Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

24 reviews

sweetjuicee_'s review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

TWs listed below

"You're Maura's daughter," Neeve said, and before Blue could answer, she added, "this is the year you'll fall in love."

I read this book because I remembered how much my friend liked it during COVID-19. I saw her reposting memes and fanart of the series, so when I saw it in my (not so local) bookstore, I bought it on a whim with two other books of a similar price and I can still feel that £30-ish hole in my bank account. This book was worth it, though, and I hope I can say the same for the other two.
~~~
The book follows Blue Sargent, the daughter of a psychic who lives with other psychics yet doesn't have any psychic abilities herself, becoming friends with 4 boys who go to the private school in her small town Aglionby. The school's mascot is a raven, so boys from this school gained the moniker 'The Raven Boys', and together they try and wake the ley lines to find the old Welsh King Glendower, who disappeared after the English took over Wales back in the 13th century.

I've read many romantasy books, and I'm glad this one sticks to its original plot. The chapters in this book help to either build character, advance the main plot or advance a character arc/subplot. Even the three or four chapters from the Latin teacher Whelk are useful

to show the type of person he is (a thief obsessed with getting his riches back, to the point where he'd kill his best friend, one of his students and a famous psychic just for a taste of the wealth he had before his father was arrested) and his relationship to the main 4 raven boys (with him being Noah's old friend and murderer)

. Other books I've read abandon their plot midway through for a romance that was obviously not going to last (*cough* The Cruel Prince *cough*) at the cost of removing the only interesting characteristic of the main character, but the plot was the main focus here and the short-lived romance was both longer lived than expected and happened with — not instead of — the plot.

However, the almost nauseating pacing and emotional changes were not fun. The true mystery where they try to wake the Ley Line and find Glendower doesn't start until roughly halfway through the book.

The chapters leading up to Blue meeting the boys, their card reading and Blue disobeying her mother and choosing to help them despite her warning were long and a little hard to read. There were about 8-12 chapters between Gansey's call and the reading. In the book, I believe it wasn't even up to a week, but not only was I antsy reading, making the chapters between feel longer, they were significantly longer chapters than the ones in the second half of the book.

Irregular chapter lengths are a huge pet peeve of mine. I don't want to read 20 pages of Blue's daily routine after Gansey's 3 pages of his fight scene.

The same goes for the emotional changes.

Having a chapter on Blue putting together her school project right after Adam's dad abuses him, and right before Ronan steps in and fights Adam's dad as Adam tries to get up and reorient himself after he loses hearing in his left ear was a terrible idea. The chapters were emotionally draining, but that chapter gave me intense emotional whiplash. It should've been before those two.

Finally, I spoiled myself after trying to look for fanart to understand what the characters looked like, but even before I did that, it was so obvious that something was wrong with Noah. What do you mean none of them could tell that something was wrong with Noah, let alone that he was a ghost? He never eats, he never drinks, he wears the uniform all the time but neither Ronan, Gansey nor Adam share any lessons with him, his bedroom looks untouched, only you, Blue and a select few people can see him and he appears and disappears multiple times a day? Did they just think he was a little quirky like that? If the only signs were the lack of eating and drinking, then sure, but they saw them all and chose to ignore it. When they confront Noah, he says he tried to tell them he was a ghost. This scene just made me question their relationships with each other. If they couldn't figure out that their ghost friend who never tried to hide that he was a ghost was, in fact, a ghost, do Ronan, Gansey and Adam even know each other?

~~~
I like Adam and Blue together. They're cute. They suit each other. They make a good "this is our first relationship" couple. I can't figure out much to say about them, other than that. I enjoyed their relationship,

and though they break up in the next book, I'm glad Adam doesn't go through a common, yet infuriating character assassination. Blue and Gansey won't feel like it's come out of nowhere, thanks to Stiefvater's successful foreshadowing, and Adam and Ronan was the only predictable choice

