Review: The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

The Raven Cycle #4

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Publication Date: April 26th, 2016

Rating: 5 Stars

Source: Purchase

Pages: 439

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Summary (from Goodreads):

Nothing living is safe. Nothing dead is to be trusted.

For years, Gansey has been on a quest to find a lost king. One by one, he’s drawn others into this quest: Ronan, who steals from dreams; Adam, whose life is no longer his own; Noah, whose life is no longer a lie; and Blue, who loves Gansey… and is certain she is destined to kill him.

Now the endgame has begun. Dreams and nightmares are converging. Love and loss are inseparable. And the quest refuses to be pinned to a path.

So I FINALLY finished the Raven Cycle series! What a ride this was! I still can't believe I waited so long to read this series! It was so excellent!

In this final book in the Raven Cycle series, things are getting close to the end. Gansey and the gang are closer to finding Glendower than ever. After finding and waking the illegitimate daughter of Glendower instead of the Welsh king himself, Gansey realized he isn't quite ready to be done with his seven year quest after all.

So the quest kind of comes to a bit of a standstill with school, a congressional thing at the school, and a mysterious sale of a supernatural object going on. A trip to Cabeswater reveals that something is going on with the forest as one of the trees has begun to bleed black. But things don't seem to be really... urgent for Blue and her raven boys right away until they realize what it is that's actually destroying Cabeswater. Then the race is on to find Glendower and use the favor to fix everything.

As I mentioned in my reviews of books one and two, this book also felt like it moved relatively slowly for a lot of the book. But as with those books as well, it didn't bother me at all. Everything just seems to build so well in this series that something super exciting doesn't have to be happening ALL the time because even the slower moments are so amazing!

I can't believe how much I loved all the characters in this series and the relationships they all had. I am glad that Blue broke her own rule about dealing with Raven Boys. I loved the friendship that the whole group had so much. How they all loved each other so much despite their faults and issues. I also loved the relationship between Blue and her family. And the relationship between the psychics and the raven boys!

Throughout this whole series, the characters all changed so much. Adam started off being so full of self pity about his life and situation that he couldn't accept genuine help or worry from his friends because he felt weaker or lesser than everyone else. Throughout the whole series he did a complete 360 to be almost a completely different character! I am so glad that I ended up loving him as much as the rest of the characters and I'm glad that he ended up liking himself in the end.

Ronan is another character who goes through a pretty significant character change. He starts off as such a huge asshole and generally being almost unpleasant to becoming SO much more human. He stops being a jerk just for the sake of being a jerk. He is still an asshole, but he's an asshole with a heart.

I think that Gansey and Blue changed as well, but I don't think that their changes were AS significant. I think that Gansey became more human in a different way than Ronan. He is always trying to be so perfect and put together and he seems to be more comfortable with NOT being so perfect and put together and he has more of those moments it seems, as the series goes on. As for Blue, I feel like I can't pinpoint what exactly I think changed about her. But ahhhh, I loved her so much.

I was SO happy with the romances in this book! I FINALLY saw exactly what I was waiting for in regards to Pynch and it WASN'T ENOUGH! I also did NOT get anything close to enough Blue and Gansey! I was so happy when they finally kind of just came out and told Adam and Ronan that they were together. The romance in this book just made me happy.

The things that maybe I could say I was disappointed in would be what happened with Noah in this book because I loved him and all of his silly scenes and just wish that he had gotten MORE. I just felt like he was forgotten in this book and it made me sad because I loved him!

The other thing would be the ending of the Glendower quest. Only because I thought that more would come of it! But, as I just read in another review, it wasn't really about the end, it was about the journey and all the new friends made and adventures had. Which I definitely agree with, which makes me feel better about how the quest turned out!

Overall, this series was SO much fun and I'm glad I finally got around to picking it up. I would have been missing out something fierce! I am already planning on when I should reread these books because I know I had to have missed a lot and I feel like it will be even better the second time around! I now plan on binging everything else that Maggie has ever written and then impatiently waiting for more from her! I think I have found a new auto-buy author!