Book Review: The Raven Boys

TITLE: The Raven Boys
Book 1 in the Raven Cycle
AUTHOR: Maggie Stiefvater
PUBLISHED: September 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Urban fantasy, drama, romance
PREMISE: Four boys search for ley lines with the help of Blue, a girl who if she kisses her true love, he will die.
MY REVIEW: Here's the thing I've decided about Steifvater: her writing style/books just aren't for everyone. She has a slower pace then most YA authors do, and even I admit to a lot of frustration with that. She has beautiful writing, no doubt, and I love how she developes characters. But she kind of takes forever to get to the point sometimes. I can see how people would get easily bored with her books.
Personally, I really love her stuff. Still don't at all agree with her on some stuff (particularly her views on reviews) but I tend to seperate authors from their books anyway unless their personal views just tend to utterly take over a book. I despise Orsen Scott Card's homophobic stance for instance but I can't deny that Ender's Game is a good book. I love His Dark Materials but sort of think Phillup Pullman himself is a arrogant jerk. So this is not the first time I've loved an authors book/writing more then the author themselves. The Raven Boys is wonderfully written. I don't think it's the best thing Maggie's ever done (still is Scorpio Races for me) but for a urban fantasy this is wonderfully creative and with interesting characters I like spending time with. I will say however that compared to the boys, Blue was woefully underdeveloped. With the boys, I feel I have a good handle on their personality, backgrounds, and understand them. Blue...I know things ABOUT her. Like I know her family life and whatnot. But Blue's actual personality? I've got nothing except for maybe she's stubborn? I'm hoping this is just because this is the first book and a lot of this was focused on the boys and the ley line stuff though.
So there are a few flaws in this, but still it's Stiefvater so the good far outweighs the bad. This isn't really a stretch for Stiefvater though so if you've decided you don't like her stuff then this probably won't appeal to you either. But for fans or new readers of Stiefvater I definitely recomend this one.
WHO SHOULD READ: Maggie Stiefvater fans, urban fantasy fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five ravens