Reviews

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

pastahater3000's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced

4.0

meghanhudson's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

seriouslybookish's review against another edition

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5.0

Absolutely phenomenal!! I can't even ... Oh Maggie! You have created a masterpiece and I am so disappointed it has ended. This whole series was an absolutely fantastic ride. I felt like I was part of something big and am so glad I picked it up (actually I am glad I waited to marathon it).

Spoiler Can we please take a moment to appreciate Blue and Gansey's kiss. I mean FINALLY!! I waited three books for it.

helenamt's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

allbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

lizzzardbean's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.75

jagodasbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

2.0

This whole series feels like standing up too fast with iron deficiency and swimming in and out of the consciousness, wondering if you're gonna lose it or not

karamelz88's review against another edition

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4.0

As like the last three, this book will suck you into a time warp and suddenly 100 pages and hours have gone by without you noticing but you still won’t want to put it down. Overall I liked it, hence the 4 star review. Why isn’t this a 5 star review? I’ll explain.
First, Cheng’s character feels very thrown in. Even thinking back to the series, I forget Cheng because he is such a late addition and provides little to the plot. He doesn’t get to make much connection with the characters in their already established friend group so it doesn’t feel like he really fits in.
Secondly, and I’ll be vague here as not to spoil anything if you haven’t read it, the end is confusing and I’m still not sure I understand what happened. If you have read it already, continue down further for a continued discussion.
Overall, Gansey’s character throughout the series doesn’t have too much development and also feels more like he’s a parent than a 17 year old kid. What 17 yr old kid bosses his friends to do their homework and behave? And honestly I’m not sure why Ronan and Adam stay friends with him, particularly Adam who seems to despise every word coming from his mouth at least earlier in the series. The friend group, while I love it, is a weird dynamic that if you think about it doesn’t make too much sense (so I guess don’t think about it, lol).
The Blue-Gansey ship felt off. I felt none of the romance that supposedly blossomed between them. Their ship felt forced.
I love the Pynch ship (Adam+Ronan), however, I wish we got more hints about Ronan’s feelings earlier on other than Kavinski’s offensive comments towards him. I also wish we had gotten some hints from Adam towards Ronan as there were zero and Adam had a thing for Blue in the beginning so I was a bit surprised. I love the ship, as mentioned, I just wish there was more shown budding between them.
Also the orphan girl, what exactly was her role? No clue. It was adorable to see Ronan care for her but I feel like that’s all she was there for. Again I still like her, I just wish her role was explained more.
Same with the Grey man. He was an odd addition that felt lacking.

Overall I loved the series and the hint at the end for more to come excites me. I’ll definitely read more if it does continue.

Spoilers below
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I’m still unsure how Gansey’s resurrection occurred. I felt Noah’s departure was lacking, like Noah could have sacrificed his ghost self for Gansey’s life at the very end. But instead we got Noah disappearing in some time circle loop and cabeswater somehow bringing Gansey back even though it says it can’t do that? This is the biggest reason it got 4 stars over 5.

grid's review against another edition

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4.0

This was my favorite book of the four. The demon felt more real and terrible in a way that had higher stakes than the other books, I thought. I really liked the end of this especially. (Well, before the epilog.) I sort of wish it’d all been written with that magic and beauty.

cat_moon's review against another edition

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5.0

They've changed me