“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.Rating: 3/5
Genre: YA, Paranormal, Fantasy, Romance
I enjoyed the characters and the overall idea of The Raven Boys a lot, and I think a good amount happened for the first in a series, but for some reason I never truly got excited about this book. There was something about it that didn't hook me, and I think it mostly centered around the pacing, narration, and point of view.
Firstly, I began to lose a bit of interest thanks to the slow pacing towards the first half; things were slowed down in order to introduce all the characters and their goals, which took a good amount of time. Also, the first meeting scene, in my opinion, could have been taken out and replaced by an event that was already being set-up. It did add a bit more to a later scene because characters were somewhat-kinda acquainted, but not enough that I think it was truly needed. The pacing was better throughout the rest of the book, but it still seemed a bit disjointed overall.
Moving on to the characters and narration, I think this was what bothered me the most. There were multiple narrators in this book, and sometimes it wasn't obvious at first who was telling a chapter. I'm not a fan of more than two narrators in books anyway because even though we do gain more information from different characters that way, I also think we lost a bit of the authenticity. Even if I know that the narrator is biased, and shouldn't be trusted, I could at least trust that their voice is true. That trust gets harder once you throw in four different eyes to see through.
Similarly, I know characters are layered, and that makes them interesting and real, but I struggled to find the true character beneath these ones. They all were well-developed in a checklist sort of way, but I wasn't 100% sure of their true personality. I questioned the actions and thoughts of them too much to be comfortable, and thus began to lose interest.
Overall, the creative setting and theme of the novel may be enough to continue the series, but I'm sadly not too impressed with The Raven Boys. The series is a quartet known as The Raven Cycle, and the third book came out last year. If you're interested in paranormal YA, I would still recommend this to those who want to try it out.
