Whimsical and Consuming // REVIEW: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle #3)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Publication Date: October 21st 2014
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Part of a Series?: Yes, Book 3 on 4 of The Raven Cycle
I Got A Copy Through: Scholastic India (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Amazon IN || Barnes and Noble || The Book Depository || Wordery || Flipkart || Snapdeal || Infibeam || Foyles || Waterstones || WHSmith || Kobo || Books A Million || Chapters Indigo || Google Books

Blurb Description: The third installment in the all-new series from the #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater!
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 HAVE ALWAYS BEEN IN AWE of Maggie Stiefvater and the whimsical, magical books she writes. She brings magic into the normal, which is the main reason I have LOVED her Raven Boys Quartet to date. That is, until Blue Lily, Lily Blue.

I went into the third book of the Raven Cycle MORE THAN A YEAR after I read The Dream Thieves and I immediately got pulled back into the intrigue, the dreams, the magic and the hunt for Glendower. I couldn’t believe HOW MUCH I’d missed Blue and her Raven Boys and all the whimsicalness that came with them.

And yet, about 200 pages into the book, I suddenly found that the pace of the book had dropped radically, and that I was forcing/ pushing myself to read further because this book was DRAGGING. A lot of the sub-plots suddenly felt unnecessary (a whole murder set up? Really?) and I honestly didn’t know what to make of it.

So, let’s split this up:

THINGS I LIKED:

1.       THE WHIMSICAL WRITING STYLE: If you’ve read a Maggie Stiefvater book, you KNOW her writing style is unlike anybody else’s. A story like The Raven Boys wouldn’t work if her writing didn’t personify every magical and strange thing happening in the book and I will FOREVER be in awe of how Maggie Stiefvater writes.

2.       BLUE AND HER RAVEN BOYS: I AM OBSESSED WITH THESE FOUR TEENAGERS, their friendship, their loyalty and their devotion all while being such different people by themselves. I absolutely loved this one phrase Blue used to describe their friendship, because I FEEL THE SAME WAS WHEN I READ ABOUT THEM: ‘Consuming.’ This series and this friendship is consuming and I can’t wait to read the final part.

3.       THE ANGST: Like I kept saying (yelling, really) on Goodreads, ALL THE CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK DESERVE TO BE KISSED. There is so much angst, and I absolutely love the build-up but I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE DAY THAT ALL OF THEM JUST. KISS. THAT. PERSON. THEY’VE. BEEN. WANTING. TO. KISS.

THINGS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER:

1.       THE PACE: Like I mentioned in the very beginning, as I reached the end of this book, the face fell, and it fell RAPIDLY. It couldn’t shake the feeling that nothing was happening, and that things we’re just being dragged out until The Raven King. I liked the book, but I WISH IT HAD BEEN PACED BETTER.

2.       WHERE WAS NOAH, EVEN? I couldn’t shake the feeling that Noah was MISSING through the course of the book. While we focused so much more on Colin Greenmantle and his wife (WHAT WAS THAT ENDING? I DID NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN THEM) and the ladies of 300 Fox Way and there was a certain death which I DON’T UNDERSTAND EITHER (How? Why? WHAT?) because it was too whimsical but I felt like we lost out on so much Noah Czerny, one of my favourite Raven Boys.

Do I like this book and this series? HECK YES

Will I be reading The Raven King? As SOON as I possibly can.

I only wish that Blue Lily, Lily Blue was better paced and had more Noah but I hope that the finale in simple perfect.

New York Times bestselling author of The Shiver Trilogy, The Raven Cycle, and The Scorpio Races. Artist. Driver of things with wheels. Avid reader.

All of Maggie Stiefvater's life decisions have been based around her inability to be gainfully employed. Talking to yourself, staring into space, and coming to work in your pajamas are frowned upon when you're a waitress, calligraphy instructor, or technical editor (all of which she's tried), but are highly prized traits in novelists and artists. She's made her living as one or the other since she was 22. She now lives an eccentric life in the middle of nowhere, Virginia with her charmingly straight-laced husband, two kids, two neurotic dogs, and a 1973 Camaro named Loki.