.
~~~
This review is far too long, so I'll keep this short.

Blue: For some reason, I thought her name was Lily while trying to write this. Either way, she suffers from something I've recently called Tumblr Syndrome. Plain enough that she can be a self-insert, and "so different" from others, so "not like other girls". Lucy Carlyle from my favourite book series also suffers from this, less from the characterisation, but she explicitly states that she has no female friends in book 2. I like Blue. She lives a relatively boring life despite her psychic family and truly plays a vital role in the story. One thing I found weird was how she hated the Raven Boys
but had no qualms about helping them with their search for Glendower
, but she's a good character, even with slight Tumblr Syndrome.
Gansey: Not a fan. He's not a bad character or even a bad person, but he's definitely not as interesting as I thought he would be
, even though the only reason why he's alive is because of Noah's death
. Money's been in his family for so long that he didn't realise how out of touch he is with Adam and Blue, and I hated when he said "I'm sorry your father never taught you the word repugnant. He was too busy smashing your head against the wall of your trailer while you apologise for being alive", it's insane how he thought this was appropriate to say to anyone, let alone Adam. He's old enough to know that words can be just as painful as a punch.
Ronan: Another sufferer of Tumblr Syndrome: edgy bad boy with some sort of parental (father) issues who takes it out on those closest to him (his brothers, Adam and Gansey) and has some sort of unhealthy coping mechanism (alcoholism) which makes his grades suffer in all but one subject (latin, for some reason), aka one of my least favourite characterisations, as a child of Episode. He's better than the rest of the men of these tropes since he does genuinely start changing his attitude and studies.
Adam: I have a soft spot for characters like Adam. Maybe it's from consuming too much media that suffers from Second Lead Syndrome and mid-story-but-end-of-book-one character assassinations (*cough* War Hour *cough*), but I always looked forward to his chapters and enjoyed reading his thought process much more than the others. He's sweet and thankfully not creepy.
Noah: Another character I have a soft spot for. Even though his friends are either dumber than they think or incredibly self-absorbed (both seems more likely), his strangeness was obvious from the start.

The rest I'll omit. This is too long.

~~~
I left this review for too long, so now I've forgotten a good amount of things I probably could've written if I didn't start this review 1 month or 3 library books after finishing this. Even though this review seems like it's mainly huge complaints, this was a great read and I'm very excited to start book 2.

Content Warnings

piperplanes's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

sabinehunter's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional funny 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

5.0

Content Warnings

thecandiegirl's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Content Warnings

booksandstardust's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Content Warnings

lunep's review against another edition

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funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

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trintrin's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

ooookay where do we start

THE CHARACTERS. I love the characters. I can't stress how much I love the characters. I would willingly read a thousand one-shots and spin-offs about them even though it's only been one out of four books so far.
- Maura, Calla, Persephone, and the other psychic women were very interesting to read about. I hope to get to know them more in the future books. Especially Persephone, she's got me in her charms.
- Blue is such a refreshing character, I love her so much. I thought she's gonna be one of those whiny YA protagonists,

especially considering her forbidden love and kind of poor background story,

but oh boy, she's none of those things.
- I don't really have an opinion on Ronan yet, but I smell a character backstory/arc up ahead. I shall deliver my judgement after that :D

Although, I do admit, those little moments where Ronan actually expressed his emotions and his love for the others or Chainsaw made me feel warm

- Adam is probably the most realistic character out of everyone here. He was my first favourite character, I hope he pulls through all the way to the end.

His relationship(?) with Blue was very pure, but obviously it's not gonna be the endgame. I pray for him and my future self.

- Gansey, oh Gansey. I have a soft spot towards Gansey. Something about the way he cares so much for the Raven Boys, and eventually, Blue, makes me want to not read this book anymore. Because I absolutely do not want him to die. He's such a FANTASTIC friend and he is the glue holding the group together. I genuinely cannot imagine how the boys would even survive without him. I want a friend like Gansey, and not just because he's filthy rich.

I don't really sense any chemistry between Gansey and Blue so far. I kinda hope they don't have to resort to that, but oh well. A prophecy is a prophecy, but ig prophecies can also be misleading

- And finally, saving the best boy for the last, NOAHHHH.

