The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Stiefvater

Warning: may be slight spoilers if you haven't read Book 1.

Now that Ronan has told his secret, he's falling more and more into his dream world, and bringing more and more dream objects into the real one.  Since the ley line has awakened, so many things are different for everybody.  Adam is a shell of the person he used to be, Ronan is breaking more rules and pulling away from Gansey, Blue is caught between Adam and Gansey, and Noah's shape is less and less reliable.

Soon the group learns that they aren't the only people looking for treasure in Henrietta....












This book was a journey for me.  I enjoyed the trip, but damn it took me a long time to get there!!  And when I say "trip" I do mean "trip"... as in trippy, I feel like I took drugs, I'm falling down the rabbit-hole.  As crazy as this book gets, I will say this one thing: Maggie Stiefvater can make you believe in magic.  If you read this book and part of you doesn't want to go to Virginia with those stick energy readers, then you aren't reading it right.... (okay, okay I'm kidding, there is no wrong way to read a book!!)

So with this book the focus is really on Ronan and his whole revelation at the end of book 1.  It introduces us to the Gray Man, who is on the hunt for the Greywaren, an object that pulls things out of dreams (hint, hint guy: it's NOT an object).  So while this guy is going around town beating people up and ransacking houses, Ronan is finding more things out about his father and his complicated life.

Adam is basically turning into Ronan, attitude-wise.  He's short-tempered and angry all of the time.  When he's not that, he's doubting everything about his life and what he deserves and what he'll become.  Of course Blue isn't feeling it, making her question if Adam is boyfriend-material or not.

Gansey is all sorts of confused.  He's not the typical put-togethered, self-assured guy that he was in book 1.  He's worried about Ronan and he's tip-toeing around Adam.  He still wants to find Glendower, but I wasn't sensing that same desperation that I felt before.  Maybe some of that comes from him knowing about Noah and what that meant for his own life... maybe it comes from being disillusioned that Adam was the one to wake the ley line... or maybe it's because Cabeswater (their best prospect for finding Glendower) has up and vanished.  I don't know, but this book really isn't much about Gansey anyway.

The Gray Man,  I'll tell you, I didn't care for his storyline.  And I didn't care for the way the Fox Way girls took to him.  I know they are unusual people, but I find it odd that they were very unreceptive to Whelk, in fact they refused to see him at all, but they (and by they, I mean Maura) latched on to the Gray Man as if he was perfectly safe, which HELLO!!, he's not.

So the quest for Glendower continues... although not as much in this book.  This book is mostly about Ronan's gift and figuring out what it means and how to control it.  I like Ronan a lot more after reading this book, but I had trouble following his trippy dreams and the whole Greywaren thing in general.  It was a little more complicated than I really cared to know about, if that makes any sense.

The writing is, of course, beautiful.  It gets a little redundant with all the opposite adjectives, but still it's INTERESTING and different.  The way this series is being told through Maggie's unique writing style, is making this series for me.  And like I said... I totally believe in magic now.

OVERALL:  No 2nd book slump here!  A great continuation of a super unique series.  It will have you imagining all sorts of things are possible, or at least wishing they were.

This Books Contains:

• A hitman
• Crazy dream stuff
• White Mitsubishis... lots of white Mitsubishis
• Street racing
• Washington, D.C.
• Henrietta, Virginia
• Deaths
• The Pig
• Chainsaw, the raven
• Kissing!!

Add it to your To-Read List!!

My Rating: 4/4

How I got this book: Library
Date Published: 10/17/2013