NO MORE WAITING #8: THE RAVEN CYCLE

Are you fed up with cliffhangers? Are you not patient enough to wait months for next instalment when reading series? Or do you just prefer to completely lose yourself in story and marathon all the books together? If you answered "yes" to at least one of these questions, this post is for you. NO MORE WAITING is a feature on my blog that spotlights completed series. You can look forward to spoiler-free reviews and graphic arts to accompany it.

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Young Adult Paranormal

Published by: Scholastic Press

Purchase: Amazon / B&N / Kobo

           

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.

SERIES RATING AND REVIEW:

Book 1 - The Raven Boys:

Book 2 - The Dream Thieves:

Book 3 - Blue Lily, Lily Blue:

Book 4 - The Raven King:

The Raven Cycle is innovative, mysterious and captivating series about psychics, magic, mystique, friendship and all things supernatural. Story-wise, I went to this series completely blind. And it was the best way since curiosity kept me reading even to late hours or during work (yes I even sneaked to read couple of pages on my kindle here and there). And because I don't want to give away any plot details, all I'm going to do for this review is to list spoiler-free points that I loved or didn't love about this series.

WHAT I LOVED

+ All raven boys were a bit weird and full of secrets. It was exciting to slowly reveal what made them THEM. Even though I was truly confused from time to time since things didn't make sense more often than not, I was always hooked and enthralled by the story and characters.

+ Bromance and friendship between boys in Raven Cycle series was perfect! After Addicted series by Krista & Becca Ritchie, this has become my second favorite series featuring awesome bromance.

+ Even though I liked boys in these books, it was Blue that won first place in my heart. She was "eccentric on the outside, but sensible inside". I loved that combination and her chapters were my favorite. It was very easy to connect with her because she was great, funny and sarcastic narrator.

+ Even though Raven cycle isn't a horror series, it had a good amount of creepiness that reminded me why I love to read scary stories.

+ Romance is not the main part of this series, yet it was this potent realistic thing, always in the background and even the smallest hints of romance made my heart beat faster. However, this series features one of the slowest of slow burns and ships took especially long to sail so be patient! If you are not a fan of slow burn romances and require constant presence of romance in your books, this series is most definitely not for you.

WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE

- Some parts were truly slow paced and bordered on being boring (especially book #2). Fortunately, story always picked up at one point or another.

- In this case, multiple POVs were a double edged sword. While it provided wider range of emotions, overall story felt unfocused with so many short subchapters.

- This is probably going to sound blasphemous to all hardcore fans of this series, but even though I enjoyed reading these books, story never touched me emotionally. Simply said, I never lived this series. I blame too high expectations based on all those raving reviews out there.

- Unsatisfying ending. It felt like author omitted too much stuff in conclusion and I felt cheated after investing my time in this series.

Overall, I definitely recommend this series to all fans of Young Adult genre. I can guarantee that it will provide new and different reading experience!

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