The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater [Spoiler-free Series Review]

The Raven Cycle [The Raven Boys; The Dream Thieves; Blue Lily, Lily Blue; The Raven King]
by Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: YA paranormal

My Rating: ★★★★★ 

Description: A group of teenagers spend a year searching for a dead (or not) Welsh king in a small Virginia town.




Overall Thoughts

Allow me a moment to fangirl. This series is one of the most hyped up YA series ever published, and now I see why.
My only regret? That I didn't read them sooner.

I knew from the moment I finished book one that this series was going to be a new favorite of mine. I also knew that my reviews for each individual book would start to get repetitive. Constantly screaming the words "amazing" and "incredible" at you for four consecutive reviews sounds like a good way to bore you all to death. I didn't want to do that, so I chose instead to do a series review.

This review will cover the entire four-book series (excluding the short stories) and will be 100% spoiler-free. You're welcome.

The Characters

The characters. Ah, the characters. There are certain stories where you can't pick a favorite character because they're all so amazing, and this is one of those stories. (Though, if hard-pressed, I'd probably say Gansey is my favorite. But only if very hard-pressed.)
I love how nuanced all of them are. Maggie Stiefvater excels at writing characters who subvert stereotypes, and The Raven Cycle is a perfect example of this. By the end of the series, it's like reading about a group of old friends, and I loved that so much.
I also love how real even the very minor characters feel. Steifvater gave them all very interesting personalities and quirks, and even when they didn't get a lot of page time, they still felt like real people.

Plot/Pacing

The main plot of the series is weird. But like, a good kind of weird. Basically, it follows a group of teenagers searching for a dead (or not-so-dead) Welsh king who was supposedly buried in Virginia. It's not one of those "fate of the world" plotlines that's so common in YA (and especially fantasy) and that was surprisingly refreshing. It was compelling even without the fate of the world stakes, which I loved. Sometimes stories don't have to be about saving the world; they can be about saving a town, or a person, and that was one thing I loved about the plot for this series. It was never about the fate of the world.
As for the subplots... they were hit and miss with me. (I'm mainly referring to the romance subplots, as the rest of the subplots tangle so much with the main plot that it's hard for me to separate them.) I really liked the main romance subplot, and did like another one that was introduced in book two (I think? I could be wrong) but there was another one (introduced much later in the series) that I... didn't really like? I was kind of upset because I liked these two characters as friends, and the subplot kind of ruined that, so yeah.

Writing 

Maggie Stiefvater knows how to write. Her style is compelling, original, and atmospheric, something that carries through all of her books. The writing in this series was exceptional, and kept me flipping pages.
I also really liked the small-town vibes Henrietta gave me. It was great.

And now for some thoughts on the individual books:

The Raven Boys - My personal favorite. This book introduced me to all of these awesome characters and it just makes me so happy thinking about it. :)

The Dream Thieves - My personal least favorite. Not because it wasn't good! No, no, it was still really good, but it did feel very separate from the other books' plots, and kind of random because of that.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue - I loved it. The whole thing with the cave in this book was so cool.

The Raven King - The ending. Was. So. Perfect. This book is the guilty one that had that subplot I didn't like... but hey, everything else was perfect. So I'm not complaining too much.










Content

Recommended for ages 16 and up.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: References to an attempted suicide. Some references to a character's parent's murder.
There's... swearing. Quite a bit of it. It's not awful (or maybe I'm just used to it? I don't know) but there's definitely some there, including many, many uses of the f-bomb between all four books. So that's something to watch out for.
There isn't actually a ton of violence, but there are a few fight scenes, as well as some descriptions of blood. Several murders, and while none are described graphically, there were descriptions of the events, which could be disturbing. Several characters use guns.
Sexual content includes several crude jokes and references to sex. A few descriptions of a female character's body (not graphic by any means.) References to crushes between a boy and a girl, and to a crush between two boys. Kissing between a girl and a boy, and two kissing scenes between two boys.
Characters drink alcohol underage. Some references and scenes with drug abuse.
I don't normally address spiritual content in books (I don't feel that it's necessary) but this book does feature plotlines that heavily rely on pyschics -- including the use of tarot cards, palm-reading, etc. which I feel could deter some readers. So just know that there is a lot of this in the series.

This is my Review of the Month for the review collection on LovelyAudiobooks.info.