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The Dream Thieves

Book Review of The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2), by Maggie Stiefvater

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I borrowed a copy of Maggie Stiefvater’s The Dream Thieves from my local library. I reviewed the first,The Raven Boys, here.

Description from Goodreads:
Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after…

Review:
I enjoyed book one of this series. I liked the beginning of this book and really liked the end, but the middle seemed to drag. I just got so tired of everyone being so miserable and no one saying the things that so desperately needed to be said. Further, while Stiefvater’s writing is beautiful there were times I wanted to shake the book and scream, “Stop being so bloody poetic and just say what you mean.” The prose got in the way of the story sometimes. Lastly, it was a little to convenient that the villain offed himself in the end.

However, the plot still kept me interested enough to want the next book and the witty zingers continued to fly. There really is quite a lot of subtle humor in the story and I loved that. All in all, maybe not as good as the first book, but still really good.

The Left Hand of Darkness

Book Review of The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin

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I have owned this copy of Ursula K. Le Guin‘s The Left Hand of Darkness for years. One would presume I bought it at some point.

Description from Goodreads:
On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female during each mating cycle, and this is something that humans find incomprehensible.

The Ekumen of Known Worlds has sent an ethnologist to study the Gethenians on their forbidding, ice-bound world. At first he finds his subjects difficult and off-putting, with their elaborate social systems and alien minds. But in the course of a long journey across the ice, he reaches an understanding with one of the Gethenians — it might even be a kind of love.

Review:
This is one of those books that is more a thought experiment than an actual reading experience. I can’t say I’m sad to have read it—especially now, so soon after Le Guin’s death—but I’ll say I’m glad to have read it, to be done reading it. As interesting as it was, I was bored for almost all of it. The world was breathtakingly described and, again, the moral and social implications of the Emissary’s circumstances were interesting, but the whole thing was soooo slow and indirect. Plus, while I understand the book was published in 1969 and therefore a product of it’s time, I was uncomfortable with the way women were positioned and described. All in all, I think of this much like I do Moby Dick. I’m glad to tick it off my list off books I’ve meant to read, but didn’t enjoy it all that much, though I can appreciate it’s worth.

the raven boys

Book Review of The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle #1), by Maggie Stiefvater

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Somehow I own both a mug and a T-shirt with quotes from Maggie Stiefvater‘s The Raven Boys, but had never read it. I opted to correct this oversight and borrowed an copy through my library.

Description from Goodreads:
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.

Review:
I’ll be honest, I have a real hit and miss relationship with Young Adult fiction. But I have been on a real roll so far in 2018 and this is the third series I’ve started an truly enjoyed. Further, I went in not really expecting to love this. It’s so popular and I’m often the odd (wo)man out, disliking what everyone else seems to like. But I got a lot more than I bargained for with The Raven Boys. It was surprisingly snarky, subtly funny, lyrically written and interesting.

Yes, I think occasionally clarity was sacrificed for beautiful prose, but this was rare and I finished the book hoping the library had an copy of book two, because that I could checkout online and read immediately. (It does and I will.)