rich kids that attend Aglionby Academy: Gansey, a drop-dead wealthy explorer, the less unfortunate Adam who tries to make it from rags to riches on his very own feet, there’s Ronan, the angry dreamer, and there’s Noah, the glum little creeper (and of course batches of brilliant supporting characters!) Each of these five protagonists are so real and raw, it’s quite impossible to not fall in love with each and every single one of them over the course of this magic carpet ride. And Henrietta, West Virgina, is a whole new world filled with magic, adventure and loyalty, with its eyes on exactly these fast five friends.
But the characters aren’t the only things lovable about “The Raven Boys“. Stiefvater has managed to find a quest so outrageously fascinating it’s hard to put the book down once you start reading. I used to be completely put off by the medieval studies classes I had to take at uni, but somehow, she managed to get me interested in this topic again, and I was excited to delve further into the history of Welsh prince Owain Glendower (a real Welsh ruler by the way) and the hunt for his corpse on the infamous ley line in town.
And this is also where Stiefvater manages to enthrall you with her writing (from different POVs) so much so that it is able to create a feeling so magical and of such utter peacefulness that it is a hauntingly beautiful reflection to her magical adventure quest of a story. Reading this book, you can’t help but feel completely at home in the setting.
Honestly, I can never stop fangirling over this book because it has everything I love about literature: amazing prose, beautiful characters, quick humour, so much magic that it transcends the pages, great twists and revelations that keep its seemingly slow pace interesting enough to never want to stop reading, a gorgeous 1973 Chevrolet Camaro (in orange!) and above all great friendship and a great undertaking for the something more.

I love Maggie's writing. I can see such a difference from her first published novel, Lament. She has beautiful descriptions, amazing world-building, and don't even get me started on her pacing.

We’ve all heard the saying slow and steady wins the race. But in books, sometimes that seems counterintuitive. If the storyline is just too dang slow, you’re gonna put that sucker down. So it takes a lot of skill to make a story progress at a slow pace, yet still keep you glued to your seat to figure out what happens. That’s exactly what Maggie Stiefvater does in “The Raven Boys.”

“The Raven Boys” follows the story of Blue, a psychic’s daughter, who is told from birth that the boy she falls in love with will die. To avoid being the killer of an unsuspecting fella, Blue avoids flirting, handholding, kissing, or dating of any kind. Of course, in comes a group of guys, who despite their snooty upbringing at a private school full of spoiled rich kids, each have something charming to offer. This seems like a recipe for disaster.

From that brief plot summary, this story seems action-packed. It most definitely is, but the real heart-racing antics don’t get going until the second half of the book. The beauty of the first half is that even if there isn’t as much action, the mystery of it all is just so darn compelling you can’t wait to find out what spiritual antics are bound to happen. Stiefvater shows that the world doesn’t have to end, girls don’t have to fall in love with vampires, and protagonists don’t need to wield bows and arrows to really grab your attention. It’s putting just the right amount of small little morsels of plot clues, perfectly placed, that will really get your mouth watering to keep devouring a book.

Ever since she was a little girl there has been a prophecy about Blue Sargent, if she kisses her true love he will die, and this prophecy has been around for so much of her life that Blue has grown quite used to it, at times believing it and at other times thinking it’s a trick from her clairvoyant mother to keep Blue from kissing any boys. Then one night on St. Mark’s Eve in a church yard Blue sees a spirit of boy who will die within the year. But Blue isn’t a seer and the only explanations for her seeing a soon-to-be-spirit is: one, he is Blue’s true love or two, she is the one that will kill him. Blue has never met the boy however and all she knows about him is that he is a student from Aglionby, a Raven Boy, and that his name is Gansey.

Gansey is a boy on a quest, sort of like Indiana Jones but with less bad guys to beat up and tombs to raid, though, he is looking for a tomb. For many years Gansey has been searching for Glendower, an old Welsh king, why? I’d tell you but then that would spoil you. Aiding Gansey in his quest are his three closest friends Noah, a shy boy who barely speaks and does less of everything else, Ronan an angry boy with a broken past who seems to want to destroy his future, and Adam who tries his best in school and has multiple jobs so that he can truly be free and never have to depend on or belong to anyone.

The Raven Boys is a story filled with ley lines, magic, and old Welsh mythology and it is a story about friendship, complex characters and their complex relationships. And although The Raven Boys focuses very much on the plot of Gansey’s quest, the story also equally focuses on the lives of the characters, not only their back stories but their goals and motivations, their personal lives and their starkly different personalities that seem to mesh perfectly even though logic says they shouldn’t.

When it comes to her writing Maggie Stiefvater has a very subtle style where she will say a lot but with very little words making almost every word you read vital. I like this because it kept me focus on what I was reading and kept my mind whirring as I worked out what a character was doing or not doing. I also had to be careful though because when I got caught up in a scene I would need to slow down, re-read it and make sure I understood what just took place, which I didn’t mind because I loved reading this book.

In my opinion this is Maggie’s best novel yet, not only is her writing wonderful but the story is unique and the characters intriguing. I’ve heard there will be four books total in The Raven Cycle series and I know it’s going to be torture waiting for each one of them.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvatar is a must read for the fall. The lore is unique and the plot will keep you turning the pages late into the night.


The Raven Boys is unlike any book I’ve ever read. The lore starts out similar to things we have read in the past, psychic family with the one girl who doesn’t have any power, the fact her family has seen her future and it’s not pretty. Then it becomes something completely different about long lost princes who will grant a wish to the one who finds them and the mystery surrounding the legend of Glendower.

Blue is the only non-psychic is a family bursting with them. Blue is also destined to kill her true love with a kiss. So her life is a complicated to say the least. Even though Blue can’t connect with the spirits her presence enhances other psychics’ abilities. Every year Blue helps her family watch over the soon-to-be dead but never actually sees anyone until 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.”

Blue doesn’t worry too much about her future until she meets The Raven boys, a group of friends who attend the local private school that caters to the rich. Gansey is clearly the leader who holds the group together and the one on a mission to find Glendower, a Welsh Prince with a mythical story. Then there is Ronan, who is angry at the world due to the loss of his father. Adam is the local boy masquerading as a Raven Boy. Adam’s home life is not pleasant and being a poor Raven Boy isn’t always easy. Lastly there is Noah who observes everything and only talks when it is really important. The group of boys are so well written and while on the surface appear very different Stiefvatar finds a way to make them work as a group.

All of the characters are so richly drawn and believable. Blue’s family which consists of not only her mother but aunts and cousins adds a rich layer to the story. While the main characters are teenagers the story doesn’t feel like it is written for any age range. It is just an incredibly unique story that keeps you guessing to the very end.

Maggie Stiefvatar has written a story that is fascinating and unique. It takes a legend not known to many and adds layers of mystery and science that take the story to a different level. Her writing is so well paced you won’t be able to put the book down. While the story may seem like a romance with the whole kissing and true love aspect it is at its heart a mystery that isn’t bogged down by the romance aspect. It is definitely a story that has something for everyone.

This story is like few others out there. If you like mysteries with incredible characters and a plot that constantly keeps you guessing this book is for you. The Raven Boys releases on September 18, make sure to pick up your copy.