Reviews with content warning for Confinement - Blue Lily, Lily Blue

I gotta say, this book has a lot of quotable quotes. The writing's just gotten so much better and feels more poetic and very beautiful. The synonym-antonym one (Adam Parrish was lonesome, Blue Sargent was afraid etc.) was my favourite and it was a pleasure to read in a way that actually makes you sit and think about it for a while. I'm literally battling the urge to not add every single quote I highlighted into this review.

The character dynamics somehow seems to have improved? I didn't even know that was possible considering how amazing they were from the start. Every single one of their interactions add more years to my life, I'm not even kidding. Be it Adam and Ronan's relationship slowly taking root, or Adam and Gansey finally not fighting, or Ronan showing he does have affection for Blue, or even Blue pulling the plug on Noah, they all seem so real and so wonderful and I feel like a part of their group.

<blockquote>Blue and her boys were <I>all</I> in love with one another. She was no less obsessed with them than they were with her, or one another. analysing every conversation and gesture, drawing out every joke into a longer and longer running gag, spending each moment either with one another or thinking about when next they would be with one another.</blockquote>

I want to childishly believe they will all remain this way until they grow very old and die peacefully, but oh well :D

Plot wise, this book turns its focus back to Glendower (who I still don't care much for) but oh boy were there some mind-blowing plot twists. And worse, some characters I hold very dear to my heart had to go and die. And possibly even worser, some characters who give me the creeps had to make a reappearance. I genuinely don't want to read the next book because 1) that means I officially have to say goodbye to the raven squad, and 2) I really don't want to see Gansey die, even if they do end up successfully resurrecting him. Now that we've had the taste of a major character death, I do not want to go through the same with Gansey.

Adam's character development was great, and so was Ronan's many subtle improvements. Gwenllilian was a nice touch. Not enough Noah scenes. Blue is such an inspiration. Gansey is as loveable as ever. Jesse Dittley is a man with a heart as huge as him. Mr. Gray must be cherished. Calla's strength is amazing. Persephone is one of a kind. Malory, however, I don't know what he brought to the plate, but that seems very fitting to his character, so whatever.

The only thing that this book, or rather, this series lacks is a strong overarching villain. It's all just very villain-of-the-week; not to worry, just a minor inconvenience, and <I>boom</I> he's gone now. Neeve was very unnerving, but she just disappeared. Whelk gave me the creeps, but then he just got trampled over by a magic forest. Mr. Gray was a cool and badass villain who looked like he would definitely get the job done, but he had to fall in love (in the span of a few weeks? days??) and did a full 180°. Kavinsky was a strong candidate but he blew himself up. And now,

Greenmantle, who was genuinely scary, turned out to be a coward and ran away because of a few papers (and they never even properly revealed what was actually inside it)

I hope the two women, who I assume will be the part of the antagonists of the next book, actually have some skin to them. Otherwise, I have nothing else to say (actually I have a lot of love to pour for the character writing, but that's gonna be as long as the book is, so writing all of that maybe is a bad idea)

Feb 2024 reread: 5 beautiful stars
UHMM I THOUGHT THIS WAS THE WEAKEST BOOK IN THE SERIES? Like I never once hated it or thought it was bad, but for some reason I remember just not thinking this book had much going on for it. Which makes sense, in a way, because the plot is quite slow for a majority of the book and then BOOM everything happens all at once at the end. But this is the Raven Cycle we're talking about, who cares about the plot? Let's talk characters. Wait did I say characters? Whoops, let's talk Adam Parrish.

Adam's character growth was so, so satisfying, especially knowing how much he develops all the way until the Greywaren epilogue.

THAT COURTROOM SCENE!! When Adam and Gansey finally understood each other, I felt like screaming into the void and eating my pillow. That scene with Blue and Noah, the slowburn with Ronan, his "I'm awake" moment at the end, his introspection of himself throughout the entire book all deserve a medal.

God I'm in love with Adam Parrish, can you tell?

Content Warnings

mariebrunelm's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Maggie Stiefvater still nurtures that delightfully strange atmosphere, quite mysterious, with a touch of nostalgy. Contrary to the previous volume which was focused on Ronan, this one lets each character take the spotlights in their turn while they keep making progress in their modern-day quest. So far this series has an insubtantial feel, in that as soon as I finish a book I can't quite tell what I've read, except that I've really enjoyed myself. The author has a way of talking about things without talking about them which is quite delightful but make things impossible to paraphrase and summarize. Just read it, because it's absolutely worth reading, and judge for yourself.

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gracefully_jk's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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sunsorbit's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

wallflovver's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

"but what she didn't realise about blue and her boys was that they were all in love with one another"

dream thieves lost points for the anger and destruction, blue lily gains them back with its focus on the building relationships between the main cast

adam and ronan's dynamic really begins to change in this volume, blue and gansey falling deeper into one another

even blue and ronan taking time to understand one another, adam repairing his bond with gansey

there is a lot of tension in blue lily, and although the ending felt a little rushed, it left me needing to pick up the final book asap!

Content Warnings

izypup's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Content Warnings

grimmdark's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

well ok so as always with these books i enjoyed myself thoroughly because i love the world and the characters and the story, so much! and i have about 3 million quotes i loved that i've kept, because maggie stiefvater's style is so rich. besides the humor (top notch), so many times i found myself reading descriptions of feelings or small moments that my mind could barely grasp as i lived through them. but there they were, laid down so accurately on the page! this sentence barely makes sense but yeah.
THAT SAID, out of the three books in this series that i've read thus far, this is my least favorite. again, it was really good! just not my favorite. there's so much happening everywhere all the time with everyone and everything felt kind of scattered? so all the elements of the story kind of just... float aimlessly towards the ending? i don't know. i felt i was kind of grabbing at too many strings at the same time, and it made the story feel perhaps longer than it was. could be because this is also the book that's taken me by far the longest to finish cause i've been busy!
can't wait to dig into trk!

i'm beyond heartbroken about persephone and jesse dittley. i loved them both so much
also, i was half expecting neeve to make a comeback sooner or later, but i wasn't expecting that ending! she knew piper's name but the latter hadn't ever told her what it was. so either she guessed it with her powers somehow, since she's such a powerful psychic, or she was there the whole time and overheard it when blue, the gray man, etc... were still there. creepy. why does she even make an appearance such a long time after they escape? like did she just stand there watching piper fading in and out of consciousness for however long that was???
i don't know how i feel about gwenllian! and i'm having trouble believing the guy blue found with maura actually is THEE artemus???? guess we'll see.

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