Review: Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle #3) by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: Blue Lily, Lily Blue

Series: The Raven Cycle #3

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Fantasy/Realistic Fiction/Paranormal

Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 391 (Hardcover)

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Publication date: October 21st, 2014


**The below synopsis may contain spoilers if you have not read The Raven Boys or The Dream Thieves. My review beneath is spoiler free**


Synopsis from Blue Lily, Lily Blue's Goodreads page


There is danger in dreaming. But there is even more danger in waking up.
Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs.
The trick with found things though, is how easily they can be lost.
Friends can betray.
Mothers can disappear.
Visions can mislead.
Certainties can unravel.


I'm going to start off by saying that this is probably tied for my top three series ever. I absolutely love this series, and I know I'm going to love it for a very long time, if not forever. It's that good!
This book was definitely not the best book out of the first three books, but it was still very, very good, and very easily a five star rating. This specific book was much darker and a bit more violent than the first two books in this series, which is to be expected. The series, as well as the quest, is slowly coming to an end, and there is competition for who can find the Welsh king. So therefore, there will be violence when it doesn't go in a certain person's way. Although this book was much darker than the other three, I felt like the darkness was definitely needed at this point in the story. The characters are slowly coming to terms with school ending and how life will be for them past the point of the school year, and the darkness, in a way, is showing the end. The end of school, the end of a quest, and the end of their childhood, in a way. The characters are growing up and are becoming different people than they were in the beginning of this series. I'm happy they're changing but sad they're growing up.
Something that I absolutely love about this series is how the small and supposedly insignificant details are what affect the entire story line. The smallest of details can be something that is extremely massive, and you don't realize until later on in the story how significant it actually was until it is too late. I also really love how the main plot of the story, finding the king, is delayed constantly throughout the books with other smaller plots that ultimately affect the characters more than actually finding the King at times. Sometimes with series, the sub plots take over and it feels like the book is just becoming the sub plot as it takes too long to get back to the main plot, but that is the exact opposite of this series. The sub plots help the characters to work on the main plot of the story, and it's fascinating to see how everything in these books interconnect and join together to create one massive plot line.
This book was written wonderfully, with the plot pace picking up, the characters still having their wonderful senses of humor, and the setting bleeding into the plot, affecting everyone and everything.
Overall - ★★★★★

Review: The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: The Dream Thieves
Series: The Raven Cycle #2

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Fantasy/Realistic Fiction/Paranormal
Age Group: Young Adult

Pages: 439 (Hardcover)

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Publication date: September 17th, 2013

**The below synopsis may contain spoilers if you have not read The Raven Boys. My review beneath it is spoiler free**


Synopsis from The Dream Thieves' Goodreads page


If you could steal things from dreams, what would you take?
Ronan Lynch has secrets. Some he keeps from others. Some he keeps from himself.
One secret: Ronan can bring things out of his dreams.
And sometimes he's not the only one who wants those things.
Ronan is one of the raven boys—a group of friends, practically brothers, searching for a dead king named Glendower, who they think is hidden somewhere in the hills by their elite private school, Aglionby Academy. The path to Glendower has long lived as an undercurrent beneath town. But now, like Ronan's secrets, it is beginning to rise to the surface—changing everything in its wake.


I first read this book back in 2013 when it first came out and I absolutely loved it. I loved it even more when I re-read it this past month.
Maggie Stiefvater's writing is absolutely amazing and always has been. Every single one of her books is beautiful inside and out, and she has not written a book yet that I have not given anything less than four stars. Her stories are beautiful, hilarious, heart-wrenching and intriguing from the very first page, and this book is no less.
Although The Dream Thieves focuses more on Ronan's life and is mostly following him, there is still more than enough of the other characters in this book. Usually with the second and sometimes third book in a series I feel that it is just a continuation of the problems in the first book, and that it doesn't really advance the plot because it just creates more problems then there needs to be. With The Dream Thieves, I feel that this was not at all what happened. This book does create some problems, but ones that are needed in order to advance the plot. This book also resolves some of the smaller problems from the first book, as well as giving us very important character development, especially details about Ronan and his life which we need to understand him and why he does what he does. This book did not seem like a filler book at all, but instead a very important book that developed many, if not all, of the characters in this story.
This book also has the many aspects of a Maggie Stiefvater book, the fast cars, the sometimes harsh jokes, and the unbreakable love between characters (who usually never admit it). It helped to answer some questions but it also created more. It questions characters' relationships and choices, and it makes for a very enjoyable read.
Overall - ★★★★★

Review: The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle #1) by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: The Raven Boys
Series: The Raven Cycle #1

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Genre: Fantasy/Realistic Fiction/Paranormal
Age Group: (Young Adult)

