BOOK REVIEW: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

BOOK REVIEW: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Scholastic Press
September 2013
Paperback, £5.99
Reviewed by Aly Locatelli

6.5/10

Review of Book 1: The Raven Boys 

In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them.
Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness.
Her raven boys.

The Dream Thieves picks up a month after The Raven Boys left off. It’s summer, school’s out and the group are excited to find out more about Cabeswater and Glendower, dedicating entire days to scouting the area around the forest and Gansey’s notebooks for clues. The ley line, thanks to Adam’s bargain, is awake and demanding attention and everything has changed for Blue, Gansey, Adam and Ronan.

Especially for Ronan. He has a secret.

All of us have secrets in our lives. We’re keepers or kept-from, players or played. Secrets and cockroaches – that’s what will be left at the end of it all.
Ronan Lynch lived with every sort of secret.

Somehow, he is able to take things from his dreams: a book, a pencil, a raven. With the ley line awake, he is able to do so more and more often and, as he explores the limits of his powers, he accepts the help of his nemesis, the terrifying but oddly interesting Joseph Kavinsky. This new exploration of powers puts a strain on his friendship with Gansey, who is against using the ley line for personal use and against the idea of Ronan putting himself in any kind of trouble. Not only that, but where Ronan and Kavinsky are both competing against each other, constantly, there is also an undercurrent insinuating that their feelings might be more than simple friends/enemies. I loved that aspect and how Stiefvater incorporated it flawlessly within the novel.

Now, they’re not the only people looking for the ley line. The Gray Man is in town, working for the strangely obsessed Greenmantle, and he wants something badly… or someone.

“If I shot you here, it would take you twenty minutes to die, and you’d be done no matter what the medics did for you. Where is the Geywaren?”

As the story evolves, the characters must make impossible decisions and take huge leaps of faith. They grow, friendships break and others form, and everything is tested, including their faith.

The Dream Thieves is no longer just about Cabeswater, the ley line and Glendower. It’s about the characters, specifically. Adam and how the bargain he made at the end of The Raven Boys changes him; Ronan and his dreams and the things he can bring back; Gansey and the terror he has of not living up to people’s expectations or, worse, letting them down completely; Blue and the prophecy coming ever closer. It’s not just about the main characters, either, but everyone: Blue’s mother and aunts, the Gray Man, the enemies. Stiefvater writes for a patient audience and her fans, for those who are willing to uncover clues to the mysteries alongside the characters.

A new connection begins to form between Blue and Gansey. Where Blue once saw him as endurable at best, she sees the real Gansey, and she starts to question how she will ever be able to confess that, within twelve months, he will die. Where Adam begins to change, Blue grows closer and closer to Ronan and Gansey, and new relationships start to form.

Some things will change for the better. Others will change for the worse.

Fate cannot be controlled.

Although not much seems to happen in the second instalment of The Raven Cycle, once I finished reading, I realised that a lot did actually happen. Not plot-wise, but character-wise, and more clues were thrown in, building up towards a grand finale. I cannot wait to see what happens in the next book, Blue Lily, Lily Blue and how Stiefvater surprises us next.

Category: Book Reviews, Other Reviews