Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Stiefvater

Wow, just almost don't know how to start this review.  Once again I really loved a book by this author.  It was the one book that I really wish I'd had the money to go to BEA last summer just to get.  But I didn't.  And so I spent all summer entering every contest I could to try to win one.  But no such luck.  Then, finally, I found it available on Netgalley, thanks to the wonderful Scholastic!!  But shortly after that, I found it on YA Book Exchange, the ARC, so I had to come up with a trade for it, so I could have the matching books.  My saddest thought at this moment?  How long do I now have to wait for book 3, and I've finished this book the day after it came out?  Now, at first, I had a bit of trouble remembering every detail from the first book.  You see, it had been awhile since I'd read it, and Ms. Stiefvater's stories are so incredibly detailed, in a good way, that I took a bit to get into it.  I wish I'd read the author's update HERE, before I'd started.  But I didn't, and eventually I got it figured out, and was once again in the world and hooked!  If you want to read my review of the first book, go HERE.  I am really going to try to not do any spoilers, and really, it is kind of hard to do because after just one reading, there is such a complex story, that I can't really give much away.  But if you haven't read the first one, you may not want to read further.  Just know that this book was really good, and Stiefvater once again, does not disappoint.
What confused me to start with, was that we started off with Ronan.  Now, I don't remember Ronan having as huge of a part in the first book, I mean that we got to know his background or spent as much time just with him, and so at first I was thinking of him as Gansey, which was totally wrong.  I soon figured out my totally stupid mistake though.  Although at first I was thinking Gansey was Adam.  So you can see I had my character names all mixed up in my head.  I did definitely remember that Noah was the ghost though.  And he is still such a sweet guy/ghost, that you still will love him, at least I did.  And then there is Blue, as really the only female character, I wasn't at all confused about who she was.  But honestly, I really loved getting to know more about Ronan, and wow did that really play into the story!  In such a neat way.  Remember Ronan's bird from the first book?  The one he "dreamed" into being.  Well, turns out that really will play into how the story progresses.  And I won't say how.  But again, really, it is just wow.  There are two villains you might say for this story.  One is Mr. Gray.  The other is Kavinski, a guy from school.  And you figure that Kavinski is just a normal spoiled brat from Aglionby.  And that while Mr. Gray is evil, but seems to show some feeling for Blue's mom, Maura, you just know in the end he'll probably end up being really evil, no matter what.  I mean, just his name, and how he is described.  You know that there is no way he could really change, like you will hope, I promise you will!  I still had about 80 pages to go when I went to see Maggie Stiefvater speak last night, and so something she said about how she felt about certain types of characters, again I won't tell you the specifics, as I don't want to give anything away, but it gave me hope that what I really wished would happen, would happen.  And it did.  I was pretty happy with how all the storylines ended up for this story.  The most disappointing is part is just how far we are left hanging at the end of this book.  I want to tweet, and email, and Facebook the author, and say she has to give me some answer!  I need to know if that person is really who is gone, or what happened.
So good, I'm so in love with this series, and the characters, and I feel I may actually go back and re-read the first two books right before the third one comes out, hopefully sometime in 2014?  And I haven't really done that, due to lack of time, since the Harry Potter books, the Twilight books, and the Hunger Games books.  Of course, if I'm lucky, Maggie will just do another awesome re-cap for us before book 3 comes out.
My main point to this?  If you haven't read this series yet, you need to.  I love, love, LOVED it!  Have I said that enough yet?
Since I shared my picture with the author yesterday, today I'll share the autograph from her!