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Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater are awake, magic is swirling around Blue and The Raven boys and Ronan Lynch's ability to pull objects from his dreams is almost out of control but worst of all, the mysterious Gray Man is stalking the Lynch family, looking for something called the Greywaren.Tags
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I closed it and thought, "Wow."
She drops us effortlessly back into the story, into the weird psychic readings and the odd mythological quest. Everyone's back, everyone's changed. We finally get to hear more about Ronan, and the plot takes a swift turn with new unexpected assailants. I am not really a fan of relationship drama, but these are deftly portrayed and the complexities are neither unbelieveable nor gratuitous. I also appreciate that all of the relationships are complex -- the romances and the family and the friendships.
There are, of course, many unanswered threads in the end. And I thought it was a little odd how long it took the characters to go back to Cabeswater in the beginning of the book. I am disturbed and delighted show more with the Gray Man. Somehow his feelings about the Champagne disappointment make up for a great deal of violence and terribleness. I am not sure that I want that to be the case, but it is.
Thank you for this bit, Maggie Stiefvater:
"The Gray Man hated his current rental car. He got the distinct impression that it hadn't been handled enough by humans when it was young, and now would never be pleasant to be around. Since he'd picked it up, it had already tried to bite him several times and had spent a considerable amount of time resisting his efforts to achieve the speed limit.
Also it was champagne. Ridiculous color for a car." show less
She drops us effortlessly back into the story, into the weird psychic readings and the odd mythological quest. Everyone's back, everyone's changed. We finally get to hear more about Ronan, and the plot takes a swift turn with new unexpected assailants. I am not really a fan of relationship drama, but these are deftly portrayed and the complexities are neither unbelieveable nor gratuitous. I also appreciate that all of the relationships are complex -- the romances and the family and the friendships.
There are, of course, many unanswered threads in the end. And I thought it was a little odd how long it took the characters to go back to Cabeswater in the beginning of the book. I am disturbed and delighted show more with the Gray Man. Somehow his feelings about the Champagne disappointment make up for a great deal of violence and terribleness. I am not sure that I want that to be the case, but it is.
Thank you for this bit, Maggie Stiefvater:
"The Gray Man hated his current rental car. He got the distinct impression that it hadn't been handled enough by humans when it was young, and now would never be pleasant to be around. Since he'd picked it up, it had already tried to bite him several times and had spent a considerable amount of time resisting his efforts to achieve the speed limit.
Also it was champagne. Ridiculous color for a car." show less
The Dream Thieves goes much deeper than my brain wanted to process a few times. I confess it’s true.
The trouble (and succeeding delight) was that there are a lot of pieces left dangling well into the 4th quarter of the story. Sharing some of these questions will smack of spoilers for the first book. That’s my warning.
The Grey Man is downright scary. There was nothing about him that made me like him even after he visited Fox Way and got some sort of green light with sprinkles on top from the fairy godmother(s). I wanted them to treat him like… the lightbulb changer. I doubted their abilities, even.
Meanwhile the story takes a deep dive into Ronan’s (primarily) distasteful character. The fleeting moments of humanity took a long show more time to win me (enthusiastically) over.
Meanwhile… Adam is squeezed even tighter and begins to lose his grip on sanity before I understood what happened in the first book. It was like… catching myself on a slippery slope, only to find that I was hanging on by an itty bitty fern that pulled up by the roots, leaving me slipping down into WHA-?! For me, Adam was the source of the most impossible tangle of unfinished threads. Threads that very neatly re-arrange themselves into a complicated tapestry by the end. (My reaction? "No. Way. She pulled it off.")
Plus… Blue/Jane becomes more human and more lovely simultaneously. Gansey reveals his vulnerable side, finally deferring to the possibilities hinted at in book #1.
The Ending… was more satisfying than I would have imagined possible at the beginning of the 4th quarter. One of the best culminations I’ve read, I think. There’s fire and death, for starters. Explosions. Lightning. Gunfire. But more importantly, there’s acceptance and understanding and a huge sigh of relief.