Have you read The Raven Cycle? What do you think of it?

Who is your favourite Raven Boy? 

Don't spoil it for me but DID YOU LOVE The Raven King? Is it everything I'm hoping it will be?

 

GIVE ME MORE // REVIEW: The Song Rising by Samantha Shannon

Title: The Song Rising (The Bone Season #3)

Author: Samantha Shannon
Publication Date: March 30th 2017
Publisher: Bloomsbury India
Part of a Series?: Yes, Book 3/7 of The Bone Season Series
I Got A Copy Through: Bloomsbury India (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Amazon IN || Amazon US || Amazon UK || The BookDespository || Wordery || Flipkart || Snapdeal || Infibeam || Foyles || Waterstones || WHSmith || Kobo || Books A Million || Chapters Indigo || Google Books

Blurb Description: Following a bloody battle against foes on every side, Paige Mahoney has risen to the dangerous position of Underqueen, ruling over London's criminal population.
But, having turned her back on Jaxon Hall and with vengeful enemies still at large, the task of stabilising the fractured underworld has never seemed so challenging.
Little does Paige know that her reign may be cut short by the introduction of Senshield, a deadly technology that spells doom for the clairvoyant community and the world as they know it...

WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN?

I have spent the better part of two weeks reading EVERYTHING that has been released about Paige Mahoney and her world and now I have no idea what to do with myself. I’ve been stalking and screenshotting EVERYTHING Samantha Shannon has been saying about book 4 because I NEED IT LIKE I NEED LIFE (and apparently it’s full of #Paiden ANGST and we LEARN MORE ABOUT WARDEN AND HELLO? *Throws money at it*)

The Song Rising picks up right after the ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING REVELATION at the end of The Mime Order (WHY CERTAIN CHARACTER WHY?) with Paige reeling from the truth, conflicted about her feelings about Warden and trying to understand her new role in the Syndicate.

Let’s get down to it:

1.       THE BEGINNING AND THE END WERE ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT: You couldn’t imagine a more perfect start to this book – it was all adrenaline, all power and a whole new order in the Criminal Syndicate of London, AND THAT WAS JUST THE BEGINNING. The Ending pretty much wrecked me. I read over 150 pages this morning, ignoring EVERYTHING else around me and AAAH.  No spoilers, but AAAAH.

2.       THIS IS MORE POLITICAL THAT THE REST OF IT: I suppose you could call this book the beginning of a political revolution, moving away from London and to Manchester and Scotland and the ending takes all our favourite characters out of the heart of the Scion Empire and into the rest of Europe. It was highly political in the way that Paige met different leaders of the Voyant network in different cities, the MILITARY came in as did military strategy and there were so many mind games being played. I liked it, but it did take some getting used to.

3.       THE MIDDLE SORT OF DRAGGED: I think when Paige was in Edinburgh, for the FIRST TIME EVER, this series sort of dragged a little. I felt like there were too many new characters, almost all of them SO SO STUBBORN. It was JUST a little, and picked up again twenty to thirty pages in, but it was still there.

4.       PAIDEN WILL FOREVER BE MY OTP: HANDS DOWN, BEST. FICTIONAL. COUPLE. EVER. Or you know, not a couple but seriously, I ADORE HOW THE BOTH OF THEM WORK TOGETHER and how intensely they feel for each other and how their different powers work in sync when they’re together and AAH. I love their ability to just GET one another and the fact that Warden said that Terebell USED to be his mate because…

5.       THIS SERIES IS ONLY THE BEST-EST OUT THERE: Hands down, NO OTHER SERIES has such BRILLIANT Worldbuilding and characters and POWER like this one does. I love the brutality in this dystopian/ fantasy world as well as the chemistry. This book shows you SO MUCH World and Character Development that it feels SO SO REAL AND CAN I HAVE MORE PLEASE?

