The Raven King Review

This year, one of my favorite book series is coming to an end. It is called The Raven Cycle, and it is so much more than it seems.

When I first read the blurb on the back, I put the book down. I was then told it was really good so I read the blurb again. And put the book back down. Finally, after an hour getting frustrated with my library’s reading selection, I picked the book up again and decided to read it. That was either the best or worst decision I could make.

See, the blurb makes you think it will be all about a Miracle Romance™ with some kind of love polygon. I thought the book would be a total sausage fest, and it also makes the book seem like it takes place in some fantasy land, or 1900s New Orleans (okay, that's not really a bad thing). The blurb forgot to mention, however, that Blue isn’t actually drawn the Aglionby students because of any dark or mysterious reasons. It’s because one of them asks her out. The romance between main girl and boy isn’t the center of the plot either. The supernatural mystery of the ancient beings sleeping beneath the small Virginia town of Henrietta is the focus of the plot. While the main narrators are a girl and three guys, there are many female characters in the books. An all female house of psychics, a US senator, an all-knowing older sister, a secretive aunt, a pink wearing criminal, and a few others who may be spoilers.

The reason this book is so devastating, though, is that the main boy will die. It’s on the back of the book, it's in the first chapter, it's mentioned every other chapter. He will die. And the way he finds out is so sad. It’s guaranteed this last book, The Raven King, will make me cry. On that note, I recommend you read it. The depths of everyone's personalities and how their past affects them is so well written. There’s gay and bi characters. All the pieces of the plot are like puzzle pieces, and fall into place perfectly. Everything is hinted at, and every sentence means something. I feel like I could tell you exactly what will happen in The Raven King, if I only knew how to put the puzzle correctly.

The book was great, and enough was left a mystery that it wasn't completely satisfying, but everything came together in the end in a way that made sense.