The Raven Cycle: One of My Favorite Urban Fantasy Books
Hi, this is my blog post about The Raven Cycle, and how it grew to become one of my favorite urban fantasy series in the span of the week where I read the last 3 books. There are four books in this series: The Raven Boys, The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily Lily Blue (most of the time I just refer to it as BLLB), and the last book-my personal favorite-The Raven King. I’m going to give a brief summary o the beginning of The Raven Boys, and talk a little about why I love this series without giving away major spoilers.
First off: The Raven Boys starts off with the main character Blue Sargent, who’s the daughter of a psychic from a long family of clairvoyants. However, while Blue is an amplifier for psychic powers, she has no powers of her own, and cannot usually see spirits. Blue is told several times throughout her life that if she kisses her true love then he’ll die. Blue’s half-aunt Neeve takes her to a ceremony on St. Mark’s Eve, where she meets the spirit of a boy named Gansey, Since Blue could see Gansey’s spirit, Neeve reveals that the spirit was of someone who was either her true love, or someone she kills.
Next, the book introduces the rest of the main characters, The Raven Boys from Aglionby: Richard Campell Gansey III (he goes by gansey), Ronan Lynch, and Adam Parrish. There’s also Noah but I can’t say much about him without there being spoilers for the books.
Blue doesn’t usually like Aglionby boys because she believes that they’re all rich pretentious bastards, then proceeds to run into the group during her shift at a nearby pizza place called Nino’s. And then, despite her previous thoughts on the raven boys, she eventually gets dragged into their quest of looking for a dead welsh king.
I should probably explain the dead welsh king. Gansey is extremely allergic to wasps/bees and once when he was about 7 he got stung several times and actually died, only to be brought back because of a ley line. Gansey believes that ley line is connected to Glendower, previously mentioned dead welsh king.
What I really loved about this series is the connection that Blue, Noah, Adam, Ronan, and Gansey have through the series. I am notoriously weak for the found family trope in fiction so these books just made me incredibly happy. Throughout the books these five characters build incredibly strong bonds with each other that I physically cannot talk about how much I love them without getting repetitive.
The plot is also one that is well written in my opinion. However, there are a few plot holes in the last book that to my knowledge do not get properly fixed. I do know that there’s another trilogy in the same universe though, so maybe a few of the plot holes get fixed there. I don’t know if I’ll read it though, because I heard that Blue, Noah, and Gansey don’t have much of an appearance there.
I would rate The Raven Cycle a 5/5 and hopefully after reading this book review you might be considering reading this series! I may not have explained it well but I really hope you do, and if you like it please come talk to me about it!!
Written By: Gabby Mongwa
This sounds like such a fun series to read! The concept and the plot sounds very interesting, especially the psychic powers and the prophecy. Like you, I also love the found family trope. Something about this trope is so wholesome. All the characters seem to be well-written out, which is another green flag for me. Great review Gabby, and I will definitely look into this series!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a really interesting series to read! The characters seem detailed and well thought out, and the introduction sounds like it could set up some pretty fun storylines! I would have enjoyed having a little bit more information on the setting and general premise, but other than that I would say this is a great review!
ReplyDeleteI don't understand some things you wrote, probably because I have no context, but I would love to find out myself. The overall way you described the book seems interesting, even though I don't find nonfiction my preference. It would have been better if you were to connect the books together as in one description instead of multiple, it would have helped me understand the post. I don't see anything else you can improve on, looks great.
ReplyDeleteGreat book review. Seems like a good book series. The books seem kind of similar to Akata Witch. Knowing that someone is either your true love, or someone you kill seems like an interesting aspect of the book. Overall great book review!
ReplyDeleteI've heard of this series a lot and was very interested in reading it, but never knew much about the actual plot. But this summary was really good, and very compelling ( I also appreciate your avoidance of spoilers :DD) The characters and plot seem very intriguing, and I loved you playful tone throughout the review as it made it feel more authentic. All in all, you did a great job with this, keep it up!!
ReplyDeleteGreat Job Gabby! I really liked your blog post and enjoyed learning about the plots of the books. Overall this sounds like a great series and I will be sure to add it to my list, I really want to know what happens!
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ReplyDeleteNice review! I like how you talked about the story in depth! The series sound quite interesting and vaguely reminds me of Akata Witch. I also liked how you encouraged potential readers to talk about the series with you.
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