Travis

At its heart, The Raven Boys is about five high school students who are searching for the long lost tomb of an ancient Welsh king. There's a lot that happens around this goal, but that's to be expected from a series that is 100% character driven instead of plot driven.

One thing that really pains me about this series is that it's marketed so heavily as a YA paranormal romance. While this series has each of these individual elements, there is just SO MUCH MORE that sets it apart from other books in this subgenre (and other books in general). The blurb for the first book, The Raven Boys, focuses almost entirely on two characters. The series really has four or five main characters, and all of them are pretty much equally important to the story and compelling as a reader.

Most of the story takes place in Henrietta, Virginia, a rural town with an expensive private high school. There's no vampires or werewolves, so the story almost feels like it could happen in real life. The way magic is handled almost makes me want to label the series as magic realism, though I'm pretty sure it's actually closer to mythic fantasy. There's an air of mystique that makes the magic feel, well, magical, but you always have a pretty good idea of what is and isn't possible. This gives the series a grounded feel.

Maggie Stiefvater has pretty much mastered the art of show vs. tell. The characters quickly immerse you in the story and behave as if they are real, complex people. You find that you have a pretty good idea how most characters will react before they do, not because they are predictable but because you feel like you know them as real human beings. The main characters also encompass many of the key struggles teens go through. Issues like gender, sexuality, money, abuse, love, grades, extra jobs, and a desire to make a difference in the world are all important to the series.

Honestly, this is the weakest element of the series. The plot is always moving forward, but at times its progression is so subtle you don't realize it. This is not a fast-paced, action-packed series. The drive to keep reading comes from the characters and the slowly unfolding mystery. When I finished the first book, the plot almost made me leave the series. I loved everything about the first book, but it was slow. I'm glad I stuck with it (and book 2 has drag racing, so yeah). One thing I noticed is that the “forbidden romance” trope is not so much a plot as it is an added complexity in the relationship between two characters.

The pacing for this series is a bit slow, especially in the first book. I almost didn't continue the series, but I am so incredibly glad that I did.

One of the best parts of Maggie Stiefvater's writing is her prose. I don't mean purple prose or long-winded descriptions. Stiefvater consistently drops line after memorable line that leaves you thinking long after you hear them.

If you like thoughtfully written characters, slowly unfolding mysteries, and realistic romance, you might love this series. Plus, there's some really cool stuff along the way, like talking trees, time travel, and dragons. There's also a TV series in the works!

On the other hand, these books can be slow. The characters steal the show, but that happens at the expense of plot and pacing. If this is a deal-breaker for you, you might want to avoid this series.

If you enjoy audiobooks, I can't recommend this series enough. Will Patton has an incredible voice and masters the art of making each POV instantly recognizable, even without dialogue. Plus, the author even composed and performed original music for the series.

Ten Reasons Why Red Sister is My Favorite Mark Lawrence Book Yet

1. Unlike his Broken Empire and Red Queen's War trilogies, this series is set in a world that feels uniquely original and distinctive from our own. The sun is dying, and its left the world entirely covered in ice, except for a narrow band of livable land around the equator.

2. For the first time, I was able to see Lawrence try his hand at a detailed magic system with clear rules and costs. Which makes sense, considering this is a “magic school” series. For those of you that prefer your magic mysterious, worry not: there's enough left unknown to keep things from ever becoming predictable.

3. Speaking of magic schools, Red Sister sidesteps many of the traditional pitfalls of magic schools, avoiding info-dumps by teaching us new aspects of magic through thwarted assassinations, political scheming, and bloody fights between rival students.

4. As always, the prose is beautiful. If you thought the opening lines were awesome (and they are!), the rest of the book will absolutely not disappoint.

5. Red Sister has all of Lawrence's characteristic flair for darkness, but this time he drops the “grim.”

6. Yes, there's a chosen one. No, it's not the main character.

7. There's a prophecy. Some people believe it, some don't. Everyone tries to twist it to their own advantage.

8. There's a deep cast of characters, with even the tertiary characters feeling fleshed-out and alive. I cared more for the lead characters in Red Sister than I have in past Lawrence series, and I hated the villains with a passion I normally reserved for Robin Hobb's antagonists. Plus, Lawrence lays to rest the question of whether he can right compelling women. Spoiler alert: he can!

9. Going against the tried-and-true adventure nature of its predecessors, Red Sister is almost entirely set in one location. This never gets boring.

10. Red Sister feels like something new and special, even by the high standards Mark Lawrence established in his previous books. It strikes an ideal balance between light and dark, making this a book that will appeal to many readers who thought Lawrence's other books too bleak.

I like the second book quite a bit but this felt like it was just going through the motions to finish the series. The Big Bad never felt ominous, the character deaths were very easy to see coming, the plot felt like a way around taking down an enemy they didn't actually have a good idea how to defeat. Several scenes had a lot of build up and no payoff. There was also a good bit of attempting to raise emotional stakes by constantly flashing back to scenes before the series, but that often falls flat for me. It's strange to have a tense scene and then “oh hey this would be better with some emotion, lets have a flashback” thrown in.

Oddly enough once the winding down scenes at the end of the book started I was interested again. Despite this being a let down I'm actually somewhat optimistic about the Fragile Threads of Power sequel series.

Wow, what a book. This comes the closest to filling the void in my heart after finishing Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Cycle series, but it's not really all that similar?

There's a supernatural serial killer trying to bring on the apocalypse, the slow assembly of a magical scooby gang, and some poor decision making with a ouja board. There's also some excellent commentary on bigotry, police corruption, and religious cults. It's always chilling to get to the end of a book and read an author's note explaining that yes, most of the darker content of the story is taken straight from history.

All in all this was an incredible read, and I'll be looking up as much of Libba Bray's work as I can. It also confirms that January LaVoy is one of my all time favorite audio narrators.