Even the epilogue cannot disturb my warm fuzzy feelings of all being (momentarily) right in the world. I think I’m happiest about Persephone. I needed her to prove her worth and now I’m ready to take on whatever else Stiefvater’s got up her sleeve for this crew.
They’re my friends now!
4 Stars - More tangled plot than fast pace, even more believable characters, lots of automotive fun. show less
The trouble (and succeeding delight) was that there are a lot of pieces left dangling well into the 4th quarter of the story. Sharing some of these questions will smack of spoilers for the first book. That’s my warning.
The Grey Man is downright scary. There was nothing about him that made me like him even after he visited Fox Way and got some sort of green light with sprinkles on top from the fairy godmother(s). I wanted them to treat him like… the lightbulb changer. I doubted their abilities, even.
Meanwhile the story takes a deep dive into Ronan’s (primarily) distasteful character. The fleeting moments of humanity took a long show more time to win me (enthusiastically) over.
Meanwhile… Adam is squeezed even tighter and begins to lose his grip on sanity before I understood what happened in the first book. It was like… catching myself on a slippery slope, only to find that I was hanging on by an itty bitty fern that pulled up by the roots, leaving me slipping down into WHA-?! For me, Adam was the source of the most impossible tangle of unfinished threads. Threads that very neatly re-arrange themselves into a complicated tapestry by the end. (My reaction? "No. Way. She pulled it off.")
Plus… Blue/Jane becomes more human and more lovely simultaneously. Gansey reveals his vulnerable side, finally deferring to the possibilities hinted at in book #1.
The Ending… was more satisfying than I would have imagined possible at the beginning of the 4th quarter. One of the best culminations I’ve read, I think. There’s fire and death, for starters. Explosions. Lightning. Gunfire. But more importantly, there’s acceptance and understanding and a huge sigh of relief.
Even the epilogue cannot disturb my warm fuzzy feelings of all being (momentarily) right in the world. I think I’m happiest about Persephone. I needed her to prove her worth and now I’m ready to take on whatever else Stiefvater’s got up her sleeve for this crew.
They’re my friends now!
4 Stars - More tangled plot than fast pace, even more believable characters, lots of automotive fun. show less
Can I just say, I love the women in Blue’s household? I could read an entire book simply on them. No lay lines or kings, just psychics and clairvoyants. The conversation Ronan and Calla have in chapter 21 is just spectacular.
Each sentence in this series is so well crafted that details are easily missed. It’s easy to get pulled out from this book, so it takes some time to savor each word and really understand everything. I found myself searching for clues the entire time. Like, why the epi pen kept showing up in random instances?
Ronan is my favorite on the raven boys and I was really happy we got to explore his story a lot more.
I enjoyed the first book more than this one but it was nevertheless addicting and I’m still debating show more whether I should go onto the third book or wait until the fourth comes out in April. show less
Each sentence in this series is so well crafted that details are easily missed. It’s easy to get pulled out from this book, so it takes some time to savor each word and really understand everything. I found myself searching for clues the entire time. Like, why the epi pen kept showing up in random instances?
Ronan is my favorite on the raven boys and I was really happy we got to explore his story a lot more.
I enjoyed the first book more than this one but it was nevertheless addicting and I’m still debating show more whether I should go onto the third book or wait until the fourth comes out in April. show less
Blue didn't mean to fall for the Raven Boys, but she has - and the more her life entwines with theirs, the more dangerous it becomes.
The more I read of them, the more I fall in love with them!
In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her raven boys.
Io come Blue.
Insomma, che dire. Mi è piaciuto molto, ma molto molto questo libro. Il fatto che sia incentrato perlopiù su Ronan me l'ha fatto amare ancora di più. Eh sì, perché ho imparato ad amare Ronan dopo le varie riletture fatte di The Raven Boys. I subplot sono intricati, mi confondono ma sono interessanti e fanno si che il libro diventi ancora più interessante.
