“In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her raven boys.”
-Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves
The Raven Cycle by New York Times bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater is a book series I wish I would have picked up off the store shelf a lot sooner. When the first book, The Raven Boys, was released back in 2013 I was skeptical. The title, cover, and synopsis did nothing to convince me this was not another teen romance novel filled with overdone clichés and a drawn out plot. When I finally picked up the first book two years later, I found myself poorly mistaken. Stiefvater’s book is instead a series filled with magic, adventure, an amazing group of friends, a bird named Chainsaw, and an old orange Camaro prone to breaking down.
This four-book series takes place in the small town of Henrietta, Virginia. Blue is the youngest member in a matriarchy of family psychics, and the group all live in the same house where they run their business of tarot readings and other clairvoyant services. The story starts off with a prediction from Blue’s aunt, Neeve, claiming this is the year Blue will fall in love. The only problem is, Blue has been told for as long as she can remember she will kill her true love if she kisses them. On April 24, St. Mark’s Eve, the family of psychics is charged with the task of observing the soon-to-be-dead. When Blue, who is unlike her family in that she is unable to see spirits, witnesses a boy her age on the path of the dead she is confused, the only way a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve is if they are the spirit’s true love, or if they are the one who will kill them.
Unlike most book heroines, Blue is determined to stay away from boys. She has two rules: One, stay away from boys because they were trouble. And two, stay away from Aglionby boys because they were bastards. Aglionby is the local all-boys private school full of overprivileged rich kids. Blue hates them. Little does she know she will find herself befriending four Aglionby students, or Raven Boys. After an encounter at Nino’s Pizza, Blue finds herself helping the group of boys despite the fact she still finds them all to be quite snobbish. Gansey, the unofficial leader of the group, is on a mission to find Glendower, a Welsh king who disappeared off the face of the earth when his capture seemed inevitable. When Gansey was a child, he was viciously attacked by wasps, of which he is deathly allergic to. As he lay dying he heard the words: “You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the Ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not.” Since then he has been on a mission to find the mysterious Glendower and discover the reason behind his miraculous survival.
It is impossible not to fall in love with this group of unlikely friends: Gansey, on mission to find a dead king; Adam, a boy who lives in a trailer park with his abusive father and mother; Ronan, who lacks a verbal filter and would rather street race than attend class; Noah, an introvert who is willing to sacrifice himself for those he cares about; and Blue, non-psychic in a family of psychics who wields a strong personality like a sword and is not afraid to state her opinion. This is a series which will leave you breathless and raw in its magic and adventure. Maggie Stiefvater knows how to write an urban fantasy novel and leave you wanting more.