Review: The Dream Thieves (Raven Cycle, #2)

Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Series: Raven Cycle, #2
Published: September 17th 2013
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Format: Hardcover, 439 pages
Buy: The Book Depository

Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same.

Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life.

Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after...

Sometimes there are no words.

A year and a half ago, when I first read The Raven Boys, I was thoroughly impressed. Everything in my brain screamed that Maggie reached new heights, that she is the only one with the potential to build a story unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. And yet, while my brain was thrilled, my heart was oddly silent. I recognized the sheer brilliance of it all, but I didn’t really respond emotionally. However, there was hope. With Maggie, there’s always hope.

The Dream Thieves is a whole new ball game, friends. It’s a book that consumes, that eats you alive and then dreams you back to life. It’s a mind-shattering, life-altering experience only one author in the whole universe can provide. There is nothing, nothing in this world comparable to Maggie Stiefvater’s writing. The elegance and the cleverness of it are unparalleled in young adult literature, and she’s only getting better with each new book.

Even though The Dream Thieves is very much Ronan’s book, it is also Adam’s book, and Blue’s book and especially Gansey’s book. In fact, Richard Gansey III is such a strong presence, such an overwhelmingly well-rounded character, that every book inevitably becomes his. His is an old soul in a 17-year-old body and his calm demeanor the only anchor in his turbulent surroundings. While Ronan and Adam are both walking, talking disaster, each his own kind of train wreck, Blue is the closest to Gansey in that she is very firmly set in her own skin. Like Gansey, she has an infallible sense of self, a clear idea of who she is and a self-awareness that doesn’t match her age.

By destroying an object that belongs to one of her characters, an object of immense sentimental value, Stiefvater gives her readers a subtle message: Do not get lulled into a false sense of security. My writing may possess a certain gentle beauty, but nothing is really sacred. No character is safe. She does this like she does everything else, with elegance and grace, and that makes the threat all the more terrifying.

The Dream Thieves is almost impossible to summarize. The plot is very dispersed and vague, the mysteries still too big and solutions too far to fully comprehend. But does it matter? Certainly not, for it is a far superior book to anything I’ve read in a very long time. Stiefvater’s immense creativity spills from every page, breaking the confines of the genre and of YA literature in general.

It pains me to think that I have to wait almost a year for the next book, but perhaps it’s for the best. I took my time with The Dream Thieves, savoring each page and thinking through each event so as not to miss even the smallest of details. Waiting 10 months will give me time to absorb everything and prepare myself for yet another dose of Stiefvater’s brilliance.