Book Review // The Raven King (ALL HAIL)

Nothing living is safe. Nothing dead is to be trusted.

For years, Gansey has been on a quest to find a lost king. One by one, he’s drawn others into this quest: Ronan, who steals from dreams; Adam, whose life is no longer his own; Noah, whose life is no longer a lie; and Blue, who loves Gansey… and is certain she is destined to kill him.

Now the endgame has begun. Dreams and nightmares are converging. Love and loss are inseparable. And the quest refuses to be pinned to a path.

** The blank spaces in between these [ ] are spoilers. Avoid at all costs.

First the logistics of this wonder.

It is written by Maggie Stiefvater, 439 pages of her skills. It was born on April 26, 2016 at a place called Scholastic Press. It's the fourth and final story.

I'VE DONE IT. I've finished the final book in The Raven Cycle series. 

It's been an amazing trip (even though I'm sad it's over) and The Raven King was no less amazing.

There are so many plotlines at the same time (!!!) and yet there's actually only one. This mind-f 'ery. Twisted-ness. Time is moving, but time doesn't exist. Events are ordered things, but they're happening regardless of order. Are you confused right now? GOOD. BECAUSE I'M TRYING TO MAKE YOU UNDERSTAND HOW THIS BOOK WORKS. I love it so much (and hate it a little sometimes too). I felt like my mind couldn't comprehend the complexity of it right away.

I always appreciate good squads and the TRB squad is one of my favorites. But... I also love how, even though they're inseparable, they all are still distinctly and painfully individuals. They have their own agonizing battles. Ones that no one but themselves can help them with. And isn't that so comletely true? Sometimes only you can fight your battles. In conclusion, group solidarity PLUS individuality = win.

The problem with me critiquing this is that I'm still not sure that I understand what happened. Just decided to throw that in there.

I guess that's the magic of Stiefvater's writing... nothing's definite even though you're pretty sure it happened. You're not absolutely sure. I mean it could've happened, it probably did, and yet did it? Are you sure? It's like trying to recall blurry memories from your kidhood.

If we're being honest here... I didn't see any glaring problems with The Raven King. So these are mostly me being frustrated over the insane complexity but loving it at the same time.

A maze. A friggin maze.

I could mention things like random characters dropping in out of nowhere just when Gansey needs them, random acts that make no sense like [Greensomethingorother's wife randomly finding the third sleeper who was a demon and running rampant with it for no reason but somehow still affecting the bigger picture.]....but, that's kind of what this book is about. It doesn't make sense. It's as confusing as the minds of its characters. Pretty damn. It's as confusing as anything that magical and internal any of that could be. Pretty. damn.

Although if we're going to be petty, I wish Noah's end/ending/story resolution/?? would have been explained or described in more detail Not only because he's one of my favorite characters (but, yes, that's like 87% of the reason he's my marshmallow) but because he was such an important part of the story and Stievater never explained him or explored his story satisfactorily (imo of course. you might think differently).

There was SO much information thrown at me in both obvious and subtle ways that information processing is a difficult thing right now. [Like oh Blue is half tree spirit? Fantastic. GREAT. Ronan just told me he dreamed up Cabeswater.]

Of course I could just peg all this to the brilliance of the author and not have any cons anymore. *shakes head and mutters*

This book was 100% amazing but compared to the whole thing I thought the ending was... a tiny little bit of a let-down? I mean, I guess I just wasn't expecting everything to end quite so abruptly without too much explanation, without a chance to recover from everything that happened. I guess they all conquered their demons though.

My Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Disclaimer: I was not reimbursed for this review in any way. All opinions or thoughts expressed are my own.