Pages: 416 (Hardcover)

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Publication date: September 18th, 2012


Synopsis from The Raven Boys' Goodreads page

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue never sees them--until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks to her.
His name is Gansey, a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.
But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can't entirely explain. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul whose emotions range from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher 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 doesn't believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

I first read this book back in 2013, and I remembered almost the entire story, but it needed a re-read so that I could get to The Raven King (which I am SO excited for!!).
Firstly, the cover. I mean, it's gorgeous. It's definitely one of my favourite covers ever. EVER. I also rarely buy full price hardcovers, and I have the entire quartet in hardcover. So you know it's beautiful.
I remember going into this book with so much enthusiasm and so much energy. It was the newest Maggie Stiefvater book that had just came out, and I was so insanely excited for it. Even though it has been three years since then, and I have already read it and experienced it for the first time, I still remember how excited I was and I still had the same level of energy I did the first time I went into it.
Maggie Stiefvater is a wizard with words (a witch? a wizard? king? She can be whatever she wants as long as she keeps writing more!). Her stories are so beautiful to read, and her writing flows so smoothly and beautifully that it's just...I can't even describe it.
Her characters as well as always so unique and so wonderfully described that it feels like they're right there in the room, that you know them and have known them your whole life. Her characters are different, I mean Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey III, the names are so unexpected, but they're so fitting. The names are the characters' identities, they are those names, they are the embodiment of them. Her characters are so humorous as well, with them poking fun at each other and at other people in the story. They get angry and they love each other, they fight but they get through it. They feel like real people, and they always have to me, no matter how many times I read the story. They just become more real each and every time.
The setting as well is different, taking place in Henrietta. Who else has read a book that takes place in Henrietta? I haven't. I haven't even heard of another book that takes place there. But it seems fitting, in its own way. Maggie Stiefvater's writing makes it feel like it just couldn't take place anywhere else in the world. Henrietta is the place that it has to take place.
The story is one of the most amazing stories to me not only because of the author, the characters, the writing and the setting, but because of the plot. I'm from a Welsh family, but I live in Canada. This story is about Gansey trying to find Glendower, who is a Welsh king that he believes was buried along a ley line, and he believes that if he can find him and wake him (because he's not dead, he's just been sleeping for six hundred years) he will be granted a favour. When I found out that it was going to be a book that takes place in America and it had Welsh kings and history and magic in it...how could anyone possibly say no to that??
Overall - ★★★★★

My Intimidating TBR Pile

I've been seeing this tag around the Booktube community and on many book blogs, so I thought I'd do it as well! This tag was created by Lindsey Rey on YouTube. I usually never do tags, but this one is interesting and since I got 18 new books this month...probably very good to look at and do right now.

1.  What book have you been unable to finish?

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. I've lost count of the amount of times that I've tried to read it and then stopped. I've heard great things about it, which is why I keep trying, but I'm not sure if I will ever be able to actually sit down and read it. I don't like to force myself to read books that I don't fully enjoy.

2.  What book have you yet to read because...you just haven't had the time?


The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I want to be able to sit down and slowly work my way through it and enjoy it, but spare time is something that just doesn't exist in my life.

3.  What book have you yet to read because...it's a sequel?

Between the Spark and the Burn by April Genevieve Tucholke. I read Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea very early on last year and I just haven't felt in the mood to re-read it, hence not reading the sequel.

4.  What book have you yet to read because...it's brand new?

Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch. I literally just bought this book yesterday, and I'm trying to finish a bunch of other series before I read this, but all I want to do is read this book!

5.  What book have you yet to read because...you read a book by the same author and didn't enjoy it?

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld. I read his Midnighters trilogy a few years ago, and I really was not a big fan of it. I know that you can't judge an author's writing by one trilogy...but I'm still hesitant of reading Uglies.

6.  What book have you yet to read because...you're just not in the mood for it?

Blood Red Road by Moira Young. I haven't been reading many dystopian type books for quite awhile, and when I do read them, I am very picky about what I like. Of course, the whole trilogy was on super sale...so I bought them all. So I HAVE to read them. I'm just waiting for a good mood so that I can power through them.

7.  What book have you yet to read because...it's humongous?

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. I really, really wanted to be able to read it before I go to New York City next month to see it on Broadway, but I realized that it just isn't going to happen. It's over 1000 pages, and that is just a scary book to sit down and start.

8.  What book have you yet to read because...it was a cover buy that turned out to have poor reviews?

Incarnate by Jodi Meadows. I saw it on super sale last year, and I LOVED the cover so I picked it up, fully intending to read it right away. I then forgot about it. For a long time. The reviews on it aren't super bad, but they are lower than the books I usually enjoy, so I'm hesitant about reading it now.

