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thegr1mreader's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse and Physical abuse
mengzhenreads's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
fast-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
4.0
Just an absolute delight as usual. I'm absolutely in love with this series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gun violence, and Violence
Moderate: Blood
Minor: Gaslighting, Child abuse, Rape, Child death, and Domestic abuse
lujisa's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Grief
Moderate: Blood, Cursing, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Violence, and Murder
Minor: Rape
urlocalvocaloidstan's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-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? Yes
4.0
This book is another amazing addition to The Raven Cycle series. There are even more plot twists and more questions are answered about Glendower and the strange things happening with the leylines in Henrietta. We finally get to meet Gansey’s old friend Malory in person and the Murder Squash Song is basically this universe’s version of Baby Shark. We also discover who Blue’s father is and we’re introduced to Colin and Piper Greenmantle, the new antagonists. Gwenillian is such a funny character but she’s terrifying at the same time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Domestic abuse, Cancer, and Suicide
grimmdark's review against another edition
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.
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!
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, and Violence
Moderate: Death of parent, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Animal cruelty, Blood, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, and Cursing
andromeda_1998's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
I’ve been really enjoying this series so far but I’m not sure if I like how the story is progressing. For me book 1 was the strongest of the three books I’ve now read and I hope that the last book wil be as good as the first. Book two and three are good books as well but I don’t like the extra characters that were introduced. The grey men is growing on me tbh. And some of the extra chapters from Colin Greenmantle’s view are entertaining but I’m not really into them.
Characters
Like the first 2 books, I love most of them! The characters are well put together and they feel very real.
Storytelling
Some chapters in bllb feel a bit sticht together. Like blue’s midday with the garden of Jesse. We hear that the boys where really worried about her but it would have been better to also read about it from there point of view. Some time we are just thrown from one chapter to the next without really getting context. Which makes the bridges between the chapters unstable but overal it’s a really good book.
Plot
The plot is good but this book suffers from the same feeling the second book has. They feel a bit as filler episode (to me) and I don’t really understand why. I’m really curious about the last book of the raven cycle, maybe it makes me understand some of the choices Maggie Stiefvater made in these books.
Characters
Like the first 2 books, I love most of them! The characters are well put together and they feel very real.
Storytelling
Some chapters in bllb feel a bit sticht together. Like blue’s midday with the garden of Jesse. We hear that the boys where really worried about her but it would have been better to also read about it from there point of view. Some time we are just thrown from one chapter to the next without really getting context. Which makes the bridges between the chapters unstable but overal it’s a really good book.
Plot
The plot is good but this book suffers from the same feeling the second book has. They feel a bit as filler episode (to me) and I don’t really understand why. I’m really curious about the last book of the raven cycle, maybe it makes me understand some of the choices Maggie Stiefvater made in these books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Sexism, and Toxic relationship
alyssadavis's review against another edition
adventurous
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? Yes
3.0
It should have been impossible. No one should have been able to dream any of these thing, much less all of them. But Adam had seen what Ronan could do. He'd read the dreamt will and ridden in the dreamt Camaro and been terrified by the dreamt night terror.
It was possible that there were two gods in this church.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Blood, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Murder, and Violence
Minor: Grief and Injury/Injury detail
carlyisnotliterate's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
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? Yes
5.0
boyfriends who frame their Latin teacher for unspeakable crimes against children together, stay together <3
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Blood, Cursing, and Pedophilia
ramiel's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
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
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death of parent, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Panic attacks/disorders, and Violence
Moderate: Body horror, Gore, and Abandonment
Minor: Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual harassment, Vomit, Mental illness, and Ableism
booksthatburn's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-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
3.5
BLUE LILY, LILY BLUE finds Blue with her world in turmoil after her mother's disappearance. The closer she and the Raven Boys become, the more they realize they don't know each other at all.
This is a point of inflection. As the teenagers finally pause a little to process the changes and revelations from the first two books they start to understand the assumptions they've been making until now, and even question them. It feels like they've grown so much since the first book, in a bunch of ways, but they're also a bit scattered as they needed to do things more on their own for a while. Large portions of the book feel like the calm before a storm, and the leading edge of it finally hits at the end of the book in some pretty devastating ways. I feel strange about it because I'm excited more for how this moves various pieces and plot points into place rather than being happy about anything in particular that happened. There's a lot of little moments I loved (Adam shines especially here, this portion of his arc is so good), but it's definitely getting ready for big things rather than actually doing many of them.
