review-the-raven-boys

“Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue never sees them–until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks to her.

His name is Gansey, 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 is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul whose emotions range from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher 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 doesn’t believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.”

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What I thought:

I’d read some mixed reviews about The Raven Boys before starting it so I was looking forward to it but at the same time I also wasn’t expecting too much. Unfortunately it didn’t live up to expectations for me. I’m quite sad to admit that this is my first disappointing read this year :/ *don’t hit me*

(How do people write reviews about books they didn’t enjoy all the time? This is hard! You guys have cookies that give you magic powers or something?)

My first confusion was entirely my fault. I thought this was a high fantasy novel but it’s actually an urban fantasy book! I love urban fantasy, so I got over my initial surprise quite quickly.

What I sadly couldn’t get over was Blue. From the blurb I thought she was the main character, but to me she felt more like a side character who didn’t really add anything. She was a love interest, and that aspect didn’t go as far as I would have liked to see. I’m all for slow developing romances but it would have been nice to see a bit more, especially since this was the only thing I felt she could have added. There’s a lot of pressure and excitement build around this one thing Blue is meant to do this year, and it doesn’t happen. I’m not convinced that the plot wouldn’t have happened in the same way if Blue hadn’t been in the book.

One thing that redeemed it for me were the four raven boys and their group dynamics. I loved their banter, and to me they were the real main characters of the story. I know the second book is from Ronan’s POV, and while that seems to put a lot of people off I want to read the sequel because of it. (Goodness, we’re just disagreeing on every point, aren’t we! 😀 ) He was the most intriguing character in my opinion, and I’m looking forward to learning more about him.

The ending didn’t pack the punch I feel it was meant to. The last sentence felt too random to me to really make an impact – like when you’re reading a romance novel and suddenly, in the final sentence, one of the characters reveals that he can see dead people when there was no mention of anyone doing anything like this before that point – and I feel like just a bit of foreshadowing would have made a big difference.

(Oh, and I know this won’t ever happen, but did anyone else ship Gansey and Ronan together? Old. Married. Couple!)

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Have you read The Raven Boys, or would you like to? Get some cookies, drop me a comment and let’s get this book club going!

I don’t review books professionally. These reviews are mainly a small summary and my opinion on books I’ve loved, they are not intended to be anything more. All ‘reviews’ include a picture, title and name of author linking to the book’s Goodreads listing, the blurb from the back of the book and my non-professional verdict.

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