Non importa quante volte lo rilegga, il mio show more sentimento per questa serie sembra sempre lo stesso. Dire che la amo sembra così esagerato ma è così. Mi piace tantissimo. Mi coinvolge sempre e mi fa emozionare. Certo, delle volte mi fa arrabbiare, ma è giusto così. show less
The more I read of them, the more I fall in love with them!
In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her raven boys.
Io come Blue.
Insomma, che dire. Mi è piaciuto molto, ma molto molto questo libro. Il fatto che sia incentrato perlopiù su Ronan me l'ha fatto amare ancora di più. Eh sì, perché ho imparato ad amare Ronan dopo le varie riletture fatte di The Raven Boys. I subplot sono intricati, mi confondono ma sono interessanti e fanno si che il libro diventi ancora più interessante.
Non importa quante volte lo rilegga, il mio show more sentimento per questa serie sembra sempre lo stesso. Dire che la amo sembra così esagerato ma è così. Mi piace tantissimo. Mi coinvolge sempre e mi fa emozionare. Certo, delle volte mi fa arrabbiare, ma è giusto così. show less
What lovely escapism. Although I’m giving it the same number of stars, I think on balance I enjoyed ‘The Dream Thieves’ even more than [b:The Raven Boys|17675462|The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle, #1)|Maggie Stiefvater|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1477103737s/17675462.jpg|18970934]. Since it had no need to establish the characters, it could head straight into magical weirdness and interesting relationships. The writing style seemed more assured and I adored the sly wit of asides like:
In contrast to the prequel, Ronan Lynch is the main point of view character and Blue has a less significant role. Nonetheless, all the characters get some interesting development and I enjoyed the relative lack of emphasis on romance in favour of more ambiguous (and less heterosexual) relationships. The dream-related magic was lots of fun, although it took some focus off the hunt for the ancient Welsh king. Once again, the novel ends on a frustrating cliffhanger that requires me to hunt down the sequel. This is an addictive series. It combines appealing characters and interesting plotting very well, yet the blurbs seem to emphasise teenage romance. In my view that does the books a disservice. show less
The Gray Man hated his current rental car. He got the distinct impression it hadn’t been handled enough by humans when it was young, and now would never be pleasant to be around. Since he’d picked it up, it had already tried to bite himshow more
several times and had spent a considerable amount of time resisting his efforts to achieve the speed limit.
In contrast to the prequel, Ronan Lynch is the main point of view character and Blue has a less significant role. Nonetheless, all the characters get some interesting development and I enjoyed the relative lack of emphasis on romance in favour of more ambiguous (and less heterosexual) relationships. The dream-related magic was lots of fun, although it took some focus off the hunt for the ancient Welsh king. Once again, the novel ends on a frustrating cliffhanger that requires me to hunt down the sequel. This is an addictive series. It combines appealing characters and interesting plotting very well, yet the blurbs seem to emphasise teenage romance. In my view that does the books a disservice. show less
This was an absolute delight to read. Syeifvater has that needle in a haystack ability to write impossibly clever prose without ever reading like she's trying to write impossibly clever prose. The use of literary devices and poetics brings out a depth of character, place, world building and plot that I have rarely found in the same space on the page at the same time.
All that aside, there is a raven named Chainsaw. How could you NOT want to read this?!!
All that aside, there is a raven named Chainsaw. How could you NOT want to read this?!!
First read December 2013. Reread August 2016. Maggie Stiefvater is my crack. The Raven Boys and Blue are all back for book 2: Ghostly Noah; Bitter, Hanging Man Adam; Angry Ronan and the always searching Gansey. With the ley line awake and surging it seems like they should be ready at any moment to find and awaken the sleeping king. Instead the ley line is a faltering thing, explosive one moment and literally absent the next. Adam is no closer to realizing the meaning of his sacrifice then he was before and things between he and Blue are strained both by secrets and the pervasive bitterness he feels about his role in life, his position in the world and his constant, stubborn fight to be a one man army.
