Teen Review: The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater
Review by Oishe, member of the Albert Campbell branch Youth Advisory Group. The Raven Cycle is a young adult fantasy series written by Maggie Stiefvater. The series consists of The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily Lily Blue, and The Raven King. These books take place in the small town of Henrietta, Virginia, which is best known for its prestigious, all-boys school called Aglionby Academy. It is a school for the sons of businessmen, politicians, and generally the filthy rich.The students of the school have been nicknamed “raven boys” by local, average citizens.
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One of those average citizens happens to be a teenage girl by the name of Blue Sargent, who comes from a family of psychics. Everyone in her life is gifted with the powers of both insight and foresight, which makes it quite strange that Blue herself isn’t blessed with either. Even though she doesn’t have any psychic abilities of her own, everyone around her has always made the exact same prediction of her future -- that if she were to kiss her true love, he would die. Having this prediction looming over her entire life, this makes her sensible enough to stay away from boys. After all, she can’t fall in love with them if they’re never around.
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However, everything changes for Blue one night. The night of St. Mark’s Eve is a time when Blue accompanies her half-aunt Neeve to a church watch, in which they observe the spirits of the locals who will die within the year. Blue, having no psychic abilities, has never seen any spirits. This year, however, she sees the spirit of a raven boy, who reveals his name to be Gansey. Blue doesn’t think too much of it, until she runs into Gansey in real life. Gansey and his friends Ronan, Adam, and Noah are on the hunt for the dead Welsh king Glendower, and Blue finds herself swept up in their search. As she spends more time with these raven boys and finds herself starting to care immensely for them, she can’t help but worry about the fact that she was able to see Gansey’s spirit. After all, the only way a non-seer like Blue would be able to see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve is if he was her true love, or if she killed him.
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Reading this series is like being on a roller coaster that is constantly in a downward drop. From the very first sentence of the series, I was pulled into a world where everything certain was no longer such. Things like time, distance, and logic were twisted and turned until they all crumbled away into nothing. Because of this, the series really pushed the limits of a reader’s mind, because of how much it messed with it. Every time I thought I knew something, or that I believed something was absolutely true about the story, Stiefvater would pull the carpet from beneath my feet and change it all, leaving me scrambling for something to hold on to. These aspects of the plot are what can only be described as an “OH MY GOODNESS!” moment, because those were the only words I could form after reading them.
With this series, Stiefvater created a modern world, and convinced all her readers that said modern world was touched by magic. She did this so perfectly that there wasn’t a single moment when I thought to myself that the events of the story weren’t possible. In fact, having finished the series, I am still convinced that Henrietta, Virginia is a place of magic and mystery. In addition to creating a brilliant world, Stiefvater dreamt up perfect characters to inhabit it. From the quirky intelligence of Blue, to the impeccably rich, history buff that is Gansey, to the bad-boy with a heart of gold that is Ronan, to the quiet determination of Adam, to the sweet, caring nature of Noah, every single character is an incredible addition to the story. Not only are they all extremely layered and developed, but their dynamic with each other is one to die for. Theirs is a friendship for life, a friendship of selfless love, a friendship in which each person would be willing to die for each other, even if this was never explicitly stated. I think this was one of the main reasons I fell in love with the story and the characters -- their bond precedes everything else.
Not only were the characters incredible, but so was the atmosphere of Stiefvater’s story. Her writing went from a mix of lighthearted hilarity to dark wrongness. And wrongness is really the best word to use. So much of this series had a creepy, ominous feeling to it, to an extent that it would leave me shuddering. But the sinister tones were only another reason why this series was so exceptional.
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Overall, The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater is a harrowing story of kings, dreamers, magicians, and the supernatural, a story that was executed incredibly. Having finished it, I feel as if Stiefvater has just emptied out the contents of my mind, crumpled them all up into one, unintelligible mass, then stuffed them back into my mind for me to untangle. Stiefvater created heavy atmospheres of magic and history and perfectly balanced it out with the warmth of friendship and love. Her characters were outstanding, and officially own a part of my heart.
I can say with confidence that this series receives a 5 out of 5 stars from me, and that it has become one of my favorite series of all time. If you have any interest in magic, dreams, Welsh kings and everything eerie, then The Raven Cycle is a series I highly recommend picking up.
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