Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

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.

Even before I knew that stories could be driven by either their plots or characters, I had a habit of falling in love with all kinds of character driven ones. For me, stories have always been why I got into reading in the first place, but the characters are why I read. Characters are why I also want to stay in the world of the story and never leave. The Raven Boys is such a story; a story that made me love the characters who are so human and complex because life, in one way or another, hasn’t really been easy for any one of them.

The Raven Boys begins with the story of how Blue Sargent have always been told that if she were to kiss her true love, he’d die. It’s such an ordinary prediction to come from a family of psychics that Blue thinks nothing of it. Until her half-aunt, Neeve, declares that Blue will fall in love that year. That, coupled with Blue seeing a future ghost of an Aglionby student on St. Mark’s Eve, unnerves her in true Blue Sargent fashion.

Enrolled in Aglionby, a private school for soft rich fucks rich kids, the Raven boys are a privileged bunch of troublemakers; exactly the sort of brats Blue stays away from. But there’s nothing spoiled or bratty about Adam Parrish, poor and enrolled in Aglionby on a partial scholarship. That’s what gets Blue to consider the possibility that the four boys could be just boys rather than a single unapproachable and domineering unit. Thus, begins the tale of how Blue gets tangled up with four Raven boys committed to finding the sleeping Welsh king, which legend says will grant a favor to the person that wakes him.

Judgmental and unfriendly, Blue Sargent had been brought up in a house full of females and in the best way possible. She tries hard to look as eccentric as possible and owns it. Self-assured and sarcastic, Blue Sargent is a sensible teenager who values education and the environment. As a non-psychic who only makes things louder who other psychics, Blue wants believes that life has much to offer her if she looks hard enough. Which is why Gansey’s belief in the supernatural interests Blue and she can’t seem to stay away from them when there’s a king to find.

Richard Gansey’s belief in the supernatural is undeterred and solid, but his remarks can be offhandedly condescending. He comes from old money and so the struggle that comes attached with having little money is unbeknownst to him. However, he constantly questions himself and values the opinion of his friends. Adam Parrish is desperately trying to live a better life on his own terms and it’s heartbreaking to see him go through the wringer time and again. Ronan Lynch is the owner of an angry soul who snarls and punches anything that pisses him off as he tries to come to terms with issues that run deep. He practices disinterest, feels lost, and fights a losing battle with himself every day. I just can’t help but love him the most. Noah Czerny knows more about them all than he lets on, but prefers to stay quiet and observe. He’s the gossiper of the group and extremely adorable.

The eerie and quiet ambiance attached to The Raven Boys perfectly compliments the elements of the story involving the clairvoyants, the ley line, and the hunt for the sleeping Welsh king, Owen Glendower. But that’s not all. The Raven Boys is one of those books that are full of subtle mysteries oh-so-carefully placed until the reader knows to look for them. There’s also a lot of foreshadowing; which makes The Raven Boys is a captivating book that one can reread over and over and still come across something they haven’t before. A true storyteller, Stiefvater penned a masterpiece in The Raven Boys specked with little wonders, magic, and breathtaking words.