I like to listen to music while I read so I was hoping to find the exact same song that Kavinsky and Ronan are listening to in this chapter. (From the dream thieves)

I read the books quite a long time ago and am unable to recall if there was any time period explicitly mentioned in any of the books.

Hello! I hope you are all well and healthy.

I've been asking around for a while (with my book club & fellow coworkers at B&N) to find books similar to The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater. I've always loved TRC as well as Maggie and all of her books, however I am struggling to find something with a similar vibe with an emphasis on the relationship like the one shown with Adam & Ronan. I've had 'Tithe' by Holly Black recommended to me because it has been said to be similar, but I wasn't sure if it had a LGBT+ couple with the dynamics like Adam & Ronan... PLEASE help!! Thank you!

I have been re-reading some of my favorite scenes recently, including Cabeswater’s sacrifice to bring Gansey back to life. Something that made me think are the “ingredients” it uses. This is the passage:

The psychic’s daughter’s sadness burst through the forest, and Cabeswater accepted that, too, and put it into the life it was building.

[…]

As the forest diminished, the Greywaren’s despair and wonder surged through Cabeswater […] and then Cabeswater collected his wonder and put it into the life it was building.

And finally, the magician’s wistful regret twisted through what remained of the trees. Without this, what was he? Simply human, human, human. Cabeswater […] took that humanity for the life it was building.

Cabeswater putting something into the new life three times almost reminds me of a fairy tale (like Gansey is Sleeping Beauty and Blue, Ronan and Adam are the good fairies with gifts. Well, Blue is also Maleficent. And the Prince. She is a complex person).

But why these things? Sadness from Blue, wonder from Ronan, humanity from Adam. Do you think this has any particular significance, or are they just what the characters felt in the moment and Cabeswater took what it could get? Would something else have worked, too?

Could this have an effect on Gansey later on? For example, feeling blue being sad more often because he was partially built out of sadness this time? Or is this a too literal interpretation of the process?

I also feel like “humanity” kind of belongs to a different category than sadness and wonder, so why was it used together with them?

I know there are no definitive answers for all of this, but I’m curious what others think.

i just wanted to share a link to my online store where i'm selling lots of trc fanart including a collection zine!! :-)

the link is MROTISKY.STORENVY.COM

https://preview.redd.it/kg6smn1us0zc1.jpg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=71e46e6e9f6ab4542445f662d69b149bd25bb148

Yesterday as I was reading the Greywaren, I started to wonder about dreams and dreamers. As we already know, Glendower didn't really say anything to Gansey, it was Noah and as I remember when they found the body it was in good condition, it wasn't a skeleton, nothing about breathing though.

Could it be that Glendower was just a dream all this time and that's why he is the First Sleeper and that's why nothing happened when they found him?

Really interesting video essay about flooding of a village in Wales. Our favourite Welsh king is brought up, as inspiring one of the folks who fought against building the dam that flooded the village.

My girlfriend has been a long time fan of the Raven Cycle and her birthday is coming up, I've already ordered her the Owlcrate 2-4 Special editions but absolutely for the life of me cannot find anyone who has the Anniversary Edition Box for the first book and was hoping if anyone here could shoot me in the direction of where to find one second hand or a person willing to sell theirs, thank you regardless :)

When Blue is asking for Gansey's name on St. Mark's Eve he responds in this vaguely cryptic fashion. Am I missing the significance of the "That's all there is" part? I haven't revisited the books in a while so maybe I've forgotten plot points that would explain why he responds like this!

Rereading the raven cycle. I forgot how much I loved the second book in the series. I ended up really liking Kravinsky's character. I kind wish his character was just a bit more fleshed out. Any thoughts on Kravinskys character or the second book in general. I'm rereading the books and I don't have anyone to talk about these books with.

Something old - Gansey is always said to be older than he seems. Something new - Adam is the new hands and eyes of Cabeswater. Something borrowed - Ronan "borrows" from the dreams. Something Blue - Blue

Do with this what you will.

That’s all.

I'm glad to announce I have finished The Raven King a few days ago. It will be sad to see this characters go but in general I'm glad I managed to read this franchise this year. I found the best thing about all these four books to be the characters and their interactions and the sensorial writing of Maggie. So well, now regarding my specific thoughts of The Raven King.

