SB's Books

A reread blog. Currently reading 'The Raven Boys' by Maggie Stiefvater. Not spoiler free.  Personal: ifanythingwalksaway.

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

‘The Raven Boys’ by Maggie Stiefvater, p. 16

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Aglionby Academy was the number one reason Blue had developed her two rules: one, stay away from boys, because they were trouble. And two, stay away from Aglionby boys, because they were bastards.

‘The Raven Boys’ by Maggie Stiefvater, p. 10

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She wasn't interested in telling other people's futures. She was interested in going out and finding her own.

‘The Raven Boys’ by Maggie Stiefvater, p. 9

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The old legends recommended the church watch be kept at midnight, but the dead kept poor time, especially when there wasn't a moon.

‘The Raven Boys’ by Maggie Stiefvater, p. 7

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Maura had decided sometime before Blue's birth that it was barbaric to order children about, and so Blue had grown up surrounded by imperative question marks.

‘The Raven Boys’ by Maggie Stiefvater, p. 6

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"Ah," Neeve murmured again. "Tonight is a night." She said it like this: "Tonight is a night" and when she did, Blue felt her skin creep a little. Blue had sat watch with her mother for the past ten St Mark's Eves, but tonight felt different. Tonight was a night.

‘The Raven Boys’ by Maggie Stiefvater, p. 6

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It was freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrived.

‘The Raven Boys’ by Maggie Stiefvater, p.5

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Prologue

In the Prologue of ‘The Raven Boys’, we are introduced to Blue Sargent, a 16-year-old girl who will kill her true love if she kisses him.

‘Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told she would kill her first love.’

So I found out about this book from this very site, where a lot of people were talking about how similar the dynamic was to the Maurauders so I decided to check it out. I was grabbed from the very first line here. I think it makes the entire emotional tone of the series that the first thing we learn about Gansey, before even his name, is that he’s going to die. It gets brought up as a total gut punch at the worst times and just really forms the backbone of the series (which is why I have a love/hate relationship with the ending).

On my first read I read the first five or six chapters via audiobook and the narrator has the loveliest lilting accent which also really sets the tone here (and is the reason I had to switch to the book because I kept falling asleep). I think Maggie also has this way of writing that feels both old, epic and magical, and also very everyday. Like here, you can feel in the writing how mundane psychic activity is to Blue, as part of her everyday life but the atmosphere created is also very charged and anticipatory, culminating in the arrival of Neeve and the wham line ‘this is the year you’ll fall in love’. Immediately in this prologue we know that this is a story about magic and inevitably about falling in love but we still know very little about the characters and I like that the anticipation is immediately built in that way.

When I first read this, I immediately assumed that Blue was the protagonist (and I still think that she is, overall, and certainly in this book).

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Neeve had got famous for doing loudly what Blue's mother did quietly.

‘The Raven Boys’ by Maggie Stiefvater, p.3

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Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she'd been told she would kill her true love.

‘The Raven Boys’ by Maggie Stiefvater, opening line.

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Hey guys, this is my new reread blog. I kinda had to do this after I finished The Raven Cycle and just immediately wanted to start again. So I’ll be rereading a chapter a day and posting my favourite quotes and a little (not spoiler free) review with my thoughts on the chapter and how it relates to the book and series as a whole. Enjoy!