Reviews with content warning for Medical content - The Raven King

AN EPIC FINALE! It's no secret that I've fallen in love with THE RAVEN CYCLE. THE RAVEN KING was a sometimes iffy finale to what I can say is my current favorite series of all time.

I loved that Henry has become a part of the group and that Noah was finally able to pass on after being tormented throughout the past two books and in general a tumultuous ghostly experience. I'm happy that Henry, Gansey, and Blue are hanging out. Happy that Adam is off to college. Happy that Ronan is free of Aglionby and is dreaming peacefully at his home which he loves. I hope Gansey and Blue work out, as well as Ronan and Adam. I hope Henry, Blue, and Gansey go to Venezuela. I wish nothing but happiness for them, as well as the women of Fox Way.

These characters have become so near and dear to me in the past few months. I don't think I'll forget the feeling of reading these books for the first time whilst listening to the most perfect playlists. Discussing them with other people who are lovers of the series. Even though I have criticisms about the representation in this series and the way it unfolded, in the end, Maggie Stiefvater created a series that captured me and pulled me out of a reading slump. THE RAVEN CYCLE I will never forget you.

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izypup's review against another edition

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adventurous inspiring tense fast-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

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

4.75

THE RAVEN KING is the perfectly fitting conclusion to The Raven Cycle. Blue and the Raven Boys search for Glendower one last time as a nearly defeated foe begins to unmake everything they've fought to protect. The teens crumble at their edges while fighting not to shatter, and a new friend helps them hold everything together.

I'm so happy about Henry as a character. He had a slight presence in the previous books and is very welcome here. The pit scene with Henry and Gansey was chilling, dripping with threats, promises, and hope, all at once. The central group of Blue and the Raven Boys shifts even more as they start facing things they weren't ready to handle before, speaking truths previously left unsaid. The plot is more nebulous than the previous books, this time they're mostly existing and trying not to die, staving off a destructive force that eats up the narrative and any more complex plans they might have had. It works very well as the conclusion to a quartet, but I don't know that I could recount the actual story of this book. The narration for the four main kids (especially but not only Blue) is such a perfect encapsulation of a certain way of being a teenager, my favorite example of this is the whole of chapter 32 when Blue is waiting for the bus to move. It captures the way her thoughts skitter and circle around a sense that something is deeply unfair and structurally wrong, that the course of her life which led to this moment didn’t have to go this way. The whole series has been filled with moments like this, quirks of thought that aren’t limited to the transitory time that is the late teen years, but which belong perfectly there.

This wraps up a lot of things left hanging from the first book, since it is the last book it also wraps up things reaching back all the way to the first book. This includes but is not limited to the book-one prediction that Gansey would die. Henry was introduced previously, but has a much stronger presence here and his inclusion helps bring the feeling that this volume has its own storyline separate from the previous three, but everything bends back towards continuing and resolving things from earlier in the quartet. If I'm being honest, I don't quite think it has something that starts here and wasn't present (or heavily implied) before. It's not new that people are coming to Henrietta to try and get the magic, though that ramps up here, Henry isn't new though he feels fresh here, and the emotional core of the book is to settle whether it's possible to find Glendower, and to resolve the fates of Gansey and Cabeswater. If there is a small thing which is both introduced and resolved here I think it must relate to Henry, but I can't actually bring anything to mind. All the narrators have been point of view characters in at least one of the previous books. Their voices are distinctive from each other, and one of my favorite parts is the way they're all quintessentially teenage while being different flavors of teenager. This would not make sense if someone picked it up at random and didn't know about the series. It's stuffed with magic and mystery, doesn't pause to explain the why of Cabeswater, Blue's family, Ronan's family, really it doesn't explain the origin of any of their families, except in ways that answer questions you would only have if you'd read the first three books, without answering any of the things someone would ask if their first exposure was here in book four. This is perfectly fine for a series finale, and I think it does enough to connect this volume to the previous ones in ways that would provide a refresher if someone picked this up a while after reading BLUE LILY, LILY BLUE, but it's not intended to stand alone and makes no pretense of it.

I liked the ending overall, but I did come away with a few questions about what happens next. The ending does a pretty good job of conveying the trajectory after the story is over, so I think my feeling of something being missing is mostly that I just want to spend even longer with these characters. I love this series as a whole, and this is a strong conclusion to a wonderful quartet. If you like YA fantasy in a contemporary setting, give The Raven Cycle a try.

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battybookworm's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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

4.5

It finally happened! This book got me and I really ended up having a good time finishing off this series in general. This was sort of a challenge I set myself (I believe at the end of 2019) where I wanted to read a series. I am a not-so-notorious-though-perhaps-very-loud series hater. I have been since middle school. The scourge of YA series that were so popular during that time (Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent, etc) really started to put me off reading because it felt very commercial without much substance.
With some age and time, I have gotten over this hate and I was really hungry for a YA around that time anyway (I can't remember but I believe I'd just finished something dark and adult and was in need of a change in pace). I'm probably very late to the train on these books, but I was suddenly hearing about them everywhere and I decided to try them. I remember seeing Stiefvater's work when I was in school but I think it was only the Shiver series, and I'm afraid I've yet to get into werewolf books.
This series has been fun. I'll admit, there isn't a single book in the series that I outright hated and Stiefvater does a really good job of making them all significant in some way or another. That being said. I was super sick of reading them and they are not as fulfilling as a standalone book where I can get that connection and the magical reading moment where the book speaks directly to me and changes me as a person in some fundamental way. I think series books might just not do this as much for me. They're basically a prolonged book so the time it takes to get to life-changing places takes longer. I really like the tone of these stories. I didn't overly love the characters at first but they've grown on me and I did enjoy the story/adventure they go on so that helped.
The Raven King in particular had some of the best moments in character development. I think the shifts in POV and the way Stiefvater unwound events and opened chapters in this story were purposeful and almost expert-level at points. I did not expect where things went, and while that's not a requirement for me, it was enjoyable to continually be surprised. And, the magical moment finally happened in this book! I can't remember (plus it'd be spoilers) what it was in particular but I know it was something Blue-related and I just felt I finally got her and her motives and perspective and could say, 'yes, this makes sense to me and I love it.' I was very happy once I got there and the rest of the book was a breeze from then on.
These books take a little while for me to get going with them. This is something I think might be with most series that you sort of get more of a roller coaster effect than a single slow build and then drop. The starts of each book felt long but once they get momentum they get going pretty darn fast. They're fun, fairly quick, and easy to read, and definitely great fantasy with familiar elements but funky enough to be something all their own as well. Another part I loved with these books, completely unexpected, was that people knew these books and would share things about them with me. I don't know if it's the YA-ness or their general popularity, but these books are better known than most of what I usually read. I got lots of little sweet tidbits from other students and strangers: stuff about their experiences reading these and I treasure those the most!

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