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2.47k reviews for:

Greywaren

Maggie Stiefvater

4.31 AVERAGE


I could barely put this down.

Stiefvater fixed what it felt she had broken. Trust your favorite author, but also, publishing, stop cash-cowing YA authors and demanding trilogies that stretch a narrative unnaturally.

I had mixed feelings about this book. I absolutely loved the first book in this series, the second was almost as good (even though the cover is fucking horrendous) but this one took me a hot second to get into. It starts off slow, but not the usual slow that I still love, don't get me wrong I didn't dislike the beginning but it didn't pull me in like the other two did.

Where is Ronan? This is Ronan's series and it definitely doesn't have enough Ronan. I really like all the other characters, and I'm glad we got to see all of those people do their thing, but I still wanted more Ronan.

I liked all the sort of flashback chapters we got, learning more about Niall and Mor and the Lynch child home.

There were some really sweet, tender moments sprinkled throughout, but I'm glad this wasn't a fanservice-y book. Guys, just because Ronan and Adam are 'soft' in your fanfics, doesn't mean they should totally change in canon! Would I have liked more of Adam? Yes. Would I have enjoyed more of Adam and Ronan together? Sure. But I really appreciate that Maggie kept them as separate people, rather than 'Pynch'.
Spoiler even in the epilogue it says they both go off doing their own thing but always float back to each other, and I really liked that. Not compromising one or the other of them


I don't know how I expected this series to end, or where I thought it would go. This isn't a disappointment but it's also not a 5 star like the other two, there was just a slightly off vibe but I still very much enjoyed it.
margog2310's profile picture

margog2310's review

4.25
adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I LOVE RONAN LYNCH!!!!!! 

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. I don't know why I didn't, on the whole, but a couple things jumped out at me.

1) Reversible death (boo--Noah's fate was devastating.)
2) Brief mention of the panini at the end.
3) Not enough of the love story.

I know it was meant to be a book much more about Ronan than anyone else. But we could have had more Adam. We could have had more reunion.

I’m not ready to say goodbye to this world. The epilogue of this book has me sobbing. It was so good to get a glimpse of my beloved characters from The Raven Cycle. Blue, Gansey, even Henry.

The story in the trilogy was fascinating, but not my favorite. I found it a little boring, to be completely honest.

But I LOVED the new characters we met. Jordan, Hennessy, Farooq-Lane. And I fell a little bit in love with Declan as well. These characters made this trilogy worth the read.

I also LOVE how Maggie’s live for art really showed in this story. I loved the art facts I learned from it as well as discovering new artists to research.

Overall it’s worth reading if you loved The Raven Cycle. Really really sad we probably won’t see these characters again.

FOUR AND A HALF PLEASE LET IT SHOW ON THE RECORD IT'S FOUR AND A HALF STARS but oh my God oh my God oh my God oh my God
I can't tell you how many notes I made because I actually read this physical book and not the ebook so I have no idea.
Don't ask how I got an early copy, I'm not a fucking snitch, but I literally devoured this bitch in 8 hours. pretty much as soon as I got my hands on it.

My body is literally sore from how tensely I held myself as I read. I had anxiety attacks for entire chapters. I was fucking NAUESOUS with stress reading this book. I cried - like actually heaving breaths cried - four times in the first 100 pages.
Like...
She's that bitch.

BUT NOW: the moment we waited for for the entire series: my review of the overarching plot.
This book should have been longer. Like, I kept thinking about how there were probably meant to be more books but because of terrible things Stiefvater had to endure, it was brought to 3, but this book was SO fast paced and it didn't feel like enough time was spent on a lot of stuff. Like a LOT happened but it all felt extremely drive by. The other books took their time with a lot of stuff this book handily parried, you know? That was part of the reason I was so tense the whole time - I felt like I coulnd't BREATHE.
As for the capital A Apocolypse... eh. A friend said this when we learned about the apocolypse in CDtH, and I sort of agree, but world ending events just felt way too high stakes. Part of the appeal of The Raven Cycle is that it feels like the end of the world to these four (five) kids but it isn't actually. To ACTUALLY make it the end of the world was a lot. I wasn't nearly as interested in that as I was with Ronan's personal apocolypse.
Grading the Plot as a Group: B. It was clever and entertaining but I wasn't dazzled, IDK.

BUT NONE OF THAT MATTERS BECAUSE IT'S TIME TO TALK ABOUT WHAT I ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT: THE CHARACTERS!!!!