Book 1 seemed to center on Adam and show more his struggles and in the end, the oddness of Noah. Book 2 doesn't necessarily set him on the back burner but now we see more of Ronan. Ronan was my favorite in book 1, like a coiled threat, and a loyal hellhound puppy for Gansey all rolled into one. We get to learn about Ronan's gift in this book. Blue and Gansey are never bit characters but more the driving pieces that allow Maggie to whirl us through the stories of Adam, Noah and Ronan. While those three are still a very important part of the story it feels like the stage has finally been set for Blue and Gansey to sweep through, plunging into their own dangers.
It's hard to explain this book in part because it's so rich. It might seem like it's already a top heavy story with five main characters circulating through but all the characters from the most modest to the most important are so richly fleshed out, they string the story together beautifully. Maggie manages to make the interaction between the characters both natural and riveting. It's really all you need for the story. Then she throws in a sleeping king, a raging ley line, an assassin, dreams that kill and grant wishes and a family of psychics, just to name a few elements. It should be a confused mash up, instead it's a wild ride with rules that break themselves as fast they make themselves and vice versa. For a book about a rich boy hunting a sleeping king for a promised wish it's a lot deeper, darker and richer than it first appears and you get the sense of that with the very first words you read. I could spend hours thinking on the little nuances within the book and be completely entertained by that alone. show less
Book 1 seemed to center on Adam and show more his struggles and in the end, the oddness of Noah. Book 2 doesn't necessarily set him on the back burner but now we see more of Ronan. Ronan was my favorite in book 1, like a coiled threat, and a loyal hellhound puppy for Gansey all rolled into one. We get to learn about Ronan's gift in this book. Blue and Gansey are never bit characters but more the driving pieces that allow Maggie to whirl us through the stories of Adam, Noah and Ronan. While those three are still a very important part of the story it feels like the stage has finally been set for Blue and Gansey to sweep through, plunging into their own dangers.
It's hard to explain this book in part because it's so rich. It might seem like it's already a top heavy story with five main characters circulating through but all the characters from the most modest to the most important are so richly fleshed out, they string the story together beautifully. Maggie manages to make the interaction between the characters both natural and riveting. It's really all you need for the story. Then she throws in a sleeping king, a raging ley line, an assassin, dreams that kill and grant wishes and a family of psychics, just to name a few elements. It should be a confused mash up, instead it's a wild ride with rules that break themselves as fast they make themselves and vice versa. For a book about a rich boy hunting a sleeping king for a promised wish it's a lot deeper, darker and richer than it first appears and you get the sense of that with the very first words you read. I could spend hours thinking on the little nuances within the book and be completely entertained by that alone. show less
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Author Information
68+ Works 52,521 Members
Maggie Stiefvater is the author of the bestselling Shiver Trilogy (Shiver, Linger and Forever) and The Raven Cycle Series. She is also the author of a book in the Spirit Animals Series (Hunted). Her title Sinner made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2014. Maggie attended Mary Washington College, graduating with a B.A. in history. She is also show more an artist, equestrian, musician, and technical editor. She enjoys writing full time from her home in Virginia. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Dream Thieves
- Original publication date
- 2013-09-17
- Epigraph
- What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flowe... (show all)r in your hand
Ah, what then?
— SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.
... (show all) T. E. LAWRENCE
I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven’t got the guts to bite people themselves.
— AUGUST STRINDBERG - Dedication
- for Jackson, and all her mqrvelous hours [sic]
- First words
- A secret is a strange thing.
Theoretically, Blue Sargent was probably going to kill one of these boys. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)“Hold on,” Gansey said. “I’m coming out.”
Classifications
- Genres
- Teen, Fiction and Literature, Young Adult, Fantasy
- DDC/MDS
- 813.6 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 2000-
- LCC
- PZ7 .S855625 .D — Language and Literature Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Juvenile belles lettres
- BISAC
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- Reviews
- 215
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- (4.17)
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- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
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