Book Review: The Raven Boys

Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Published: 2012, Scholastic Press
Rating: 5/5 Stars

The Raven Boys is the first book in a four-book series. The main female protagonist is Blue Sargent, a teenage girl who comes from a family of psychics. Blue is the only one who doesn't have a paranormal gift. She never sees spirits like her mom and aunts do, but one night she happens to see one. She sees the spirit of Gansey, a boy from Aglionby Academy, an expensive private school. The presence of his spirit means that he is fated to die within the next twelve months. Blue is drawn to investigate Gansey because of this. Then, Gansey and his Aglionby friends, nicknamed Raven Boys because of their uniforms, allow Blue to join them on a quest for a magical secret that may be hiding somewhere in their quiet town of Henrietta, West Virginia. 

This book was a wild ride. Unlike Ready Player One, I read it without any expectations. I was blown away. I don't want to hype it up too much, though, because it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, so take my review with a grain of salt, but I loved it. It was unlike any other urban fantasy that I've ever read. It felt so real and so believable, which is not something I usually get from fantasies, urban or otherwise. 

I love this book like this cat loves this lizard.

The was setting great; I felt like I could picture everything in Henrietta clearly. I loved the characters. This book has some of the best developed characters I've ever read. Holy moly. They were all distinct and interesting and so much like real people. I love Maggie Stiefvater's writing. It was incredibly beautiful. She wrote some descriptions that were just so unique and spot on that I had to stop reading and soak them in for a minute. I love that her name is Stiefvater... I've been taking German for two years and that means "stepfather." Sorry, unrelated.

Still fangirling about this book btw.

The Raven Boys had a bit of a "Wait. What?" kind of ending. But in a good way. I'm so glad there are more books in this world because I just know it's going to get crazier. And that's an awesome thing. It's difficult to recommend this book to a specific audience. If you like quirky, interesting, unexpected stories then you should pick this one up. It might be a little weird for some people, but I say it's worth a try.