Tash Reviewing Books
19 yrs old. Australian. Student of the Engineering variety.
I like books with words in them, if its Fantasy or YA even better.
I write reviews whilst procrastinating. The quality of these reviews are debatable.
Review - The Dream Thieves
A book about dreams that come to life, a quest to find a hidden king, a magical forest and a house full of psychics and even a little forbidden romance.
Ok well maybe it is, but it also so much more then that.
Maggie Stiefvater is a truly talented writer. Each one of her books reads like poetry, they're all so hauntingly beautiful it hurts my soul. If I was still at school studying this sort of thing I might go on about the prose and imagery that makes these stories stay with me long after finishing. But I'm not.
The start of this book is slow. I was surprised by how much of an effort it became for me to power through the first half the book, especially after the amazing ending of The Raven Boys.
I didn't mind having things centred around Ronan this time round. I cannot applaud Stiefvater enough for creating such an intriguing and fleshed out character. Thats not to say we don't get enough of Gansey, Adam, Noah and Blue. There are definitely no cardboard cutouts in this series with both new and old faces revealing secret motives and other hidden mysteries via drip feed throughout the book. It's definitely enough to keep you turning pages.
But despite the magic that is the characters I just couldn't seem to immerse myself in the magic of Cabeswater this time round. I found Adam's storyline to be incredibly confusing at times and I'm not going to lie, I sort of just wanted Stiefvater to spell things out for me because by the ending I honestly had no idea what was happening in that boys head. Things are messed. up.
Maybe it's because I decided to read World After (a fucking amazing book) midway through that when comparing my enjoyment levels The Dream Thieves just seems like more of a chore. I appreciate a book that makes you think and requires the readers to take a bit of initiative and puzzle things out. This is next level though when compared to Raven Boys, everything is beginning to interweave and I have no doubt that the next book will be full of big reveals but in the meantime I'm just left frustrated. Despite all the events of the Dream Thieves I feel that by the end of it we've simply come full circle and are back to exactly where we started in terms of the main storyline - finding Glendower.
What I'm trying to say here is that I enjoyed this book, it just wasn't the 5 star read that the first book was for me.
I have extremely high expectations for the next book.
