The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater - MAJOR SPOILERS!
Rating: 5 stars
Synopsis: For years, Gansey has been on a quest to find a lost king. One by one, he's drawn others into this quest: Ronan, who steals from dreams, Adam, whose life is no longer his own; Noah, whose life is no longer a lie; and Blue, who loves Gansey...and is certain she is destined to kill him. Now the endgame has begun. Dreams and nightmares are converging. Love and loss are inseparable. And the quest refuses to be pinned to a path.
Review: This book was probably my most anticipated book of 2016. And I was terrified to read it. It has sat on my Kindle since it's release week until, finally, this week, I began to read the final book in the Raven Cycle. And it was fantastic. A brilliant end to a series that is full of magic and adventure. This whole series has kept me gripped from beginning to end, and the wait between Blue Lily, Lily Blue and this final book was excruciating. If you have not read this series, I would definitely recommend it. The characters are wonderful and the plot is so interesting to read. That's really all I can say without spoiling the whole series so, if you have not read this series, go and read it and then come back so we can discuss.
WARNING. THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD...
This book was so well written. Even up until the last moment, you honestly don't know what is going to happen next which makes it so addicting to read. The one thing I would say, because this book is quite intricate in it's plot, is that it would probably help to re-cap Blue Lily, Lily Blue at least before reading this book, because a lot of the characters that we meet in that book come back to play in this one and, if you're like me, and haven't read that book in a few months, you do forget who some of these characters are and where they've come from.
The chronology of this book was incredible. We heard from everyone at least once - which is a lot of perspectives to juggle - and also, time itself played a big part in the plot. 6:21 was the elusive moment which Cabeswater replayed often in the book and, of course, we went back to the moment Gansey and Noah died and saw that moment play out. It would have been easy to feel overwhelmed with this, but Maggie handled it really well, and all of the perspectives worked well together in moving the plot forward, which a lot of authors would have struggled with.
The whole main squad has always captured me from Book 1. All of their personalities mesh really well and I love the humour and friendship that comes from all of them. Gansey has always been the leader of this group - it's his quest after all - but he's a very natural leader who always seems to have some idea of what to do or where to go. I loved that in this book, we got to see Gansey at a loss for what to do. After the events of Blue Lily, Lily Blue, no one is entirely sure of what to do next and it was interesting to see how Gansey in particular dealt with not having a clear plan of what to do next. The quest for Glendower also took a backseat in this book, because of the demon attacking Cabeswater and I kind of liked that that happened. A lot of books wouldn't have been able to do that - to put the quest that we've spent the last three books on, on the back burner for a while. It would have felt wrong; like the author was searching for something else to do in the final book. To me, it made sense that we focused on Cabeswater before we carried on searching for Glendower, and it was no less exciting than any of the other books. In fact, I'd say this book was more action packed than the others!
Noah has always been an interesting character. Both he and Gansey died on the ley line at the same time, though Gansey was saved and Noah was left to die. I loved that we got to see that moment again, from Noah's perspective. Gansey had said that someone had told him he was going to be saved because someone else had died on the ley line that shouldn't have, but he never knew who it was. I loved that it was Noah who said it to him. I thought that was so fitting and beautiful as, what I assume was his final act before moving on completely. Gansey even says in this book that he doesn't know who it could have been - he thought it was Glendower, but I'll discuss that later - and he wants to thank them. The first thing I thought of after reading that small chapter from Noah's POV was, that Gansey
did thank Noah for what he did, by letting him join the quest for Glendower; for letting him be a part of something and for not dismissing him when they found out he was dead. I think for Noah, that was all the thanks he needed. Not only to see Gansey using his second chance, but to be a part of it.