I want nothing more than to dive into the next book in the series, and it kills me that I have to wait!

A heart wrenching, addicting, intense series with some of the best characters in a world that keeps getting better. I can’t wait for everything that is to come in this series, and I could not recommend it enough!

A MUST READ FOR ALL DYSTOPIAN FANS – this series is everything you never knew you were waiting for.

Samantha Shannon was born and raised in West London. She started writing in abundance when she was twelve, started her first novel when she was fifteen, and studied English Language and Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford, from 2010 – 2013, graduating with a 2:1. 

In 2013, she published The Bone Season, the internationally bestselling first installment in a seven-book series of fantasy novels. Its first sequel, The Mime Order, was published in 2015, and she's currently editing the third book in the series, The Song Rising. She is also working on a high fantasy novel. Film rights to the Bone Season are held by the Imaginarium Studios, Chernin Entertainment and 20th Century Fox. 

Have you gotten a chance to dive into The Bone Season Series yet? What did you think of it? 

A Mystically Fabricated Reality // REVIEW: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2)

Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Publication Date: September 17th 2013
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Part of a Series?: Yes, Book 2/4 of The Raven Cycle
I Got A Copy Through: Scholastic India (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Amazon IN || Amazon US || Amazon UK || Infibeam || Flipkart || Snapdeal || Wordery || Barnes and Noble || The Book Depository || Google Play Books

Blurb Description: Eerie, romantic and compelling this supernatural love story weaves together ancient myths, forgotten legends and the strange fates of a young psychic and a group of prep school boys caught in a web of murder, mystery and magic! 
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. 
'Of the Raven Boys, Entertainment Weekly' wrote, “Maggie Stiefvater’s can’t-put-it-down paranormal adventure will leave you clamoring for book two.” Now the second book is here, with the same wild imagination, dark romance and heart-stopping twists that only Maggie Stiefvater can conjure.

 “In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her Raven Boys.”

In one word, I will proceed to describe this BEAUTIFUL MONSTROSITY of a book: AAAAAAAHHHHHH.

Like I said in my review of The Raven Boys, I had COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN how amazing this series was, the eccentricities and personalities of each of the characters since when I read it three years ago, and reading The Dream Thieves consecutively after was SUCH A LITTLE TREAT, and I need more.

The Dream Thieves picks up a little time after when The Raven Boys ends, with the boys and Blue trying to find Glendower, and dealing with *spoiler alert* Adam sacrificing himself willingly to wake the ley line up and figuring out the repercussions, and Ronan trying to manage the monsters in his dreams, and trying not to bring them back to real life.

While this book is slightly more angst-y, here are some of the things I LOVE:

   1.        MAURA SARGENT AND THE GRAY MAN: I didn’t really care for Blue’s mother in the first book (not because she was a BAD character, but because she didn’t really have much of a purpose in book one) but with the Gray Man in the picture (no spoilers on who he is. PFFT to all you people that love spoilers.) IT WAS THE CUTEST THING EVER, and the two of them pretty much overtook all my shipping capabilities!

2.       RONAN LYNCH: I knew from book one that this BROKEN boy would undoubtedly be my favourite character in the series, and I LOVED HIM SO MUCH IN THIS BOOK, I just wanted to reach in (like the book was one of his dreams) and hug him close. (He probably wouldn’t have appreciated it much, but HEY.) Ronan’s powers, coming to terms with them, learning to use them and understanding that with great responsibility comes with his power was so BEAUTIFULLY done, I give Steifvater a standing ovation.

     3.       THE PLOT: I don’t think there’s a better way to combine magic and reality and complex characters that what Maggie Steifvater has done in The Raven Cycle. I ADORE that there is so much mysticism and magic and love and friendship and pride in the air, combined with a quest and the supernatural. It is the perfect blend of our dry realities and all the unseen everyday magic and I LOVE IT.

