The Raven Boys - Maggie Stiefvater Originally Posted at http://www.yabooknook.tumblr.com

I was one of those people (maybe the only one?) who was very skeptical about this book. I’d never read any of Maggie Stiefvater’s previous work and now live in constant fear of misspelling her name, and I only knew one of them had to do with werewolves.

But I picked it up anyway because hello, Cover and thanks Edgar Allan Poe for the ravens pro-bias. I was dubious at best—a girl named Blue who lived in a blue house with her psychic family? Um, ok—but I liked the voice and it was fun, so I bought it.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt like such a snob in my life.

THE RAVEN BOYS was literally so good that even now (about a full 6 months since I read it?), I still stop and think, man remember when I was an idiot and judged this book unfairly?

The cast of characters is fabulous. Blue, Gansey, Adam, Ronan (Ronan), and Noah are the ‘main gang’—and I cared for each and everyone of them. This is one of those times where I was just as worried about the secondary characters’ fates as I was about the main character’s. specially my boy Ronan oh child I don’t really want to focus on any particular one of them because I love them all, and if I start on this it will make a very long review.

The writing is smooth and pretty, told from four different perspectives. This kind of worried me a little, because so many perspectives tend to make it hard to get attached to the characters. Except, clearly it didn’t in this case—see the paragraph above where I gush. It helped defined the characters and their voices more, keep the story moving, and make the plot twists somehow expected and entirely out of the blue.

Basically what I’m saying is that I was stupid and this book is fantastic. Avoid my mistakes and read this.