Author: Anna (Page 15 of 48)

Synopsis:

There is danger in dreaming. But there is even more danger in waking up.

Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs.

The trick with found things though, is how easily they can be lost.

Friends can betray.
Mothers can disappear.
Visions can mislead.
Certainties can unravel.

▒ My ten favorite things about Blue Lily, Lily Blue ▒

“Ronan kept going, his voice louder. “No. Do you hear me, Cabeswater? You promised to keep me safe. Who are we to you? Nothing? If you let him die, that is not keeping me safe. Do you understand? If they die, I die, too.”

➊ To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Ronan takes the first place hands down even without having any chapter from his point of view. Actually, after the intensity of The Dream Thieves, getting to observe him through other’s eyes (who am I kidding : through Adam’s) was so so so satisfying. I want more, though.

➋ Blue Lily, Lily Blue will be forever remembered as The Book Where I Finally Love Adam. Shocking, I know, given how much I wanted to slap his whiny ass in the previous books (sorry not sorry). First his evolution is freaking interesting on its own (who doesn’t like a Magician with Slytherin-ish potential now tell me? Okaaaay, I might be *a little* subjective. Look at my profile! *waits patiently* Now you get it) and secondly I just can’t ignore that 90% of his scenes are shared by The Boy Who Dreams Baby Ravens. Duh.

“With a savage smile, Ronan shoved the cart off the kerb and belted towards the BMW. As they picked up speed, Ronan called out a joyful and awful swear and then jumped on to the back of the cart himself. As they hurtled towards the BMW, Adam realised that Ronan, as usual, had no intention of stopping before something bad happened. He cupped a hand over his nose just as they glanced off the side of the BMW. The unseated cart wobbled once, twice, and then tipped catastrophically on to its side. It kept skidding, the boys skidding along with it.
The three of them came to a stop.
“Oh, God,” Adam said, touching the road burn on his elbow. It wasn’t that bad, really. “God, God. I can feel my teeth.”
Ronan lay on his back a few feet away. A box of toothpaste rested on his chest and the cart kneeled beside him. He looked profoundly happy. “

➌ I’m gonna throw a PYNCH on there, because I’m redundant like that. Seriously, though. SE-RIOU-SLY. 80% of my favorite quotes are reformulations of something like… meanwhile, Ronan and Adam kept disappearing together.*Almost* every favorite scene stars them : the BARN. The CHURCH. The GROCERY STORE. Oh. My. Gosh. From the shortest looks and grips to the most adorable and heartbreaking interactions, these boys put my heart into overdrive.

#Can’t Compute
#ISHIPIT.ISHIPIT.ISHIPIT.

“Light, or something like light, reflected off it onto Ronan’s chin and cheeks, rendering him stark and handsome and terrifying and someone else. Then he blew on it. His breath passed through the word, the mirror, the unwritten line.
Adam heard a whisper in his ear. Something moved and stirred inside him. Ronan’s eyelashes fluttered darkly.
What are we doing –“

➍ Granted, we can say what we want about these books, about the confusion of their plots and the true love bits and Mallory’s dog (okay sorry dog, that wasn’t called for), but the beauty of the relationships pictured will forever make them special for me. The loyalty despite the doubts, the trust – even if sometimes begrudgingly given at first – the support and the BANTER between Blue and her boys is EVERYTHING. Honestly? They’re just all kinds of amazing and a little heartbreaking.

“Ronan’s arms were still locked around her; she felt them quivering. She didn’t know if it was from muscle strain or worry. He had not even hesitated before grabbing her.
I can’t let myself forget that.“

You better not is the only thing I will say.

“The door cracked open…”

You know what I mean, guys. The FEELS.

➎ ♪ SQUASH ONE, SQUASH TWO, S-♫

➏ Greenmantle and Piper. Erm- this is the moment I’m supposed to feel bad for loving the villains, right? But-but-b- they’re funny! Who am I to resist them tell me?

➐ JESSE THE YELLER. BECAUSE HIS CURSE IS BADASS TOO. ALSO, I HAVE A SOFT SPOT FOR CHARACTERS WHO USE CAPS. BECAUSE OF REASONS.

➑ There’s nothing better than late night calls, don’t you think? (here’s the moment 99% of my friends think, FUCKING FINALLY, ANNA! Oops)

➒ Calla and the Pretty One‘s argument. Or is it Richie Rich? I can never remember.

➓ It’s official : there’s nothing like a Raven Boys reread to make yourself feel a special kind of stupid; so many hidden details that came to light, I can’t even. Really, though : how in the world did I miss so many things the first time? HOW? Was I high or something?

Oh, nope. Maggie Stiefvater‘s plot is just way more layered and complex than I first imagined. Or, I’m smarter now (somehow I doubt it) (it’s been 2 years, not 2 decades)

Sigh. Now I wait.

Synopsis:

If you could steal things from dreams, what would you take?

Ronan Lynch has secrets. Some he keeps from others. Some he keeps from himself.

One secret: Ronan can bring things out of his dreams.

And sometimes he's not the only one who wants those things.