Thing that I didn’t love ALL that much:

     1.       THE ANGST: Unfortunately, there was a TON of angst and self-loathing and UGH SO MUCH PAIN in this book, that it felt a tad overdone (?) and I would have REALLY preferred more of the ACTUAL QUEST over all the ANGST, but I will take in it stride nevertheless.

I’m going to sit here and slowly die until I get my hands on Blue Lily, Lily Blue, but I CANNOT recommend (throw in your face) this series more.

A Magic Filled, Dream Like Masterpiece that will have you questioning the existence of your reality!

HAVE YOU READ THE RAVEN CYCLE? Who is your favourite Raven Boy?

Have you read any other Maggie Stiefvater books? Which books of her should I put on my immediate TBR? 

What are your favourite books on magical realism? 

I can't wait to hear your thoughts!

Subtle, Elegant, Ingenious // REVIEW: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle #1)

Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Publication Date: September 18th 2012
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Part of a Series?: Yes, Book 1/4 of the Raven Cycle
I Got A Copy Through: Scholastic India (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Amazon IN || Amazon US || Amazon UK || Wordery || Flipkart || Snapdeal || Infibeam || Barnes & Noble || Google Play Store || The Book Depository

Blurb Description: 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 a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is 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 Gansey is different. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.
For as long as she can remember, Blue has been told by her psychic family that she will kill her true love. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore. 

This is my re-read of The Raven Boys, because I FINALLY got the opportunity from the lovely folks over at Scholastic India, to read the rest of the series, and it is SO MUCH BETTER than I remember it being!

I initially read The Raven Boys two-three years ago, and I simply didn’t fully appreciate the eccentricities and personalities of each and every character in the book. All four boys, Blue, and Blue’s family are SO WELL DEVELOPED it’s hard to imagine them as anything less than real, sentient beings over fictional characters.

This is probably because, this time round, I actually paid attention to the details and all of the MAGIC in the air around the Raven Boys instead of simply sitting around and wondering if Gansey was Blue’s True Love, and how he would somehow survive to give them the fairy tale happy ending.

But first, what is The Raven Boys all about?

Blue Sargent has been told, since the day she was born, that is she kisses her true love, she will kill him. A non-psychic in a family filled to the brim with them, Blue is on the search for irrefutable proof that the magic that has eluded her all her life is indeed, real.

Gansey, Adam, Noah and Ronan are four boys – four troublesome broken Raven Boys – on a mission. They’re not just regular rich private school brats, but seek to wake up an energy filled line – a ley line – and find the ancient Welsh King Glendower, who has been buried on the line, who legend says will bestow a favour on the one who wakes him.

As they boys bring Blue into the fold, none of them can deny the sensation that something bigger than them is starting, and that they’re in the centre of it all.

Truth be told, I have fallen ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE with this realistic, magic filled book!

I loved the problems that each of the Raven Boys faced internally – their shortcomings and their flaws – and how despite all their differences they managed to fit together like pieces in a puzzle. I loved the undercurrent of magic that followed every word and every scene in this book – I could tell that there was so much more going on than Blue and her Raven Boys knew at the moment – and I am so excited to learn about it all.

Maggie Stiefvater’s writing is subtle, elegant and shows the depths of her imagination, and The Raven Boys is an ingenious book with the power to make magic feel real.

I will currently cut short my ramblings and run away to read The Dream Thieves. 

HAVE YOU READ THE RAVEN CYCLE? Who is your favourite Raven Boy?

Have you read any other Maggie Stiefvater books? Which books of her should I put on my immediate TBR? 

What are your favourite books on magical realism? 

