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

Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same.

Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life.

Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after...
 
I find this series has sort of a dreamy, menacing quality to it. It's permeated each book so far. Granted there have only been 2 books but it's pretty palatable. I did like learning more about Ronan, who just seemed like a dangerous sardonic character in the first book. He is much more the focus of this book to the determent of Blue sadly. She becomes a secondary character in this book only notable for her romantic feelings. But her family takes a bit of a larger role and that is cool. I just wanted more of Blue and maybe less of Gansey. So Ronan's secrets and his family history are explored and someone is out to get someone like Ronan who is very much like his father. It is all oddly matter of fact. These characters take everything in stride.

The thing about this book, though, is that it is all about the set-up. The Raven Boys was the beginning and got the story moving. This one is mostly about moving the characters to where they need to be for the finale. I'm curious how that works in a 4 book series . Usually that is the job for the middle book. So will the next book also be mostly for moving the characters towards the finale? Who knows? I say this because this is a fantastic book and I flew through it at a speed that I've sadly grown unaccustomed. But when I thought about what happened in the book and what I was going to say about it, I realized that a lot happened but nothing felt like a true revelation. I know that doesn't/can't happen in every book. But I wanted for something to shock me a little.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven Cycle #1)

Description from Goodreads:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

So this is a strange book, but strange in a good kind of way. Strange in the kind of way where I wish there was more. It has a dreamlike quality that works for it, the same quality that Linger and Shiver had. It must be Stiefvater's style. It was written so beautifully and it was hard when it was over. And I liked all the characters even Ronan who tries so hard to be unlikeable. There is something about Gansey's character that he just leaps off the page and I developed a little crush even though that is not something I normally do with fictional characters. Blue is pretty crush-worthy too. She is just a wonderful, strong, fearless girl and she is a great addition to the dynamic of the boys.

There is a lot of mystery going on this book between the ley lines and a boy who was murdered and Adam's home life and Blue's true love. There is a lot of set-up too since this is apparently going to be a quartet of books. But it doesn't feel incomplete like so many first books do. Instead it brilliantly shows the world that Blue and the Raven Boys live in and solves a few mysteries and sets up a few more and includes plenty of other-worldliness and danger in it too.