Ronan Lynch:
I mean
fuck
What is there to say?
I just
FUCK
There is nothing I can say here that isn't a spoiler - boy spends 80% of the book astral projecting - but let's just say I lOVED it. I loved it. Ronan's character was fully realized and I think it was the perfect natural progression for him and I couldn't be more pleased with it.

Adam Parrish:
SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP
After that first scene with Adam when he gave the watch back I almost threw up, no joke. I was tERRIFIED. I trusted Stiefvater not to do that to me but I was still like BUT WHAT IF
But then Adam brought Chainsaw back and I WEPT like LISTEN Adam kNOWS HIM he kNOWS HIM AND ugh
Adam had his own little journey of self discovery and consolating the two parts of himself (OMG THEMES) and it was lovely and romantic and I'm gonna complain there wasn't enough Adam but I feel like I'm gonna complain there wasn't enough of ANYONE, the book was TOO SHORT.

Pynch, aka The Mechanic and the Tool:
bvksjebfjklwbflLJSBVGJLKSBGLKSEBGLKWEBGKJSBVKJSVKJVKJVKJWVKJVKJVKJSVKJSV
THE SCRYING AND THE ADAM ACCEPTING RONAN'S SOUL HOW IT IS AND THE COMINGLING AND THE INTAMACY
and in the epilogue that scene on the roof? Literally, it's three lines, and I fucking accidentally punched myself in the face over it. Like fuck me UP.

Blue and Gansey:
I fucking knew they were both Sociology majors, I defintiely have that written in a fanfic WIP somewhere, Goddamn I'm brilliant.

Niall Lynch:
Ahem.

(Posted July 26th, 2022)
I would like to formally apologize to Maggie Stiefvater...
Look, I don't LOVE him. He still has shit to answer for but
FUCK dude
FUCK
BASTARD MAN
But like.....
nOT AS MUCH OF A BASTARD AS WE PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT

Declan Lynch:
SOBBING SCREAMING CRYING
AND SO IS DECLAN
WHICH IS HUGE
Look, the book needed more Declan (it needed more EVERYONE) but the Declan we got was so chef's kiss high quality top notch molte belle.
Like, I saw the chekhov's guns, but it was DECLAN that pulled the triggers?!?!
my perfect boy?!?!?!?!?!
That was awesome.
AND HE GOT THE FINALE HE DESERVED
MY PERFECT BOY
MY DAUNTLESS DECLAAAAAAAN
SpoilerI can't get over it I had to put the spoiler in but DECLAN LOVED RONAN FIRST! HE WAS THE FIRST ONE TO LOVE RONAN!
AND BECAUSE NIALL LOVED DECLAN THE MOST
HE GREW TO LOVE RONAN
HE LOVED RONAN BECAUSE DECLAN LOVED HIM
I CAN'T FUCKING GET OVER THAT
Declan's birth was literally the best day of Niall's life and that's why he sacrificed the memory and if I think about that too much I will but the screen off my laptop.

FUCK

Jordan:
NOT ENOUGH JORDAN
I know last book was the Jordan show and she was so great and she's already found her life and hit her stride and her diatribe against Hennessy was MAGNIFIQUE but I MISSED her. She was beautifu and wonderful and she was LITERALLY the catalyst for Ronan remembering himself
SpoilerYES THE FIRST TIME I CRIED WAS WHEN RONAN REMEMBERED HIMSELF BY REMEMBERING HIS BROTHERS OKAY SIBLING SHIT ALWAYS GETS ME
And like I kNOW why we didn't have her a ton by the end but I STILL MISSED HER

Matthew Lynch:
Every time Matthew was on page I felt like I could BREATHE again. I was so stressed through the whole book but Matthew's easy demeanor - even when he's pissed - was such a welcome break from the tension.
I literally cheered when he punched Declan in the face. I love Declan but he DEFINITELY deserved that.
And the scenes he had with Bryde were actually perfect. Here you have two sides of people Ronan Lynch dreamt to fill a need and every time gets into a maudlin monologue, Matthew's like "Dude I think you have depression". Motherfuckin chef's kiss.
Matthew definitely should have been in the book more (No I will not stop saying this - I'm right) but more than that I was underwhelmed by his ending. Like, I feel like he should have had a bigger moment. Ronan and Declan had bigger moments. Matthew should have gotten A Thing.
Sigh
I'm just going to quietly lament the coninuation we're never going to get because some fans can't fucking behave themselves, UGH

