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The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater Review+Discussion

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Loved the book, hated the ending, iffy on Stiefvater's writing style of suggesting things but never explaining or confirming. If she actually writes another trilogy about Ronan anytime soon maybe I'll pick it up. I can't really give an in depth review without spoiling anything as it's the fourth book so you'll just have to take my word on it.



Four out of five stars?




Spoilers under the cut!




Here are the things I did like in the book:

Ronan doting on people (his brother, Blue, Opal, his mom, his night terror).

Ronan's character development.

Gansey.

Blue being unsure of her future felt very realistic and personally understandable.

The chaos of Fox Way.

Gwenllian.

Here are all the things I hated (even though there are a lot of them I still enjoyed this book):

We never get to see any of the aftermath:
- Fox way and what happens with Maura and Mr.Gray (is he opening a furniture store with Henrys mom I don't understand)
-Blues dad in his tree (does he leave it, how does that go, how does Blue feel about him taking her tree?)
-Why Blue can't put herself in a tree (can Gwenllian?)
-What Gwenllian is up to now
-Gansey dealing with missing the fundraiser
-We barley acknowledged Ronan's mom being dead and how this would effect his brothers and if he could possibly dream his mom back to life (it seemed fairly obvious that the demon would unmake her why didn't they think of that when she said she felt drawn to it or when they got Opal or all the other times they felt the forest dying?)
-Ronan didn't get a diploma (I understand he's magic but he only had a couple months left and I disagree with his decision 100%) so does Child get Monmouth?
-Gansey telling the historian community about Glendower's tomb (Malory and the Dog)

I hate Adam why must we spend so much time with his whiny ass. (And yet he doesn't even mention which college he's going to and how far away it is from Ronan)

I didn't entirely understand what happened to Noah. I understand that he told Gansey that Glendower saved his life when he was ten but why did Noah decide to die? Because Gansey did? And we didn't get any closure on that through the grief of the others. None of this ending feels real there was zero closure on anything.

Henry felt like such a half ass character I really wanted to love him but he didn't feel real.

There were too many climactic scenes and not enough filler scenes you know?

We didn't get to savour Blue and Gansey's kiss or relationship after all this built up tension.

For some reason I don't remember Blue telling Gansey he was going to die. I remember her saying she wanted to and then all of a sudden at the end Gansey just drops it into the conversation casually but before that he never thinks about her telling him only that he had a feeling he was going to die soon.

Epilogues are, in my opinion, meant to tie up loose ends and provide closure. There was not sufficient loose end tying. I could not care less about Adam thinking he's superior as always and confronting his parents, the trial and finding out the verdict was more than enough.

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