The Raven Boys (Maggie Stiefvater)

Title: The Raven Boys

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Publisher: Scholastic

Length: 409 pages

Rating: 5/5

Blue has always been told that she will cause her true love to die. Her general rule is to stay away from boys, so she doesn’t find this premonition a problem until she meets Gansey on the Corpse Road on St. Marks Eve, the night that spirits of the soon-to-be-dead show themselves to the clairvoyant members of Blue’s eccentric family. Gansey is a Raven Boy from the rich boarding school down the way and all Blue knows about his is that he will die in the next year, and she may be the cause. Blue’s rule to avoid boys is soon abandoned and she is drawn into Gansey’s world, filled with his friends Ronan, Adam, and Noah and their obsessive search for a specific kind of supernatural.

Because I feel like numbering things today:

1.      I love Maggie Stiefvater. I had the pleasure of meeting her last year, and she’s awesome. If that’s not enough to convince you, she also plays the bagpipes.

2.      This book was intoxicating and addicting and gave me all the FEELS.

3.      BROMANCE. Finally, because I needed some good YA bromance. I adored all of the Raven Boys- their quirky ways and heart-breaking faults, and they way they supported each other no matter what. Blue isn’t used to having boys in her life, but she fits right in with the boys, and despite all unhappy predictions about true love, this isn’t just an unhappy love story.

4.      Welsh lore and supernatural elements were perfectly interlaced in an everyday world. 

5.      This is one of those “so good you have to go out and buy it ASAP” books.

6.      I need the sequel. Like, now.

7.      I obviously loved this book and you should definitely give it a try!

The Diviners (Libba Bray)

Title: The Diviners

Author: Libba Bray

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Length: 578

Rating: 3.5/5

It’s 1926 and seventeen year old Evie O’Neill is sent to live with her uncle Will in New York after a parlor trick in Ohio goes wrong. Evie is used to hiding her supernatural talent (until she gets to drunk on illegal booze, hence the trouble in Ohio). But after a girl is murdered and branded with a cryptic symbol, the police involve Will, and Evie finds that her talent might be the only way to solve the evil that has awakened with each new murder.

I love Libba Bray. Her stories always have the craziest twists, and she does a great job of blending genres together. The Diviners was a mix between historical fiction, the supernatural, and steampunk.

Sometimes it felt as if the book was doing too much to involve all these elements though. There were so many storylines and characters to keep track of with secondary characters all hiding weird secrets and secret talents like Evie’s. The book almost seemed a prequel or just a set-up to another book, which should have been called The Diviners, because the reader learns little about what the Diviners actually are in this book. I loved the detail, but the book is so long, and way too much to reread to remember all the detail before a sequel comes out. So my main complaint is that perhaps the editor should have been a little more heavy handed to make it an easier read (and then reread, because I’m definitely interested in the sequel).

However much wading through the storylines I had to do, I loved the scenes painted of the Roaring Twenties. The language and the setting in this book were amazing, and Bray clearly did her research to paint an accurate (but also supernatural) picture of New York in the 1920s. Who knew being a flapper could be so dangerous! Worth a read if you’ve got a little time on your hands!