The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

Publication Date:  April 26, 2016
Publisher:  Scholastic Press
Pages:  439
Series:  The Raven Cycle #4
Genre:  Fantasy
Synopsis:  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.

Review:  Depending on where you begin the story, it's about a blonde 14 year old who fell into this book series without much grace or expectation.  And at the end of it, it took a month of picking up the last book, reading the prologue, becoming overwhelmed with the terrifying and completely unbelievable prospect that The Raven Cycle was coming to a close, and setting the book down again.  But, as it turns out, this final installment was difficult to resist for long.

The Raven King is, in itself, a world of myth and magic.  Never has something so whimsical and ethereal made itself seem so tangible.  Reality pales in comparison to the wonders--and horrors--existing inside this story.  It steals your soul into a land that is more the essence of a living thing than that of ink and paper, leaving you dazed and dreaming.

Depending on where you began the story, it was about this place: the long stretch of mountain that straddled a particularly potent segment of the ley line.

If this book is anything, it is the reality you know plus more.  All your hopes and nightmares morph into writing and unfold as a surreal story bound together and sold at your local bookstore.  Somehow, against all odds, The Raven King takes everything you thought you knew about this particular peculiarity and gives you more.  

Everything comes full circle in the end:  the truths we wished we didn't know and the secrets that still remain a little mysterious.  It is a perilous journey, and a devastating one.  But it leaves you with just the right amount of hope.

What a strange constellation they all were.

Gansey and Blue, Ronan and Adam (can you ever believe there was a time I disliked Adam?).  Their characters, flawed and complex as they are, were subjected to a masterful tragedy that gifted them fantastic character arcs.  I was a little in love with all of them.

Henry was a new addition to the cast, and I was far from disappointed.  He was funny and clever, if a bit convenient.  Noah's plot turned in some unforeseen ways and I was content with the way it wrapped up.  

Such a vibrant and impossible story deserves an equally vibrant and impossible conclusion, and Maggie Stiefvater passed with flying colors.  The setting, the characters, the magic--they were all painted in stunning detail with Stiefvater's poetic writing.  I would not hesitate to start over and experience it all again. 

He was a book, and he was holding his final pages, and he wanted to get to the end to find out how it went, and he didn't want it to be over.

As ever, I am not without complaint:  the Gray man's story fell a bit short for me, as did Piper's.  I feel a little cut off from that end and wished there was a handful of more pages dedicated to them. 

It is as sad a farewell as can be, but with The Raven King, it feels as if the story hasn't really ended.  As if somewhere, sometime, they are all perpetually running around in Cabeswater searching for dead kings.