Ronan is one of the raven boys—a group of friends, practically brothers, searching for a dead king named Glendower, who they think is hidden somewhere in the hills by their elite private school, Aglionby Academy. The path to Glendower has long lived as an undercurrent beneath town. But now, like Ronan's secrets, it is beginning to rise to the surface—changing everything in its wake.

“Suddenly, for the briefest moment, panic forced itself up.
Am I a dream creature? Would I know?“

► No one is more flabbergasted than me to realize – to confirm – that Ronan Lynch is undoubtedly my favorite.

RONAN. FREAKING. LYNCH.

Ronan, who’s so keen on showing the kind of thrill-seeking, self-destructive behavior I would usually hate and manages to make me love him nonetheless. Tell me, is there something more powerful than the annihilation of a usual revulsion? I don’t think there is.

He’s so freaking stupid at times. Unable to fucking communicate. It would be so, so easy for me to despise him and hate him a little. Except I don’t, I cannot. I’m way too busy caring for him.

“Ronan watched Gansey over the body of the creature – it seemed even larger in its death – and his expression was as unguarded as Gansey had ever seen it. He was being made to understand that this, all of it, was a confession. A look into who Ronan really had been the entire time he had known him.
What a world of wonders and horrors, and Glendower only one of them.”

Perhaps I should try and explain why – how – he can avoid my ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME radars… It has to be something, right? It has to be some quality I can quantify? Should I wait for some fucking epiphany about why I’m not growling and facepalming and rolling my eyes?

You wish.

There’s only Chainsaw and a baby mouse and longing. There’s only brotherhood and family and hurt and hurt and hurt. Loneliness and anger and that dazzling smile that escapes, escapes, escapes.

There’s also “I’m being perfectly fucking civil” , because come on now.

I know you smiled too.

“And you, Ronan,” Niall said. He always said Ronan differently from other words. As if he had meant to say another word entirely – something like knife or poison or revenge – and then swapped it out for Ronan’s name at the last moment.
“When you were born, the rivers dried up and the cattle in Rockingham County wept blood.”

If this reread taught me something, it’s that above the mysteries – no matter how intriguing they are – Maggie Stiefvater‘s novels are always so very character-driven. It can be seen as a flaw, or it can be your undoing. Me, though? I love these Raven Boys to pieces – they’re real to me. Yet it’s funny how perception can change over the time, really. Indeed it seems that Adam and Blue switched roles during this second read : the first used to annoy me, and I liked the latter. Now it’s the opposite, but I don’t care, it doesn’t change anything because in the end, above the characters, what’s important here are the dynamics and the relationships between them all. Who cares about specifics?

“Ronan Lynch’s second secret was…”

Oh, yes. That. Strangely, I’m feeling more invested in that ship now. Go figure.

Also – so much foreshadowing : we can say many things about the plot – messy, slow, confusing – yet under the chaos hides order. There are so many tiny clues that I didn’t catch the first time, SO. MANY. How’s that for brilliant, I wonder.

I am not ready for this series to end.

Synopsis:

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue never sees them--until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks to her.

His name is Gansey, 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 is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul whose emotions range from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher 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 doesn't believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

4.5 stars, one stunned face, one hundred facepalms, a dozen OH MY GOSH I CAN’T BELIEVE SHE WROTE IT THEN AND I DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE, one brilliant book.

“Ronan said, “I’m always straight.”
Adam replied, “Oh, man, that’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told.”

Truth be told, I wasn’t fully immerged in The Raven Boys when I first read it, and it took Ronan’s amazingness in The Dream Thieves to make me fall in love with these boys and their strange quest.

Honestly, I didn’t even want to give another chance at what stayed for me the weakest book of the series : God, I was so scared to be disappointed. Not because of Blue’s curse, as I never understood why people were annoyed with the “romance” here (understand : there’s none worthy of attention PYNCH!! , definitely nothing going on between Blue and Gansey, and no will they/won’t they vibes yet in my opinion), but because I found it so sloooow and all kinds of confusing (yes, I mean that it made me feel stupid. No, that is NOT a feeling I enjoy)

Trust me : I am so very surprised at how much I loved it this second time.

One word: FORESHADOWING

All week I’ve been rereading these books and every one of them left a stunning impression on me because of how brilliantly Maggie Stiefvater crafted her plot. Indeed I can’t even count how many times I stumbled upon a sentence and widened my fucking eyes before such talent and well, planning. I don’t know about you, but in the past few years I’ve been too often appalled by how weak and nonsensical plots could get, especially in PNR.

Really, did you look at my name? What do you think, that I chose “frowner” out of the blue? (haha) Elite, Inescapable, Hush, Hush, Alice in Zombieland – They all have a hand in this. Fuckers.

Anyway – what I meant to say is this : no matter how confusing it can appear at first glance, it is NOT messy at all : everything has meaning, even if I didn’t manage to understand it two years ago. Oh! And I should also tell you that I was OVERWHELMED by feels. I know, I know. How can the story’s impact be more powerful the second time is beyond me. I mean, hello, I know all the twists. Go figure.

Not to mention that all these Chainsaw feedings were fucking cute.

OKAY?!
Okay.

RONAN’S THE BEST?!
Ronan’s the best.

Now, is this review useful for you who never read it? The fuck if I know.