DNF Review: The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle #1) by Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal
Publisher:  Scholastic Press
Publication: July 30th, 2013
Series: The Raven Circle #1
Pages: 409 (Paperback, Hardcover)
       468 (Kindle Edition)
       319 (eBook)


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DNF: 49 %



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.

My thoughts:

(I just realized this is my first DNF review on the blog. Why, everything has to be started somewhere. *sighs*)


I picked it up once when I was waiting four hours until my appointment at the dentist's, but it would have been too much of a hassle to go home and back. Anyway, it seemed appealing to perch on a bench in the mall and read. Sort of cozy. However, with my luck, my mobile went dead just then and I was left without any kind of entertainment. Fortunately though, there's a two-story book store in this mall of ours and so I happened to saunter in there for a scant few hours. (Or not, because I was to eager to start reading.) There, I found The Raven Boys, a book I knew everybody adores. Well, except me apparently, but let's not rush ahead. Thus I purchased it quickly and commenced reading at once.

I've never wanted to love a book as much in my whole life, but this proved to not be enough. I stayed hopeful for a few more pages nevertheless, but it didn't improve and I resigned to the fact that I wouldn't get to share the love with this one. There were several aspects that didn't work out for me, in fact I don't even believe there's something that did so.

The main thing that I resented to was Ms Stiefvater's writing style. I found it rather confusing, as I could never follow who was talking, and it only got worse since I was unable to remember what happened even at the beginning of the page! I do have the knack to forget details, but this was something entirely different from simply being quite senile at the age of fifteen. In retrospect, it may have been boredness, but I'm not sure. The only thing that impressed me concerning the writing style was the descriptions, the landscapes for the most part. They were pretty gorgeous.

The plot wasn't much better, either. Usually a book is an array of events leading up to the conflict/twist/anything that makes you say "Now, I see! I was waiting for this." However, with Raven Boys, predominantly I felt that some nice or not nice events occurred to the characters, and there were parts that clearly were jointed and purposeful, but not suffice.

The characters might have been the only thing I was fairly okay with. I wouldn't refuse a meet up with Blue, the FMC, I think we could be good friends, though I can't tell you why, because I can't really remember what she was like. (Sorry. I may have just marked it DNF, but I haven't actually read a page for more than a month.) There were three main male characters none of them left me with stronger emotions. Gansey was a sort of reserved character despite his richness. Although, he came down to me as sort of grumpy and stuck-up, he did take care of his difficult-lifed (not really a word, but it seems to fit here) friends well. Adam was the shy boy out of the three, who fell for Blue first next to Gansey though this thread inchoate yet where I put down the book. I amend. Ronan was grumpy. Comparing to him Gansey was as mild as a kitten. Or rather a bird which Ronan had. Although it seemed a tad bit ill-fitting in the story, he found a bird and took it in and it was a beautiful motive of character development, because he did have a very hard life and he did hide behind rudeness. He wasn't all that bad, I mean. My favorite was Blue's mother nevertheless, who was an unusual mom. She didn't forbid anything to her daughter, except for dating of course, and she wasn't utterly good at it. However, in spite of this she still managed to appear to love Blue, it didn't look at all as if she didn't care which I consider quite an achievement.

Wrapping up, I attempted to seek out people who felt like me and now I feel kind of a freak; out of 41, 841 ratings only 570 have given one star and 1202 two starts. And although I wasn't searching for long, during those few pages there were the scarcely five two or one star rater, but none of them elaborated. So yeah, it goes up to the shelf 'hyped books I don't like' next to Harry Potter. (I wasn't kidding, but please don't kill me, I haven't finished Selection yet. *runs away*)

About the author:

New York Times bestselling author of The Shiver Trilogy, The Raven Cycle, and The Scorpio Races. Artist. Driver of things with wheels. Avid reader.

All of Maggie Stiefvater's life decisions have been based around her inability to be gainfully employed. Talking to yourself, staring into space, and coming to work in your pajamas are frowned upon when you're a waitress, calligraphy instructor, or technical editor (all of which she's tried), but are highly prized traits in novelists and artists. She's made her living as one or the other since she was 22. She now lives an eccentric life in the middle of nowhere, Virginia with her charmingly straight-laced husband, two kids, two neurotic dogs, and a 1973 Camaro named Loki.