The Moderators + Visionaries + Farooq-Lane:
Mods - Very cool they're all oprhan dreams, I liked that concept a lot. Could have been really cool if we'd have known about it for longer, you know?
Liliana - The conception of Visionaries is actually VERY cool and I felt very satisfied by that reveal. It takes a certain selfishness to do that and I feel like up until now we've only seen Visionaries as victims. This was a very cool and earned reveal.
Liliana specificaly I feel like left so ABRUPTLY. This definitely goes back to the pacing issues or whatever - there just wasn't enough TIME - but I wasn't sorry about it. We took our time with Parsifal so to just let Liliana prbt out felt weird but, I get it, we had other shit going on.
Farooq-Lane - This is the book I liked her best. She was tired of being nice. She wanted to go ape shit. And it looked good on her.
As irritating as the PLOT stuff was involving you-know-who, Carmen's actual confrontation with them was well done and I liked it a lot.
Also the way she interacted with Hennessy, they bring out the best in each other, and I LOVE it.

Bryde:
What a beautiful fall from grace!
Oh, it was glorious. At the beginning of the book, I was still saying "FUCK YOU BRYDE YOU SUUUUUUCK" but he just got so sad. I mean he was always sad but sad like pitiful. It's hard to hate someone like that, you know?
And, as I said, his time with Matthew made me SO happy.

Hennessy:
She remains my wife and love of my life.
I love her so much.
She is so unhinged and so self-agrandizing but in this book, people start to percieve her as less. They're like "Hang on, was it smoke and mirrors? This whole time?"
And it was
BUT THEN IT ISN'T AND SHE IS THAT BITCH
AND IT'S BEAUTIFUL
Hennessy's arc though this book was probably the most fulfilling and most complete and I love that for her she deserves it 1000%


There were characters who I expected to see in this book to have explained but we never did. Who are the aunt and uncle that's not really the aunt and uncle that were mentioned at least once every book? Who's the pale eyed dreamer from the Opal Short Story we literally never see again? I was fully expecting those things to tie back in and they just... didn't. Or if they did and there was a reveal, I totally missed that.
Anyway!
It's 5am!
I'm still too wired to sleep - ADRENILINE BABY - but maybe if I take a hot shower to untense all my muscles I can recover from what this book put me through.

Update:
Got the ebook
Transcribed by notes
Added new ones
Total 310.

I would be surprised if I don't triple that on my next reread.

UPDATE 2:
Only added 442 notes, so not quite tripled but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I've also decided that I was hasty with my initial assessment that the book went too fast. On this reread, now going at a normal pace rather than panic induced speed reading, I thought the pacing really worked. I thought Liliana's death was well telegraphed and wasn't too abrupt, I was just too stressed out to pay attention the first time.
I'm more generous now on your reread. I'm happy

jchisholm17's review

5.0
adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix

I'm going to miss this world so much

The Dreamer Trilogy overall is certainly not as strong plot wise as The Raven Cycle, but I still really really enjoyed it. If Ronan Lynch has no stans I’m dead. I love the brothers Lynch in such a deep way. Truly I am genuinely changed after TRC and this trilogy. The elaborated backstory of the Lynch family and Jordan/Hennessy make reading these entirely worth every second despite whatever nit picking flaws. I just had an amazing time and my brain has been altered forever. Feel I’ll forever be a big fan of Maggie Stiefvater, I only regret I wasn’t in this fandom at the time of it’s birth. There was something differently delicious about being able to read them all at once. So sad to leave these characters and this world!!!!! I will reread eventually!!!

yoddler's review

5.0
adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I was very skeptical going into  this book because the Dreamer Trilogy hadn't been really grabbing my attention as much as I had hoped. I read the first two books as they came out but it took me a good two years to get to this one - partly because I didn't want the series to end and partly because I didn't want it to end badly.
This lived up to every hope I had for this book and more. I feel like it was the perfect conclusion to the story.

There was never a good spot for me to put this down! It was so fast paced and had my attention the whole time! I love the characters more than ever and it felt like all the ways they grew and developed were perfectly realistic for each of them. The story may feel a bit rushed to some people but I thought the first two books in the trilogy kind of dragged in some parts so this was a perfect pace for me. The ending made me cry and just felt like the perfect hug to say goodbye to these characters and this world!