The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, Book 1)
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4.6 • 55 Ratings
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- $22.99
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- $22.99
Publisher Description
"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.
From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we've never been before.
Customer Reviews
My favorite series!!
These books are so amazingly crafted! It’s such a unique story with compelling characters to tell it. The author, Maggie Stiefvater, writes in a way that makes you feel like you have been to the places she describes, and felt the things her characters are feeling. Her writing is lyrical and packed with metaphors, yet still strangely funny.
The first word that comes to my mind when I think of these books is “odd”. Not in a bad way at all, just in a way that occasionally makes you go “uh huh, sure,”. Stiefvater manages to create these odd scenarios and conversations while also making it feel normal. All of her characters live strange lives, but they pull you into them and make you feel like you have lived a similar life. A great example of this is Blue Sargent’s, the female lead, home. Blue lives in a small house packed with psychic’s. It’s a house that people are constantly moving in and out of, and at time Blue isn’t even sure who the people she runs into in her own home are. Her mother and her mothers best friends run a psychic reading business out of the home, and they spend a lot of time acting… psychic. They predict things like “someone will walk through that door in ten minutes” and “you will come into great wealth” and “Blue, if you kiss your true love, he’ll die”. All of these things are entirely not relatable to most people, but Stiefvater makes you feel as if you have lived there through comparison. Most people know what it is like to be at a party where you don’t know everyone. Most people have experienced deja vu or had odd coincidences. Most people have odd family traditions that are entirely unique. Blue describes these things in her point of view chapters in order to describe her unique family home while also making you feel nostalgic for your own childhood.
She creates stereotypical characters that are evidently not stereotypical at all. An example of this is seen clearly in her character Gansey. Richard Campbell Gansey III is your average privileged rich kid. He grew up never wanting for anything he couldn’t have, and he struggles to recognize his privilege. Teachers like him, he’s polite, he has a bright future. We have seen characters like him before in countless media forms, right? Wrong. Gansey is all of that, but he is also deeply compassionate and determined to fix and protect everything around him. He’s a major nerd who’s obsessed with history and loves research. He craves independence from his wealth and reputation but knows he can never truly obtain it. He wears masks to better fit into different situations, but he isn’t self conscious like most characters who do that. He just genuinely does it by accident. He’s so well written and characterized that he literally falls off of the page. Every character in the series is like Gansey in that way.
The story, the setting, and the characters make this whole series so beautiful. If you are looking for an addictive read, this is it. Embrace the strangeness and beauty of each sentence.
Best book I’ve ever read
This is genuinely my favorite story I’ve ever read, the writing is gorgeous, you fall in love with the characters, I’ve literally re read this series a few times a year for like FIVE YEARS. I recommend.