Review: The Raven Boys

Title: The Raven Boys
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Listening Time:  11 hours and 8 minutes
Challenges: None
Rating: 2/5

Summary from Goodreads:

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

I feel like a traitor for writing this review, because everyone told me how great this book was, and I have to be honest...I just didn't get it.  While I thought it sounded fabulous, and I loved the idea of the story line, once I started listening, I couldn't connect with it.  I don't know if it was the story itself, the narrator, the characters, but something about this book held me back.

I'm pretty sure that if I had read it, I never would have finished it.  The first third of the book was so boring to me, the back story too wordy and long.  I didn't like Blue, and I didn't like any of the Raven Boys.  I just couldn't connect, but I kept listening, thinking that things would get better, and eventually I'd be blown out of the water by how amazing things are.

That never seemed to happen.  I did think the book improved, and got "better" but it never reached that pinnacle point where I couldn't stop listening and had to know what was going to happen.  It was more like a "oh, well I'll just listen to this for a few more minutes and then maybe listen to something else for a while."

Character-wise, I had a really hard time with all the characters, but I did find myself enjoying Gansey.  I thought he was a good character, and I found myself wanting to know what was going to happen to him.  Plus, I'm curious to see where the author takes the whole Blue/Gansey relationship.  It may be the only reason why I try to read the sequel later this year.