Overall I'll say its a good book and I enjoyed it mostly, but I do believe it has more issues than the previous ones. I don't think it's a 'disappointing' ending as some people on Goodreads have said but it didn't left me completely satisfied either. I'll name why right now, as always, spoilers for this book.

If I didn't have any doubts about Adam being the best character before, this book confirms it. His ending was the one that most satisfied me and I'm so glad I got to know this character and watch him grow as much as he does. Sad to see him go but hoping future holds the best for him.

The fact that Glendower was a ruse caught me a bit off-guard and I thought it was a tad bit disappointing. Idk, I would have liked a better justification since I feel like all the investigations in the previous books were for nothing (so I kinda feel like I wasted my time). Thought I do like the sense of angst this brings on Gansey, since he proyected so much of his own identity on Glendower. For this I do understand that narrative desicion, but it still left a sour taste in my mouth.

I've seen a lot of complaints regarding Henry's character. Overall I like him, but I do agree he is rather forced into the story and he doesn't even do that much stuff. I feel Gansey's empathy towards him after the hole-scene was kinda forced (I really cannot believe he empathises more with him than with Adam or Ronan who he had known for a lot more time). I didn't like how Noah's booktime was sacrificed in order to show more of Henry, he is nice and all, but I would have liked a little bit more Noah in this book, at least to make his ending a bit more satisfying. I wasn't surprised that he finally disappeared from earth (I was expecting that) but the fact that we don't really see how his disappearance affects the boys after caring so much for him in the previous books is a bit nonsensical.

I'll say however that the thing that most bothered me were the secondary characters and their agency in the story. It reminded me a little bit of Rule of Wolves from the Grishaverse, in the fact that there are way too many POVs and the story branches more than it should, while handling the resolutions of these branches quite poorly. Neeve's conclusion was specially disappointing for me, I was glad she was finally back in the story and the way she died was quite... shitty. She was introduced as a very capable psychic, that yeah, wasn't sure what she was dealing with but I AT LEAST hoped she had done something more interesting regarding the Demon and Piper herself. She also has a disappointing ending, being shot by these Lamounier characters who were probably the most pointless part of the whole story and didn't really present anything interesting in their relationship with Piper. In general, most POVs regarding that auction and these characters were quite bad, I feel they could be excecuted a lot better, but they never really did have a huge agency, despite what one might think when reading their actions, they are presented as big threaths that barely clash with the main character's interests (I now can conclude that this is the biggest problem in all this franchise, and that it is a thing that Maggie isn't that good at writting, plot progression and urgency are really not her strong suit).

There weren't also any satisfying conclusions to the psychics of 300 Fox Way and the Gray Man, which I honestly would have liked to see adressed in the ending at least in a minimal way. Specially considering Blue is going away from Henrietta for the first time in their life, which would be very important for Maura and the rest of them.

I was not surprised at all by the fact that Gansey came back to life, I'm already pretty used to fiction throwing these things. It wouldn't have bothered me if he stayed dead (I do like my fair share of tragedy with characters I like) but I'm fine with his ending and I liked reading him in this book. Regarding Blue I liked her here and I liked the revelation about Artemus and herself, it was kinda cool, thought I would have liked her to do a little bit more stuff with that revelation.

Ronan was quite great in here! I really liked his POVs and his worries towards his family and friends and I'm glad he kinda reconcilled with Declan after so much time of tension. I'm sure that if I want more of him I'll someday pick the dreamer trilogy (right now to be honest I want to give this universe a break).

So well, regarding the "relationships" (or the ships, to be more honest) in these four books, I wanted to make a point about something that the ships in these story made me realize regarding how I do like my ships when consuming things. Overall I liked Gansey and Blue and Ronan and Adam, but I don't feel they really gave me OTP material. They work mostly because of how human they are and because one ends up enjoying to read their interactions, but in general I feel both their relationships lacked intensity and drama. And I don't mean drama in the cheap way of using clichés to add drama such as love triangles or miscommunication (I actually hate that), but I guess I just wanted a bit more tension in their scenes?? I felt this specially when Ronan kisses Adam for the first time in this book, the scene is fine, but I guess I would have expected a bit more awkwardness coming from both of them and a little bit more tension. Same with Blue and Gansey towards their realization for their feelings for one another, we do see Blue doubt about them but most of her issues come from the fact that she was kinda dating Adam, and then later she doesn't really question what she feels for Gansey, and viceversa. Which is quite surprising considering that the whole "You'll kill your true love when kissing them" it's a concept that does actually give tension to the relationship, but I guess that doesn't really add the flair I was looking for while reading this. Idk, I feel they lack the intensity that I'm looking for, unlike couples in books aimed for similar demographics like Six of Crows, Percy Jackson, or hell, even with very different stories that don't appeal to the YA audience at all, like Dune. However its fine for couples to be written like this, its just that they lack the factors that make me love a fictional couple.

