The Dream Thieves – Maggie Stiefvater

Release date: 17 September 2013
Rating: ★★★★★★★★★★ – 10/10
Goodreads link
Book Depository link
Book 1: The Raven Boys

The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, #2) blurb:

Blue didn’t mean to fall for the Raven Boys, but she has – and the more her life entwines with theirs, the more dangerous it becomes. Ronan is the most dangerous of all. He’s the haunted one, the darkest, the most raven. His dreams invade reality and confuse what is true.

With magic growing stronger around them, now is a time to be wary. Before everything unravels… Friendships with be tested. Someone will get hurt. And a kiss will be shared.

After finishing this book I rated it 9/10. After finishing the series I’ve had to change it to 10/10 because the ending of The Raven King makes you realise that all those little things that annoyed you were absolutely on purpose and deliberate.

There is absolutely something about these books that I can’t get out of my head.  In the first one, there was a hesitant reluctance to finish it because I dreaded the ending.  In the second one, I tore though it in the hope that the end game may change, but it only drew it closer.  To be honest, I am scared for the third book.

As I mentioned in my review of book one, Stiefvater’s writing is poetic, and I can’t say it any better than I did last time.  It has this musical cadence to it that is soothing, yet illuminatingly descriptive.  I absolutely believe that this is not for every reader, and I think it’s part of the reason that people can be so divided about this series, and also the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy.  Writing is a third of the book — and it’s hard to stay with it if you don’t like it.

The characters changed in this story.  Not in a bad way — they grew in that character development way, but it was dramatic and maybe a little bit abrupt.  Where the first story was a generic background and some secondary characters, this became a deep dive into some mains and also some secondary character’s motivations and backgrounds.  Where The Raven Boys featured who they were as a contextual piece of the story, The Dream Thieves abrasively attacked how and why they were, particularly Ronan and Adam.  Of course this then dragged Persephone, Calla and Maura further into the spotlight, as well as Ronan’s brothers.

While all this turmoil is occurring though, you can see that it is inevitably drawing Blue and Gansey together — which is both exciting and terrifying at once.

The overarching plot is also going in places I had not expected.  Or more to the point, I was expecting it to go down a specific path (see previous paragraph regarding Blue and Gansey), and while it is heading there, I was not anticipating that there would be additional snags along the way.  Between the ley lines, Cabeswater, Greywaren, the Grey Man, and the scrying, I had no idea where this story was going.  However, I find it all leading back to the same point, much like fate or destiny or coincidence.  What I had thought were distracting tangents, appear only to become stronger bows with which to draw the arrows.

While intriguing, I did feel that I was left wanting more from this story, in particular chapter fifty-one.  I have this dreading hesitance to finish these books — I can only imagine the pain and hurt I will feel after falling further in love with these characters and then to anticipate the end that I do — however, I also desperately want to read to the end to find my anticipated ending is wrong.  And I can’t decide if the series would be better or worse for the ending it portrays from the beginning (please keep in mind that I kind of love when they kill off characters, because you never understand your love for a fictional character until you mourn for them).

So, with great reluctance and optimistic hope I will move onto book three, and pray for more teen anguish between Blue and Gansey, less inner turmoil for Ronan, more storyline for Noah, Calla and Persephone, and less pages for Adam (sorry, but he annoys me).