The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Magical, Contemporary
Published By: Scholastic
Pages: 416
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★★
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

It’s been nearly a full year since I read ‘The Raven Boys’…so I was a little bit ‘thrown in at the deep end’ when it came to understanding what was going on in this book. I couldn’t really pinpoint the ending of ‘The Raven Boys’ in order to get my bearings, but I think I did a pretty good job of understanding it all in the end.

This book focuses on Ronan, hence why he’s on the cover. I’d forgotten that he had a raven called Chainsaw, so when he was talking to it, I thought he was talking to an actual chainsaw and that he’d gone crazy. Turns out, I wasn’t that far off. Ronan has a super power. He can make things from dreams become a reality, like a Camaro, whatever that is.

There were quite a few car chases throughout this book, with a lot of car type jargon thrown in for good measure. Every time a car was mention I was like ‘What’s a Mitsubishi? Is it common knowledge to know what one looks like?”

Along with cars, there are a lot of threats. Kavinsky and the Grey Man are interesting antagonists, although I think the Grey Man redeemed himself at the end, there. When I was reading ‘The Dream Thieves’, I thought someone was going to bust my door down and demand I give them 1 million dollars (which would only be possible on Animal Crossing.)

Adam had a little (well, big) inferiority complex as the weakest link of the Raven boys group (although technically Noah had the weakest presence…) He doesn’t like people to pity him, but as soon as someone says don’t pity them, what’s the first thing you do? I hope that he has a bigger role in the rest of the quartet.

Blue was a fairly minor character in this sequel, I guess because the first book was fairly devoted to her, however, I thought the book was missing a constant female presence. I missed her. But the third book must be called ‘Blue Lily, Lily Blue’ for a reason. The ‘if-you-kiss-the-boy-you-love-he’ll-die’ plot will hopefully be alluded to more then. (Did I ship Blue & Gansey? I don’t know yet.)

It’s safe to say I enjoyed the Raven Boys more than the sequel. Sometimes Stiefvater’s writing style would sit a little odd on the page, although I admired her original and quirky similes such as ‘she was as sensible as a platypus.’ I didn’t know platypi were especially sensible.

Overall, I’d give this book 3 stars. It was still good, and there’s a lot that could be expanded on as the series continues. I like that this series is a quartet instead of a trilogy – it means there’s more time to explain things and less chance of the plot petering out in the middle. ‘Blue Lily, Lily Blue’ here I come!