âWhile Iâm gone,â Gansey said, pausing, âdream me the world. Something new for every night.â
A dark and eeriee novel about a spark light personality who lit the world on fire. Delicious and dangerous, Ronan Lynchâs character intensity is filled with beauty, fueled by fear and filtered by none. A beautiful, tormented novel that doubles up on its predecessor and warns on the dangers of letting ourselves fall to deep into our dreams, as they start creeping closer into our reality instead.
5/5 Stars
Recommendation: If the Raven Boys was a must read, the Dream Thieves is the installment in the Raven Cycle serious that you can not miss! It is exciting, thrilling, broodingly dark and nightmarish, for the heavy character development enthusiasts and danger seeking readers !
Picking up where The Raven Boys left off, we follow the 3rd person POV novel focusing on the eyes of Ronan Lynch, the groupâs rage filled and broken seventeen year old. The groupâs quest for the Welsh King of myths is going stronger than ever, now favored and driven by an odd, magical forests that spurted in the Virginia Valley, known as Cabeswater. Now tied to Adamâ through a bargain where he sacrificed himself and promised to be its hands and its eyes, and to Ronan Who appears to be long acquainted with the forest through the messages he has left for himself scattered around it, in more than one deep and mysterious way.
Despite Adamâs sacrifice to awaken the magical energy line than runs through their town, the Ley line, magic seems to be fluctuating and acting in unstable and unstoppable manners; affecting the psychics of Fox Way, the decaying Noah and whatever curse lays dormant under the ground of Henrietta, Virginia. All while Gansey and Adam must their puzzled gang and Ronan canât be bothered to act as a decent human being because of the nightmares he keeps bringing to reality with him when he wakes upâ
Thatâs right, just like chainsaw, Ronan is capable of bringing objects, things and people back with him every time he wakes up from a dream. With Gansey gone, he befriends another dangerous Aglionby student Kavinsky who shares his gift and must now face with the consequences of his recklessness, the nightmares of his past, the present that fades between his fingers and the broken future he must fix back together.
Despite the magic of The Raven Boys and its original greatness, The Dream Thieves did not fall in its face in comparison. In fact, because of the engaging story and powerful character portrayal, I wouldnât feel shy about calling it an improvement from its predecessor. Itâs just that good ! This book is heavily character driven, whereas regular YA characters are guided and controlled by the plot and development is based around that, but every single moment with Ronan is worth it. This book is probably one  of Stiefvaterâs fever dreams about Ronan, drugs and expensive cars and thatâs probably what makes it the best thing out there.
Click Read More for the spoilers, kiddos !
The Dream Thieves Summary:
Everyone: Ronan no
Ronan: Ronan yes
Thoughts on Gansey & Blue:
But the sensible part of Blue, which was usually the only part of her, thought that had more to do with Richard Campbell Gansey III having a nice mouth than with any blossoming romance. Anyway, if fate thought it would tell her who to fall for, fate had another thing coming.
Gansey added, âI wouldâve thought you had more muscles. Donât feminists have big muscles?â
Decidedly not in love with him.
Let me explain something Iâve mentioned in the past. Iâm a slow burner when it comes to romance. And if there is one thing I sincerely appreciated about this book series is the fact that its romance wasnât driving the plotâdespite the UK cover advertisementâ, or even playing a major role in it, so I was expecting feelings to be developed throughout the course of four books.
In fact, while the entire Adam and Blue dynamic developed in this book and the previous book, I was sort of waiting situations where Gansey and Blue found themselves interacting alone and to find a slow connection brewing between them. Because its there, and it exists, but it bothered me the fact I barely got any sort of interaction between them on that regard until After Blue broke up with Adam, supposedly because she at last acknowledged her feelings for Gansey but I had no reason to believe she suddenly had a crush on this man sheâs barely interacted with.
I found the aforementioned quote to be adorable and endeering, and specially believable. While I know this paragraph doesnât actually mean Blue dislikes Gansey, there is nothing that would make me thing this girl has anything remotely close to a crush when in the next paragraphs go something like this:
Adam allowed Blue into their circle as well, his eyes meeting hers for a moment.
Iâm picking this one, Fate, she thought ferociously. Not Richard Gansey III. You canât tell me what to do.
Iâm sorry, but to then be met with this halfway through the book:
âAs they baked in the sunlight, she let herself think it:
I have a crush on Richard Gansey.â
Bothered me. For a book that did such a great time expression Ronanâs every thought and emotion so subtly yet clearly, I donât understand why we couldnât have had a moment extra to dwelve further into Blueâs state of mind regarding her feelings with Adam and Gansey. Everything was going great in the last bookâ And while I also did express in the Raven Boys review that I didnât like Blue and Adam together, it doesnât mean I donât want a coherent progressive line from one boy to the other. Iâd hate to call it insta-love, but it was rather close. I could say the same from Gansey as wellâ Since we were treated to the moment Blue realized she was into this boy, I hate not to be able to say the same thing about Gansey. He didnât seem to like her romantically in the last book, much specially when he did try to set Blue up with Adam, he only seems to mindlessly be following Blueâs feeling because the plot said so.