The best part of the book for me is definitely the moments when the characters pause to reflect on their inner worlds and their relationships with each other. This book is filled with those moments, sometimes because they're stressed and sometimes because they have a moment of calm, but they make their character growth evident in a bunch of little ways. I love how each of them keep thinking of themselves in relation to each other, and how their perceptions of each other have changed so much since the start of the series. I'm so happy for Adam, in particular, that he's figuring out when and whether he wants help rather than constantly refusing it or feeling like it's giving up to accept it.
The ableist language surrounding a particular new character was disappointing. Yes, the circumstances in which they found her would be hell on anyone’s mental health, but having her most frequent descriptor be variations on the same derogatory language about mental health over and over was very frustrating to read. Additionally, one of the antagonists seemed as though her main trait was finding ways to casually drop ableist slurs into every conversation. I do recommend this as part of the quartet, but it was frustrating enough that I don't know if I would recommend it if it were stand-alone.
This moves the plot forward on some things from the second book, but I can't think of anything that it wraps up completely. It doesn't really have its own storyline, there's a pair of antagonists who weren't physically present previously but at least one of whom was introduced in the second book. The biggest plot point in this book began in the last one and plays out here, but there is a pretty major thing which has its biggest moments in this book (even then it was technically teased in the first book, looked for in the second, then found here). This left a bunch of things to be resolved in the final book, some of which have been hanging since the start of the series. There's a mix of new and returning narrators, and all of their voices are distinct. This is very much a step on the way to the final volume, so it's not a problem that it couldn't stand on its own very well as its book three of a quartet. There's too much history needed for someone to understand most of the plot and its importance, and I don't think it would make sense if someone picked it up at random. That being said, it's good enough about naturally recapping important stuff that if it had been a while since reading the first two books it would probably be pretty easy to follow.
Overall it works as the third entry in the quartet but it has some frustrating ableism that makes me like it less than the first two books.
This is a point of inflection. As the teenagers finally pause a little to process the changes and revelations from the first two books they start to understand the assumptions they've been making until now, and even question them. It feels like they've grown so much since the first book, in a bunch of ways, but they're also a bit scattered as they needed to do things more on their own for a while. Large portions of the book feel like the calm before a storm, and the leading edge of it finally hits at the end of the book in some pretty devastating ways. I feel strange about it because I'm excited more for how this moves various pieces and plot points into place rather than being happy about anything in particular that happened. There's a lot of little moments I loved (Adam shines especially here, this portion of his arc is so good), but it's definitely getting ready for big things rather than actually doing many of them.
The best part of the book for me is definitely the moments when the characters pause to reflect on their inner worlds and their relationships with each other. This book is filled with those moments, sometimes because they're stressed and sometimes because they have a moment of calm, but they make their character growth evident in a bunch of little ways. I love how each of them keep thinking of themselves in relation to each other, and how their perceptions of each other have changed so much since the start of the series. I'm so happy for Adam, in particular, that he's figuring out when and whether he wants help rather than constantly refusing it or feeling like it's giving up to accept it.
The ableist language surrounding a particular new character was disappointing. Yes, the circumstances in which they found her would be hell on anyone’s mental health, but having her most frequent descriptor be variations on the same derogatory language about mental health over and over was very frustrating to read. Additionally, one of the antagonists seemed as though her main trait was finding ways to casually drop ableist slurs into every conversation. I do recommend this as part of the quartet, but it was frustrating enough that I don't know if I would recommend it if it were stand-alone.
This moves the plot forward on some things from the second book, but I can't think of anything that it wraps up completely. It doesn't really have its own storyline, there's a pair of antagonists who weren't physically present previously but at least one of whom was introduced in the second book. The biggest plot point in this book began in the last one and plays out here, but there is a pretty major thing which has its biggest moments in this book (even then it was technically teased in the first book, looked for in the second, then found here). This left a bunch of things to be resolved in the final book, some of which have been hanging since the start of the series. There's a mix of new and returning narrators, and all of their voices are distinct. This is very much a step on the way to the final volume, so it's not a problem that it couldn't stand on its own very well as its book three of a quartet. There's too much history needed for someone to understand most of the plot and its importance, and I don't think it would make sense if someone picked it up at random. That being said, it's good enough about naturally recapping important stuff that if it had been a while since reading the first two books it would probably be pretty easy to follow.
Overall it works as the third entry in the quartet but it has some frustrating ableism that makes me like it less than the first two books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood and Death
Moderate: Ableism, Gun violence, Homophobia, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, and Violence
Minor: Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, and Domestic abuse
CW for major character death (graphic).
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