The Raven King: Book Review

Book: The Raven King (The Raven Cycle #4)
Author: Maggie Steifvater
Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal, Young Adult, Romance, Magic, Fiction, Supernatural, Mystery, Urban Fantasy, Ghosts
Rating: 4.5/5 stars

This is the fourth installment of a series and our Henrietta friends are still looking for their king. Blue’s prophecy has become more and more difficult to avoid as she continues to get closer to the boys, but more specifically, Gansey. After being warned throughout her life that she will be the cause of her true love’s death, she thought it’d be easier to prevent but with Gansey nothing is easy.

The boys world has collided with Blue’s for a while now and while combined forces they set out to finding Glendower. But the closer they get, the more darkness they find, and now it isn’t looking as simple as they had once hoped.

IT’S OVER. IT’S REALLY OVER. I have this overwhelming sense of dread when it comes to not having anything left of this series and these characters. I’m going to warn you all now, there will be spoilers. I’m going to try to be as vague as I can but honestly… I’m so excited about this book that I won’t be able to contain myself as much.

I’ve had this book good and read for about a day now and I’ve just been so overwhelmed. It’s the kind that I’ll have to go back and reread only to find things that I’ve missed the first time around. I JUST FEEL WAY TOO MANY EMOTIONS.

I have to applaud Maggie Stiefvater on giving us a world so uniquely bound together as Henrietta and Cabeswater. Her ideas and plot twists worked so well in sucking us in at all the right times. She has given us characters who we connect with more and more as we go, but who also hold a little piece of each of us in their personalities. Even though this series was fantasy, you almost felt like it was real and happening right outside your door.

I didn’t expect a lot of what went on throughout the entire series, to be honest with you. I loved that whatever happened never felt rushed or out of nowhere. Every relationship built and developed like it would naturally, which I really appreciated. I find that sometimes the relationships and friendships are created more because they have to and it’s expected rather than it being a natural occurrence. Blue’s friendship with the boys wasn’t frustrating in any sense. No one hated her for no reason, no one pushed her away because she was a girl, everyone had their own reaction to her and by The Raven King we could see how much their relationships had grown and how much they really loved each other.

I didn’t expect to trust Henry or Gwellian… but the more they showed up, the more I liked them. Henry was this unexpected ally during his time in the series. I mean, obviously he was more Gansey’s friend than anyone else’s but I think Blue took a quick liking to him as well.

As for Gwellian, Glendower’s daughter, I just loved how crazy she was. All the songs she would sing and her overall presence in the series was comedic and in 300 Fox Way a normal occurrence.

We’ve learned so much about these characters but mostly about Adam and Ronan, so I was definitely hoping for some more Blue and Gansey and how their relationship was going to go. ONCE AGAIN, THEIR CUTE LITTLE MOMENTS MADE MY HEART SING OUT WITH JOY. We’ll talk about that after.

One thing from TRK that was different from the rest of the series was how demons were connected and brought into the story. There was this eerie element every time a character was possessed and I both hated and loved it. When Noah, or Adam, or Ronan were possessed or unmade my stomach was in complete knots. Noah’s possession was the worst… but when it brought Gansey out and made him really want to embrace his feelings for Blue I didn’t care anymore. ALSO RONAN AND ADAM…….. THAT IS ALL I NEED TO SAY. I WAS SO HAPPY. I thought that they were so genuine with each other and nothing felt like it was Maggie just trying to throw a gay couple into the mix. I think I was more excited about them getting together than I was about Blue and Gansey finally figuring themselves out. We got two great romances out of this series – three if you count Mr. Gray and Maura.

I don’t have anything bad to say about this series yet because it’s still fresh.. and I don’t really expect anything bad to come out of rereading it; however, in TRK I found the ending to be a little underwhelming. This whole series was just hit after hit of excitement and the end just mellowed out and was nothing like I’d expected. What happened to Maura? Mr. Gray? Why didn’t they know Neeve played a part in everything?? I just feel like there are still questions left without any answers to them. OR I missed the answers… that is also possible.

I’m so disappointed in myself that it took me as long as it did to read this series, but at the same time I’m glad because I got to read them one after the other. It’s bittersweet.

Other books in The Raven Cycle series:
The Raven Boys (Book #1)
The Dream Thieves (Book #2)
Blue Lily, Lily Blue (Book #3)