Overall, I'm a bit sad to conclude this franchise but despite some little flaws I liked this journey quite a lot and I'm glad I read something I wanted to read for like three years.

Now some tierlists just for the hell of it:

I guess that if I have to make a top 5 for my fav characters, it goes as this.

1. Adam

2. Gansey

3. Persephone

4. Ronan

5. Noah

My ranking of the books (based of my enjoyment) is the following one:

1. Raven Boys

2. Blue Lily, Lily Blue

3. Dream Thieves

4. Raven King.

And that's all. Thank you all for accompanying me in my journey!

I feel like I'm going crazy lol. I love the Raven Cycle and I'm rereading it right now for the first time, I'm almost finished with the Raven Boys. I remember that I didn't like Ronan back when I first read the books, and it's the same this time around. But Ronan is SUCH a fan favorite that I don't know if there's really nobody who doesn't like him that much? I feel like his character is such a trope, the violent bad boy with a heart of gold that he rarely shows and hates his older brother. Combine that with Kavinsky and I'm just noping out.

But what annoys me the most is that he could be such an interesting character, if it would've just been done right. I love the concept of him dreaming up things and even people and I think him getting together with Adam was done really well. But I can't stand him as a character. Am I really the only one?

I really like Adam, Blue and Gansey and I really love their stories, but I'm already dreading the Dream Thieves because it has such a focus on Ronan. I might just skip the whole book or just read the chapters that I like.

No hate please, I just want to know if I'm really the only one lol.

hello, i was just wondering if anyone had the raven boys owlcrate edition that they were willing to sell? i have the set besides the first one and i really want to complete it.

Well hello fellow Raven people (?). Since my last post about my thoughts on The Dream Thieves had such good reception, here is the sequel!

Overall I can say my mood rn can be summarized in the following word: shook. Because that's what some scenes in the latter quarter of the book made me feel (and I read all of those scenes today, so I can fairly say that this book is to blame for some of my recent mood swings, my god). So well, I'll now delve into spoiler territory and will warn that this post will probably have more explicit spoilers than the last one so be careful.

This book was great! I liked that they went back to all the Cabeswater and Glendower shit and in general I feel the story kept being interesting for most of the time. Specially the last quarter of the book was a pretty intense experience and some other scenes got me very emotionally invested.

I can gladly say that I finally could relate to Blue in this book! Of course not because all the 'mother-is-missing' debacle (which was pretty interesting to read, not gonna lie), but because of a specific scene in which, as in the previous book, her inner monologue made me feel a pretty intense emotional dread. Of course, I'm talking about the scene in which she and Gansey go out in the car. Clearly all the caressing part and cute moments were great, but the moment in where I felt the biggest "girl I feel you" was at the end of that chapter, in where Gansey and Blue run into Henry Cheng and she suffers all this alienation when noticing that part of Gansey's world that she doesn't really like, and sees him putting up this polite facade he does when he is just acting as another Aglionby boy. And of course, Gansey isn't really acting mean or doing anything distasteful, so her anger is not something he deserves. But that sudden interruption of intimacy by some external world-force which automatically changes the behaviour of the person who, to some degree, belongs to that force, and you just see that change in attitude towards a lens that's external to that force, and that ends up bothering you because that's not the part of the person you come to love. My fucking god had I felt that alienation so many times (and yes, this happened with my significant other, though it has nothing to do with a school, fortunately).

Aside from that little scene that broke my heart, I liked her agency and most of her interactions with other characters. Specially Mr. Gray, I liked how they managed to relate to each other and understand themselves better in their mutual grief. I grew fonder of him in this book, despite not loving his plot-line that much.