He went from a very suspicious background character to this adorable, cutest little child gahhhhhh someone please protect him from all the harm in the world

THE PLOT. The first 50%-ish part of the book had a very weird pacing, so much so that it nearly took me a month to finish it. I truly did not care about Glendower or the ley lines or Aglionby, but it was the characters that kept me going. Lucky I did, because after setting up the world and everything about halfway through, the book picks up the pace. One second you think you've got it, and the next second it goes poof. It keeps you guessing all the way till the end.

I literally just finished reading the book, but what wouldn't I give to find out that Noah Czerny's been dead all along for the first time. I was convinced he was sneaking out trying to wake up the ley line on his own, but turns out the poor child wasn't even alive in the first place. I'm so glad the others didn't freak out and suddenly turn Noah into this ghost who haunts them now, but they gave a logical explanation on why he appeared and disappeared at certain times.

The amount of foreshadowing this book has?? Noah quite literally said that the reason he is always cold is because he's been dead for seven years in the fourth chapter AND NO ONE QUESTIONED IT? Every time Noah makes an appearance has some sort of clue to his situation (the way he threw up after seeing that car and no one bothered to think why?) and yet I never guessed that he was actually dead, just that he's sketchy. And the way it matched up with Gansey's hornet death backstory and Whelk's Czerny backstory, it's incredible, really.

Whelk, I thought he's a weirdo who turns out to be a good-ish guy in the end. The psychopath straight up murdered Noah. Little bitch deserved every bit of his stupid death. Noah's funeral actually made me kinda teary eyed, but I didn't expect them to commit literal grave robbery wtaf 😭 we stan.

One thing that made me feel so relieved in a way was when Adam's father (he can go to hell) slapped him, he actually lost his hearing in a ear. That's it. It's gone. No partial hearing loss, or temporary deafness that will soon be back to normal, or magical abilities to heal his condition, or super hear with his other ear. Nothing. It's just an injury that can never be fixed. This is one thing that I never really liked about fantasy. Like why make the characters lose something as important as a body part only to immediately fix it in someway that its loss is not a big deal at all? I really hope Adam stays this way at least for a good long time, and that his partial deafness affects and slows him down every once in a while. (I understand how sadistic this sounds, but we really need more disabled characters who are actually disabled)

Overall, if only the pacing in the first half hadn't been dogshit, I would've given this five stars. As it is, I hope we can rectify that in the next one :D (although I still don't really care about Glendower, I'm just here for the lovely people and some vibes)

Jan 2024 reread:
This has been my favourite book ever to reread, easily 5 stars! I remember thinking there was a lot of foreshadowing immediately after finishing this book and just flipping back through the pages. Now, with the knowledge of the other three books and the Dreamer Trilogy combined, I can safely say THERE'S SO MUCH FORESHADOWING!! I was sitting here with my jaw dropped for some of those. So many of them evaded my attention, even the things that happen within this book. Maggie, you big-brained genius.

Another thing that I somehow forgot about is

how present Adam's abuse is. I was genuinely shocked on reading about it even before Blue became a part of the gangsey. Reading Adam and Gansey's argument hurt even more, now knowing and understanding the two characters better than before. So proud of them for making it through eventually.

I remember struggling with the pacing so much that it took me nearly a month to finish this book because it took forever to get to the main plot. After flying through the book at record-speed during this reread, I realised it's probably because I didn't know that the main point of this series is not finding Glendower, it's the friendships, and it's always been there at the core of the book. Not justifying the book or invalidating new readers who might feel the same way, just a curious thing to point out.

Content Warnings

emohell's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense fast-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

so unbelievably upset that it took so long for me to read this. was only vaguely aware of it during its peak tumblr days, and if ANYONE had mentioned this is a fucking TREASURE HUNTING SERIES i would have devoured it YEARS AGO

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ifoundcallie's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Content Warnings

friendly_neighborhood_grandma's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense 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

3.75

This is a very good book. Especially considering that i was written 10 years ago. It was exactly my level of creepy. Not scary. I cannot tolerate scary. The characters are great, it is so very engaging, good dialogues, supernatural, witchy, dark academia, perfect for a busy fall read for people who do not want to be scared but do not want to feel left out either. Would recommand. I do not think that the ending is very strong. (But I guess it’s okay considering that it is a first in a series.)

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