9.  What is the most intimidating book on your TBR pile?

Under the Dome by Stephen King. It's one of the biggest and heaviest books that I own, and the concept doesn't seem as great to me now compared to when I first bought it. The plot as well as the size are just a little horrifying to me, and I don't get scared by books. Ever.

Review: We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

Title: We Were the Mulvaneys

Author: Joyce Carol Oates

Genre: Realistic-fiction (Adult)

Pages: 454 (Paperback)
Publisher: Plume

Publication date: September 1st, 1997

Synopsis from We Were the Mulvaneys Goodreads page


Moving away from the dark tone of her more recent masterpieces, Joyce Carol Oates turns the tale of a family struggling to cope with its fall from grace into a deeply moving and unforgettable account of the vigor of hope and the power of love to prevail over suffering. The Mulvaneys of High Point Farm in Mt. Ephraim, New York, are a large and fortunate clan, blessed with good looks, abundant charisma, and boundless promise. But over the twenty-five year span of this ambitious novel, the Mulvaneys will slide, almost imperceptibly at first, from the pinnacle of happiness, transformed by the vagaries of fate into a scattered collection of lost and lonely souls.It is the youngest son, Judd, now an adult, who attempts to piece together the fragments of the Mulvaneys' former glory, seeking to uncover and understand the secret violation that occasioned the family's tragic downfall. Each of the Mulvaneys endures some form of exile- physical or spiritual - but in the end they find a way to bridge the chasms that have opened up among them, reuniting in the spirit of love and healing.


I'm going to start with finding this book. I had never read anything by Joyce Carol Oates, and I had honestly never even heard of her before. I was given a list of books for English class, and I needed to pick one of those books to read, and then I would need to write an essay on it. All of the books looked really good, but people picked books fast and there was only a few left that I could choose from, so I went with this one. I'm happy to say that I absolutely loved this book.
The beginning of the book was a little difficult to get into, as the first 80 or so pages are just introducing the main characters and describing the setting, which was a LOT. It took me a month to read just the first 100 pages, which is kind of crazy for me.
After that first 100 pages though, the book just flew by. The plot began to pick up, and although there isn't that much happening during the book major-plot wise, it takes place over decades so that there is a lot more to read about.
I feel that it is a very important book to read, as it deals with a very important topic. The main female character is raped early on in the book, and the rest of the book is about how she and her family deal with this tragedy. She was the perfect child, and she turned into the most-hated person by many of the people in the story.
The characters, although there were so many I lost count, were all extremely well developed. They all had a very different back story that it went into detail about, and every single one of their actions in the novel made sense with what they had been through. They all had different childhoods and their own voice, which is very difficult to do with so many of them. They had their similarities, but they also had massive differences, which was wonderful because it lets the reader connect them to other characters while not judging them or loving/hating them for what those other characters had done in the past.
The plot of the story was also very well done, because although it is essentially just about what happens to this family, it also covers many other aspects of family life such as abuse, faith, strength, loss, and love.
The story is written so descriptively, that it feels that you are actually there, and that you actually know these characters. As the reader, the story moves back and forth between time frames and perspectives, which can be confusing in some novels but I feel was done amazingly well in this novel.
Overall - ★★★★★

Places I Get Books!

Something that I have always been extremely passionate about are books. I've always loved the feel of a book in my hands, and I have therefore never been one for ereaders or apps on my phone. I just can't get away from the paper in my hand, and the joy of being able to have bookshelves upon bookshelves of books to choose from...I'm not the only one, right?!?

(Disclaimer) I have not been paid or asked by any of these places to endorse them, I just love them all and I want more people to buy books. These are just my favourite places to go for me to get books.

One of my favourite places to go to to buy books is definitely Chapters. I live in Canada, and that is the most popular bookstore here. Chapters, Indigo and Coles are all one company, but each store has a different feel to them. Coles is the smaller ones, inside of malls and other places, Indigo is more focused on design and their house decorations and style, and Chapters has more books than both of them. Chapters is very homey, and they always have a massive selection of books. Chapters is a regular book store, so a lot of the books are full price. I always go there for any new releases that I want, and they also have a lot of awesome sales going on that are always awesome to check out. (Their top best selling books are usually 40% off!! Like what??) And their discount/bargain section is always, ALWAYS worth checking out. I usually can find one or two gems in there every single time I go.

