Blue Lily, Lily Blue: Maggie Stiefvater

Blue Lily, Lily Blue: Maggie Stiefvater

Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends and is part of a group to which she feels like she belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. The trick with found things is how easily they can be lost. 
Her mother has disappeared. Her friends could betray her. Certainties will be unraveled. Visions will mislead. What will happen to Blue?

Blue Lily, Lily Blue is the third book in the Raven Cycle series and all I have to say is did I miss something? Is there something I skipped over??? I think everyone on my goodreads has given this five stars but I'm confused to as why!? I need someone to fill me in.

I had such high hopes for this book but sadly I was left feeling disappointed. As much as I liked the characters in the first two novels I was just kind of over them in this one. Yes Blue is still hilarious. Yes Gansey is still Adorable from a distance. Yes Adam is still annoyingly stubborn. And yes Ronan is still the character you hate to love. However besides liking the characters they brought nothing new to the table. People have told me and hyped up the relationship between Gansey and Blue, in my opinion it doesn't exist. Pretending to kiss and sometimes sneaking in hand squeezing is boring!!! Not only that it is a barely formed relationship and we're three books in. I get she can't kiss him without the chance of killing him but still do something!!! Say something romantic not just stare at each other than laugh. Adam is really annoying in this book, but I can't really explain why. He was pretty annoying in the last one but this one he just really bugged me. Ronan was probably the only one who didn't peeve me off.

I feel like they have done the exact same thing in all three books... Oh wait that's because they have. The only thing they've done is follow ley lines and chase after the king. That's it! STILL!!!!!! There's absolutely nothing else to the plot. Reading that one sentence will save you so much time and the torture of the 380 something pages.  

The plot is so/so along with any "world building". There's still just always at Blue's house or walking around caves. Blue's mom was still kidnapped and the 50 shades of Mr. Gray man are still a weird and confusing section(s) of the book along with the "surprise" intro of another character. There was nothing surprising about this book. Everything that happened is something I'm sure you'll see coming. The ending was predictable and lacked any "awww factor".

Blue Lily, Lily Blue was everything I didn't want it to be and nothing I wanted it to be. There was zero establishment of relationships, no character development, most of the interesting things happened behind the scenes, important plot info from the previous books was ignored, new and annoying characters were introduced, the plot was split in a million disorganized directions, the ending lacked all emotional drive, and there were no chapters from Ronan's perspective. Why set him up as such an important character in the first two books to do nothing with him in the third?! The chapters from Adam's perspective gave little to no insight into how he felt towards anything. Noah barely had any role in this book. Gansey and Blue were the two most highlighted characters, yet like I said absolutely nothing changed with them. I am not looking forward to book four. The only thing that I really felt was done right with this book was it's cover. Compared to the first two both the title and the art are more eye pleasing. I know that I'll be in the minority here on how I feel towards this book, but Oh well. I just didn't get it.

3 maybe 4?/10 Stars

-Angela 

The Raven Boys: Maggie Stiefvater

The Raven Boys: Maggie Stiefvater

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year when she goes with her aunt instead to write down the dead's names. When a boy emerges from the dark and she's able to speak directly to him she knows from what she's been told her whole life that things are no longer going to be easy.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school where all the Raven boys go. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys... They're two things, trouble and bastards. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys- Adam, the poor shy scholarship boy; Ronan the moody mysterious one; and Noah the quite "loner" who notices many things but says very little. For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem as long as she stays away from dating. But now as her life becomes caught up in the bizzaro world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

I know I'm WAY behind on reading this series... But I'm really glad to be getting on board with it now. Sometimes I like to wait until there are several books out to pick up a series so I can Netflix it and go crazy. (That's what I plan on doing with this series.) 

Maggie Stiefvater was able to create such a interesting, rich, and quirky story. I didn't think I was going to even like this boo, but I've been won over. I will say though that there were some holes in this book... So let me break both the good and bad down for you... The characters in this book are larger than life. The boys (Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah) are all loud and each one completely different from the other. Blue is in a group all her own. I loved that she didn't look like every other girl in ya reads. She didn't have have hair that goes to her waist that happens to be an unheard of shade, or grey eyes, no she has short dark crazy hair and dresses like she rolled straight through the closest hot topic. I would normally hate that she was so quirky but the way she is written actually makes both her and her style refreshing. Blue also has no filter. LOVE! She says whatever comes to mind and has very little shame in doing so. All the characters kind of reminded me of the cast of Scooby-Doo. Especially since they are solving mysteries together. Even the sub-characters in this book hold their own. My favorite thing was the banter and sass that Gansey and Blue bring to the table. I mean right when they met I knew right away that I will love them as a book couple...

She said, “Do you see how I’m wearing this apron? It means I’m working. For a living.
The unconcerned expression didn’t flag. He said, “I’ll take care of it.”
She echoed, “Take care of it?”
“Yeah. How much do you make in an hour? I’ll take care of it. And I’ll talk to your manager.” 
For a moment, Blue was actually lost for words. She had never believed people who claimed to be speechless, but she was. She opened her mouth, and at first, all that came out was air. Then something like the beginning of a laugh. Then finally, she managed to sputter, “I am not a prostitute.”

 From then on out I was waiting for them to hit it off. I love the way Gansey says things in the snarkiest ways that are oh so perfect...

“I guess I make things that need energy stronger. I'm like a walking battery."
"You're the table everyone wants at Starbucks," Gansey mused as he began to walk again.
Blue blinked. "What?"
Over his shoulder, Gansey said, "Next to the wall plug.”  

This does however lead me to the thing that I was a little disappointed in. It is made pretty clear from the get go that Gansey is going to either be Blue's one true love that she will kill, she will just kill him, or possibly both. So I was waiting the whole time for them to start at least flirting... Doesn't happen. They are both drawn to each other but neither acts upon it (sigh). Blue spends most of her time with Adam in this book. I loved that once I started to like Adam and was like whatever towards Gansey that their actual personalities started showing and I began to switch sides. Gansey really does win you over by the end of the book. Ya know once he stops acting like a total diva. Doesn't hurt though that he sounds so handsome, guess I can look past those little indiscretions.

I hear as the series goes on their romance blossoms, but I did want it in this book too. The other thing that was ehhh about this story is that at some points it gets a little confusing. I found myself having to read some paragraphs over again just to figure them out. But the two plot twist that happen both towards the end of the book are jaw dropping. Especially one of them that just came completely out of left field. This book does suffer from a little bit of a slow middle but the first and last part of the book more then make up for that. I CAN NOT WAIT TO GET MY HAND ON BOOK TWO! 

8.5/10 Stars 
-Angela 

(side-note: I hope they come out with new covers for book one and two because I hate the current ones and it was the main reason I put off reading it for so long.)