Hello hello and welcome or welcome back to my little bookish corner of the internet. Today I’m bringing you my review of The Raven Boys, which I read in August, and was one of the last books I read before I reached my 100 book challenge target. I listened to this as an audiobook, and as a first book in a series, it was absolutely great to kickstart and grab my interest.
Synopsis
“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”
It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.
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.
Review
I found this book initially a bit difficult to get into, with so many moving parts to track and the way it jumped straight into the action, but it quickly managed to captivate me. Especially as an audiobook, the way it was performed was really impressive, and each character stood out as an individual.
The story is told from multiple perspectives, alternating between Blue and then the Raven Boys as they begin to play a bigger part in the story. It became particularly interesting the more they all start mixing together, getting different impressions on the same things as they all experience them different. It’s really intruiging, finding out how each of them work under the surface.
Things are particularly interesting after they take a day trip to a spot that turns out to be on the path that Gansey is so captivated by, and come across a tree that gives them each a glimpse of the future. But different moments – and maybe, different futures? From then things take on more of a supernatural feel, with the fact there absolutely is something strange and unusual going on confirmed from all sides, which was easy to still feel a bit is it? is it not? about, even after Blue seeing a ghost, which I absolutely loved about it. Not being completely sure quite what was going on, whether it was just Blue’s family that had the ability to connect with the supernatural or if there was something bigger at play, was something that kept me going through the chapters.
Knowing that Gansey has to die within the twelve months after they meet him as a ghost in the church means that there is a clock ticking down in the background, and each time something happens, I was trying to keep a mental calculation of how long it had been! Again, this was brilliant for keeping my attention. I can’t wait for book two, as this is absolutely a series I’ll be following.
This was one of my top August reads and I can’t wait to see where this storyline goes. Finding a story and series to get my teeth into is one of my favourite things, so book two will be on my September reads.
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And On She Reads 