Whimsical and Consuming // REVIEW: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater |A Thousand Words A Million Books || A Young Adult Book Blog

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!)
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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.