I also get a lot of my books from Book Outlet. They're an online website and also a warehouse located in St. Catharines, and their prices are insane! (Check them out here to see what I mean! bookoutlet.ca ) They always have such cheap books, and twice a year they have a massive sale. Over March break they have a box sale, where you go in and they give you a large box, and you fill it with as many books as you can for $30 CA! Which is insane and very dangerous...I easily get $1000 plus every year worth of books. Also on boxing day every year, they have everything in their store at 50% off of their already insanely cheap prices, which is amazing. A lot of their books are not really new, but they have an awesome selection, and they are getting newer and newer books.

The library is also an amazing place for me to get books, especially if I'm not 100% sure if I'll really like it. I go to the library a lot to just look around, do some homework, and to just de-stress. The library is a great place to go to for books if you're on a budget, don't have a lot of room for a lot of books, or just need a place to relax and study!

The last place I go to for books are local bookstores. They usually don't have a lot of the new releases I want, but some of them have a really good selection and it's always very important to check out local stores and support them, otherwise there will be less and less places to go to for books in the future.


I hope this helped some of you guys in any way!

April 2016 TBR

Last month I barely read anything, so this month it's time to pick up the pace again!! Hopefully I can read all that I want to and be able to stick to my TBR.

Here's what I plan on reading this month!

1. We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

I've slowly been reading this for my English class this semester, and I'm about 3/4 of the way through it. I'm really enjoying it, and I plan on finishing it this weekend and I'll hopefully have a review up next week!

      2.  King Lear by William Shakespeare

I'm also reading this for English class, as I need to write a comparative essay between this and We Were the Mulvaneys. I absolutely love Shakespeare, and I'm also really enjoying this! I plan on finishing this one next week.

      3.  Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I just bought this last month, and I need to catch up on my classics reading goal for this year. It looks really interesting, and is hopefully a light, quick read for whenever I need to take a break from the large book We Were the Mulvaneys.

      4.  The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

I read this when it first came out, and I've been in love with the story ever since. I absolutely LOVE Maggie Stiefvater's writing style, it's so different and so true-from-the-heart. It's also time to give this beauty (I mean, have you seen these covers?!?!) a reread just in time for the final book in the quartet to come out this month!

      5.  The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Stiefvater

I loved this book almost as much as The Raven Boys when I first read it, and I haven't been able to read it again since. I'm really looking forward to rereading this one as well in preparation of The Raven Kings!

      6.  Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle #3) by Maggie Stiefvater

When this book first came out, I was in a massive reading slump and I haven't been able to force myself to read it, just because I heard that the ending was very sad and a massive cliff hanger, so I've waited until the final one is almost out before I decided to read it. I'm super excited to finally get to it!

      7.  The Raven King (The Raven Cycle #4) by Maggie Stiefvater

ONE OF MY MOST ANTICIPATED READS OF 2016. ENOUGH SAID.

March 2016 Wrap Up

March wasn't the best month for reading wise or just life wise, because I was so insanely busy the whole month. I didn't get to read as much as I had hoped for, but I was still able to read three pretty good books.


I read:

• ★★★★★      Champion (Legend #3) by Marie Lu
• ★★★☆☆.5   The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
• ★★★★☆      The Dark Days Club by Allison Goodman

The first book I read this month was Champion by Marie Lu, the final book in the Legend trilogy. I absolutely loved Champion, and the entire trilogy. The characters were amazing, the plot was intriguing, and I loved every second of reading it. The ending was really painful though, and it was really saddening to read, but it also was wonderful because it leaves the story in a way that you, the reader, are able to interpret it and create the ending how you want it to be. I highly recommend this entire trilogy!

The next book I read was The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I found the beginning to be a little slow and difficult to get into, and the book was so short so there was a lot of information very early on in the story. Once I got into it though, I began to enjoy it. The stories and the people are all very touching, but they were all very saddening. I was hoping for more of a lighthearted story, but it was heavier than I had anticipated. I enjoyed the book, but I feel that if I had known going into it that it was more sad then lighthearted, I would have enjoyed it a lot more than I did. Overall, it was a good, very well written book.

The last book I read this month was The Dark Days Club by Allison Goodman. I loved her books Eon and Eona, and I was really hoping that I would love this one too, and I wasn't disappointed. I loved the setting and the life that she portrayed in this book. The era was amazing to read about, and I loved how she made it just relatable enough, but still kept it in the 1800s so well. Allison Goodman describes everything in her books so well and so beautifully, that you feel like you are right there in the story. Her characters were amazing, and I loved every second of reading it. I highly, highly recommend it!

March 2016 Book Haul

March wasn't the best book month for me, but I still managed to get a hold of 9 new books.

I got:

Young Adult:

1. You Are Here by Jennifer E. Smith
2. Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

Adult:

1. The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman

Classics:

1. Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens
2. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
3. Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
4. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
5. Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
6. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain