This is the year she will fall in love.
Even though the blurb gives off the idea that this book is all about love - it really isn't. The Raven Boys is more about friendship and magic than relationships.
One of the things that I really enjoyed about this book is that the book had a male friendship group. Nearly all of the young adult books that I have read revolve around girls or a group of girls with maybe the odd male thrown in - but only to be a love interest. The Raven Boys revolves around four boys: Ronan, Adam, Gansey and Noah. Their friendship is beautifully written. Ronan is the fighter of the group, the warrior, the hot-headed one. Adam is the vulnerable, softer, more down-to-earth friend, Gansey is the Dad (that's all there is to it to be honest - Gansey is the Dad) and Noah is the weird, mysterious, child-like one.
"When there's a God, there's always a legion of devils."
- Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys
All four boys brings something special to the book and each of them make it a magical read.
And then there's Blue. Blue is from a family of psychics but she herself isn't one - instead, she is like a battery, she makes other psychics more powerful and increases supernatural energy. Blue is such a lovely character and again, the blurb gives off the impressions that Blue is the main character in the book but she isn't - all the characters have similar amounts of spotlight and I think this is brilliant because we can learn more about each character than we normally would.
The three main psychics in the book that are friends with Maura, Blue's Mom are absolutely hilarious. They just remind me of a group of old women having a gossip.
The only bad thing that I can say about this book is that beginning was very slow. For me, it took about 100 pages to get into it and of the storyline to take off. I wanted to give up, but I knew that I had to finish it so that I could see if the hype surrounding this series was true.
Apart from it having a slow start, this book was incredible and I fell in love with Cabeswater. I cannot wait to start the second book and find out more about Glendower and the boys.