I can't wait to hear your thoughts

BLOG TOUR: Lies I Live By by Lauren Sabel - Review + Favourite Quotes + Giveaway

Title: Lies I Live By

Author: Lauren Sabel

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Release Date: May 31st 2016

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance

Synopsis: Romance, intrigue, and action collide in this psychic twist on the classic spy novel.
Callie Sinclair is literally out of her mind; as the government’s youngest psychic spy, she finds valuable information for top-secret missions. Her work keeps her headaches at bay, but it means she must lie to everyone she loves, including her longtime boyfriend, Charlie.
When a new psychic arrives at the office, Callie can’t help but flirt; Jasper already knows her in a way Charlie never will.
But as her love life gets more complicated, so do her visions. People halfway around the world seem to be in danger...and people in her own backyard, too. If Callie can’t find a way to alter future events, she could lose the people she loves—and her mind. Literally.
Lauren Sabel’s enthralling, romantic novel captures the thrill of exploring a unique power in a dangerous world.

To be quite honest, I didn't know what to expect going in to this book. I haven't read a book like this in a really long while, and well, I went in expecting nothing.

Lies I Live By opened off with a bang. I loved how it pulled you right into the story, and at the end of the very first chapter it leaves you hanging with one of those 'My Life Was Never The The Same Again' dialogues! 

This entire book was fast paced, filled with adrenaline, and all around AWESOME! I loved that there was the moralistic problems of contracting with private firms in there, and that between Callie (our protagonist) and Jasper (the other psychic) there was just SO MANY emotions when they saw things. It felt raw, and real, and beautifully done. I also adored Charlie (the boyfriend) and Colin (Charlie's younger brother) and basically the whole story!

I did have a few issues with it, though:

1. Seeing and Not Interpreting: What this basically means is that a psychic can only see and describe what they see during their sessions, but NEVER NEVER try to interpret it. I just didn't get how a RATIONAL human mind could see death and dying and disasters and not try to figure out the how and the why, and let others do it for them. IT'S NOT HUMAN NATURE, and it felt like an elaborate plot twist just so that Jasper could get Callie to rebel and hang with him or whatever.

2. The Absentee Parents: My parents might not know where I am ALL THE TIME, but that doesn't mean they don't know I'M WORKING FOR A SUPER SECRET BRANCH OF THE GOVERNMENT, while telling them I'm BABYSITTING? What. EVEN? Also, these people Callie is babysitting for DO NOT EXIST. I think parents would at least know if the family her only daughter is babysitting for exists or not.

3. The Whole Psychic Process: I do not get how all these vague details help in figuring out radiation attacks (Oh, Callie psychic power is that she can see radiation). It's not like she's going back to the same place ever in her visions, her one visit to that particular leak is so hazy, HOW DOES IT HELP?

And that's about it! I would have loved more details, and for this to have been more realistic on the parental front, but I would DEFINITELY recommend it! 

Follow the Lies I Live By by Lauren Sabel Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.

Originally from the Rocky Mountains, Lauren Sabel has returned to the cool mountain air of Boulder, Colorado after living in several wonderful cities that she will always love and continue to visit year after year.

Lauren loves her husband, her family, her friends, and stories that end happily. (Unfortunately, hers never do.) She also loves digging into her mind and revealing tiny gems she didn’t know were there. 

Lauren learned to mind dig while getting her MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa, a Buddhist college in Boulder, Colorado. Before Naropa, Lauren studied film in Rome, where she developed her love of crypts and other beautiful creepy things. She also worked in the film industry in New York and San Francisco, focusing mainly on film festivals, as she can never pass up a good party. In San Francisco she worked for Chronicle Books, where she was inducted into the fascinating world of book publishing. 

In 2008, Lauren was published in Undiscovered Voices, an anthology of the best new writers for children in the U.K., where she was living at the time. Then life got very exciting very quickly. She signed with Jodi Reamer Esq. at The Writer’s House Agency in New York, and they made magic happen, and that magic is named Katherine Tegen. (aka: Katherine Tegen Publishing, Harper Collins).

Lauren's first book, Vivian Divine is Dead was published June 3 2014. She's currently working on her next book, which she can't wait to tell you about (but has to wait just a little while anyway).

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