Where did I get it? I bought it off eBay
What's it about? This is the second in the Raven Cycle series. I read the first, The Raven Boys, last year, shortly before I started this blog, and absolutely loved it. I wanted to read the next three before I see Maggie at YALC this year, but I'm not sure that will happen now. I really felt like this book dragged. I'm sure it's setting things up for the third and fourth books, but I felt it was really lacking in plot. I didn't like Ronan just wandering around on drag strips getting high. I didn't feel there was enough of Adam, and I didn't feel that all five of the main characters did enough together. I liked their adventuring in the first novel and felt it was lacking here.
Basically, in this novel, Ronan dreams a lot of things, a Gray Man is after him and his brothers, Gansey and Adam are trying to impress some posh people, Ronan has a rivalry with some Bulgarian fella, Blue's mum is dating the Gray Man, Blue does very little, and gahhhh. It just dragged for me and it took me two weeks to read! Two weeks.
I will read the next two, but I hope they're better than this.
What age range is it for? 14+ for the series overall I think. The night horror that came after Ronan was absolutely terrifying!
Are any main characters LGBTQ+? Not explicitly, but I've seen Maggie say that you can absolutely read them as queer characters and that's okay. There's a lot of joking from Kavinsky to Ronan about the nature of Ronan and Gansey's relationship, which gets annoying, but there's also a lovely bit which I think is as close to canon of a coming out as I've seen so far, in which Ronan doesn't deny "swinging the other way".
There's tons of Raven Boys fanfiction encompassing every pairing you could think of, so if that's your jam get on Archive Of Our Own or something. Maggie seems to directly encourage fanfic!
Are any main characters people of colour? No, but again I think that's been more than covered in fan art. Personally I like to think that Blue is mixed race.
Are any main characters disabled either mentally or physically? Yes, Adam has been physically damaged by his father's abuse (a big storyline in the first book) and clearly mentally traumatised by it too. In fact, abuse/survival is a big part of this series, in my opinion.
Is there any sex stuff? Not really
Are drugs mentioned or used? Yes, cocaine is pretty prevalent and some unspecified "pills" which make Ronan and Kavinsky fall asleep very quickly.
Is there any talk of death? Yes, it's quite graphic in parts (like when talking about Niall Lynch's death)
Are there swear words? A few, I actually love it when my Raven Boys swear, but your mileage may vary of course.
Would I recommend the book? Yes, but only if you've read the Raven Boys and want to read on. Grit your teeth and get through it.
How many stars? Six out of ten.
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