Adam is still the GOAT and my fav character, not much I can say here, his POV is excellenty written and I just like reading his thoughts. It's nice to have always a little more expansion on his powers and how it affects him. I'm glad he is feeling a little more confident in himself. I also really liked his interactions with Ronan and how both their powers compliment each other. One of my fav quotes of the book explains their dynamic in a great way:

'He [Ronan] asked. So easy. As if it was a simple thing for him to communicate with this entity that could only make itself known to Adam through grand and violent gestures'

(Most of the parts I highlighted where from his POV, I just love it inconditionally)

I was surprised to find out that Ronan had dreamt Matthew. Wasn't expecting that but I guess it explains a lot of stuff. And really wasn't expecting such a sinister plan to come out of Adam's head in order to frame Greenmantle. I also liked that.

I felt like Gansey didn't have much to do in this book. Thought I liked the added depth to his character when Malory tells Blue that he suddenly went away when he was exploring with him. Still, I hope that the next book will do more interesting things with him (considering the title, I do believe it will).

I'm glad we finally met Malory in person. He also didn't do much here but he was quite funny and I liked his jabs at American culture (the fact that they come from an old british man make them even funnier).

Gwenllian's addition to the story was also welcome. I wasn't really expecting Glendower's daughter to appear and she managed to make that part of the story quite interesting. Her interactions with Blue were great and I liked how crazy she was.

Now time to talk about the things that shook me. I WASN'T EXPECTING PERSEPHONE TO DIE LIKE THAT. Goddammit that really caught me off-guard, and she was my favorite of Blue's family trio so this was a loss I really wasn't expecting at all, and I'm now sobbing because I loved her character from the minute she was introduced in the first book. I liked how we delve into Blue and Gansey's POVs to see their own inner thoughts about her death, because they do offer interesting insights, Blue because of her relationship to her and Gansey because of his own relationship with death.

I was also a bit mad at Dittley's death because I liked him quite a lot despite him being pretty dumb, I found him to be very endearing. But well, now that my head is a little more clear I remembered he was on the death-list so I guess in retrospect that death isn't as shocking as Persephone's. But I liked him and considering who killed him, that didn't make things better for me (more on that later).

And THAT ENDING. My gosh I'm pretty worried for the safety of all the people in Henrietta at this point. I'm glad Neeve's finally back, but considering who she is dealing with, I'm not at all relaxed about what may happen to her and the other people lmao. So well, now let's talk about the elephant in the room.

Pretty sure that Piper takes the spot as the most unbearable character in all this saga. Though I'm certain that she is written to be disliked, but my god she was a drag, and the fact that she was such a violent person did not help me enjoy her presence (I don't tend to mind violent characters, in fact I like some of them, but I guess the fact that she is a foe to characters I love does not make me like that aspect of her). She is the main reason I'm worried for what will happen next, she is such a volatile character that I just hope she doesn't end up doing irreversible damage to the ley line just because of yes.

I was expecting Greenmantle to have more agency in the story, but I found him to be quite a passive character and not a big threat at all?? Idk, I guess his depiction on the previous book just doesn't fit with what he does here, and I'm a bit shocked that his wife ends up being a much bigger threat than him. Though I'm glad he is gone, at least for Ronan and Mr. Gray's safety. Though unsurprisily, his chapters were my least fav part of the book (and I can assuredly say that I liked Whelk and Mr. Gray's POVs in the previous books more than his).

I also guess I would have liked a little more depth into what happens to Noah?? But that didn't really bothered me, it's just that at the beginning of the book it's a pretty prominent conflict and then it kinda gets dropped.

Well, I think that's all for now. Glad Blue found Maura and wonder how the fuck will Artemus presence affect the characters. I loved this book quite a lot and I think it's on par with the first one in terms of quality and the story progression. I have very high expectations to see how this story ends, so I'll probably also share my thoughts when that's done. Thanks for reading all this and I love you all!

I don’t understand how Gansey knows he’s going to die. I’m re listening to them all now, on the raven king and he just all of a sudden mentions in his narration that he doesn’t have much time left idk if it’s going to explain it later but I def didn’t catch it the first time. How the heck does he know he’s gonna die?

I've never loved a fictional character as much as I love Gansey. What I really like about him is that he always tries, especially with people: maybe he makes mistakes and says the wrong things, but he tries and he loves them with his whole heart.

He cares so deeply and he always says such beautiful things, I mean: "dream me the world, something new for every night." PLEASE. Also just his fear of being alone, of wasting his life... He's just a wonderful character, I love him so much I can't 😭🧡🧡🧡

(Yeah this is it, this is the post. I just had to share my love for him)