Still, after that entire âHow did we even get to their romanceâ Â fiasco Blue and Gansey had some absolutely endearing moments. The rest of their interactions were so pure and real, and never failed to tug at my heart. Expecting the silly calls in the middle of the night were nothing but #goals, taking Blue out for a ride at her beck and call when she was upset killed me on the inside, and not to mention the mock kissing they were forced to do. It was lovely and you could feel the pain and need in every sentence.
âBlue wore a dress Ronan thought looked like a lampshade. Whatever sort of lamp it belonged on, Gansey clearly wished he had one.
Ronan wasnât a fan of lamps.â
Not to mention Maggieâs prose. Always great, meaningful, and hilarious. Extra points just for these quotes scattered all around the book.
Boy did Maggie get him right. One of my number one complaints with antagonists, is their general YA formula, empty and pure evil and somehow⊠Thatâs what Kavisnky is, but that is his entire character and its performed so well.
Kavinski appears as he harasses Ronan, taunts him into car racing until everything goes fatally wrong and he crashes, wounding himself and wrecking Ganseyâs Camaro to the point of no come back. It is then when Kavisnki drags him down deep into his world of dreams, admitting he too can pull out objects from his dreams, and teaches him how to steal from his own dreams with the help of designer drugs.
Kavisnki is there as a representation of everything Ronan is, and as an offer to be a companion in his fucked up, angry existence. This is where it should get good, right? An offer to be himself, without Gansey to force him into the path of righteousness that Ronan obviously no longer cared for, a friend in his state of self loathing and hatred⊠And this is perhaps were Ronanâs biggest proof of character development occurs:
The realization he wasnât like that, and most importantly, that he did not want to be like that. Empty, careless, living a selfish existence to make up for the hole that was carved inside of him and that would eventually lead to his self loathing. Kavinski on the other hand, embraced that fully. He had money, popularity, the best parties and a reputation that reached the other side of the state and anything he couldâve ever wanted at the beck and call of a dream. Kavinski had it all⊠And that made him empty.
Kavinskiâs solution to this could have presumably been reaching out friendships to try reckless and dangerous things like he does with Ronan with someone like Prokopenko, to the point that we eventually learned led to Prokopenkoâs death. It didnât work out, and instead heâs been reaching out to Ronan as heâs finally found someone he can call an equal to him. He wanted to be empty with someone else and after Ronan finally rejects himâ rejects the entire lifestyle, rejects the hate he no longer felt for himselfâ he gives up, deciding to end his meaningless existence. And just like that, lets himself be killed by his own creation in the same way he came into the world: Empty.
Hello yes, I need to address him again.
Adam was⊠Weird, again in this book. Maggie foreshadowed pretty well he was no longer the same person, after all, he just sacrificed a part of himself during the Raven Boys and honestly, it was great. It was a good weird, it was well done and very interesting seeing Adam coping and slowly changing as Cabeswater lived inside of him.
Now hereâs the thing thoughâ I really thought Adam was going to become a bad guy. Like I said, I could recognize his struggle and his change, his obvious moodiness and the constant fights with Gansey were at least deeper and complex (added to the ones I absolutely loathed where heâd reproach Gansey trying to be a good friend, even when it turned out it wasnât even Ganseyâs doing)⊠But I thought he was changing for the worst. Itâs not necessarily a bad thing, I was enjoying it nonetheless, but Iâll have to charge myself guilty for actually thinking this was going to be the way Maggie pushed Adam out of the way to make way for King Gansey of all things good for Blue.
I was so pleasantly surprised she didnât and that instead it was simply a complex battle inside of Adam to figure out who he is, like identity is a recurring theme in TCR books, and what Cabeswater and the Raven boys now meant to him, finally independent, finally his own person, finally away from his abusers. For someone who complains about being spoonfed my feelings so much in your average YA formula, I am sadly guilty of really thinking âand kind of looking forwardsâ Maggie was heading down this path. In the end, Iâm just blessed she changed my mind.
One more time though, I had to find myself enjoying Adam more through the eyes of Ronan. Their interactions bless me.
Religious list of amazing things because holy shit:
The Gray Man having a mental debate whether he was capable or not to weave a flower crown for Maura. This is a cold, season hit man guys.
I love the Gray Man so much guys,
Just think about it, Maggie did this great job making a believable antagonist that felt good for her novel and instead made us fall in love in him and root for this man
He even goes through entire life crisis were he canât get up from bed days at a time, thank you for making him real Maggie??
The Lynch brothers attend church together every Sunday and that is simply beautiful, like its really their last attempt at having a proper family.
Ronan, all of the amount of Ronan.Â
Adam discovering it wasnât Gansey who had payed the extra 2.4K of his apartment but instead Ronan and keeping quiet about it, like it had left him confused and speechless. Every mention of Ronan being a ball of sun feels so good and deserved, my heart was pleased every time.
Kavinskiâs constantly fucking around with Ronan about being Ganseyâs bottom
Kavinski practically confessing to Ronan and killing himself after his rejection, because that was so powerful holy christ-
What are Adamâs interesting thoughts on travelerâs rights?
[Review] The Dream Thieves â Maggie Stiefvater âWhile Iâm gone,â Gansey said, pausing, âdream me the world. Something new for every night.â A dark and eeriee novel about a spark light personality who lit the world on fire.
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