Ronan is probably my favourite character in this series. His ability to bring things out of dreams amazed me in the second book, and still does, even now. It's such a cool ability to have - to be able to dream up anything and bring it out into the waking world. I mean, I could live without having to worry about bringing the nightmares out as well, but I'd take it. I love how he uses his power as well, especially in this book. He tries to dream a protective suit for Gansey to wear, to protect him for hornets. He doesn't know about Blue's prophecy so, as far as Ronan knows, hornets are the only known thing to kill Gansey. I just thought that was so sweet. Tough, prickly Ronan dreamt something up to protect his friend. His tentative relationship with Adam as well was really cute and I'd love to see more from them both. How he treats Blue as his little sister, commending her on getting suspended is so funny. I love how their relationship has grown over the course of the series.
I liked seeing Blue's growth towards the boys and Aglionby in general. Seeing her make friends with Henry and his friends was really nice, especially considering her initial reaction to Gansey and the group at the beginning of the series. It was really nice to see her change her opinion and realise that they're not all bad.
Adam as well, had his own growth, going back to his family's trailer park and confronting them at the end of the book. Again, it was nice to see Adam grow and realise that the abuse he suffered wasn't his fault and that he could, not forgive his parents, but to move past the abuse he suffered was lovely to see.
I thought Artemus was such a funny character. I liked how he was one of the 'tree-people' and that Blue had inherited some of that as well. I liked how everything revolved around trees and forests, it was really interesting. I thought it was so funny that he essentially lived in the cupboard in the house so that Gwenllian couldn't hurt him and then, when she managed to get in to the cupboard he
became the tree in the garden, which I thought was so funny. Blue was so disgruntled because that tree had always been hers. He' definitely a coward to me - I don't really understand how Glendower appointed him, perhaps he was a different person all those years ago, but, he did redeem himself slightly by actually talking to Blue and telling her a bit about her heritage. He definitely could have done more to help, I think.
I liked how we started off with one dying tree and then worked our way up to the whole forest being unmade. I thought the demon added an interesting aspect to things; how it favoured Piper Greenmantle and gave her the ability to do all sorts of crazy things. The auction of the demon was a little strange for me though and it seemed like that was the one area that wasn't resolved in all of this. We saw all of these buyers, including the Grey Man who had left Maura and Blue to protect them, we saw the auction and how Piper was killed by her father but, we didn't see anything from them after that. I want to know where all these buyers scattered to and where the Grey Man went afterwards. Did he go back to Maura? We didn't see her at the end either so we don't know. This was the only aspect of the book that felt unresolved to me, simply because we don't know where all these people are now.
My heart broke for Gansey when we finally found Glendower. Not only was he hidden under the place where he died the first time, but, he was actually dead. Dead as in there was nothing left of him. So, the favour that we were all hoping would save Gansey either from dying or by resurrecting him, didn't happen. That moment when they were all trying to bring him back to life was heart wrenching because you knew there wasn't anything else they could do, other than kill Gansey. It was their last chance to save Cabeswater and their friend. I did enjoy going back to the place Gansey died the first time. It felt like we'd come full circle and, again, it was interesting to get some more background on that event.
Cabeswater is as much a character in these books as Gansey and Ronan and Blue. I never saw it coming that Ronan dreamt Cabeswater. That came as a real surprise but, when you think about it, it does make sense. Ronan dreamt Matthew, his little brother. It shouldn't have been surprising that he dreamt a magical forest as well. I really enjoyed seeing the bond between the group and Cabeswater; how they tried to protect Cabeswater, and how Cabeswater tried to protect them, either when it was under attack from the demon.
I said above that I was nervous about picking this book up. I think that's because Maggie had promised that the prophecy would be fulfilled and Gansey would die and, going into this book, all I knew was that it would be Blue's kiss that would kill him, but I couldn't figure out how we'd bring him back - because Gansey couldn't die completely. Even at the moment he died, I still didn't know how we were going to resurrect him. And I loved the answer to this seemingly impossible riddle. Cabeswater remade Gansey. That scene just astounded me. How it took the emotions of the group and used them to remake Gansey as best it could. I loved that moment - it just seemed to describe the entire series in one scene. Amazing.
I think that's everything I wanted to discuss about this book. The Raven Cycle in general is an incredible YA series and the Raven King is a really satisfying conclusion to the series.
Image from Goodreads, no Copyright Intended
