2-4-6-8, Don't Marry Books.

[rionaleonhart]

To whoever tried to distract me from the break-in by gifting me The Raven Boys via Amazon (all Amazon would tell me was that it was apparently from a 'Noah?', question mark included): thank you so much! Claiming a Kindle book gift from a different country is, it turns out, a bit of a production; I had to exchange the gift for an amazon.com gift certificate, then change my Kindle device country settings so I could actually order things from amazon.com, then buy the book I was gifted in the first place. But it's possible and it's now been done! Thank you!

th_esaurus is going to be so pleased; I know she really wants me to read this.

Here is a summary of the impressions I've gained of The Raven Boys, so I can look back and see how accurate or otherwise they prove to be when I actually read it:

- The main character is a girl named Blue.
- The male lead is a boy with a ridiculous name (Richard Gansey III?).
- Gansey is part of a group of boys who are basically the Marauders (he is Fake James Potter). Fake Sirius/Fake Remus is unsurprisingly the most popular pairing (and possibly canon?), but th_esaurus insists that Fake Remus/Fake James is in fact better. Fake Remus is poor and hates being pitied for it. I assume there's a Fake Peter Pettigrew somewhere.
- The plot is... er, all right, this is where I fall down. The plot is that... there are ley lines? And Fake James nearly died, but then he didn't because he was standing on a ley line. And... he wants to resurrect a dead Scottish king who is buried under the ley line... so he can ask the king why the ley line made him not die? Can that be right? That doesn't seem like it can be right.
- Also there's a prophecy that Blue's true love will die when she kisses him, but apparently that is surprisingly unimportant to the plot. It's all ley lines.
- At some point someone possibly gets possessed by an evil tree.

And those are the impressions I have of this book.


'Everything becomes ten times more homoerotic whenever Derek's on screen,' I observed while we were watching episode 2.01 of Teen Wolf. Later in the episode, Derek spent several minutes holding Scott to his chest and hissing 'This is why we need each other' into his ear. 'Ten times' may have been a conservative estimate.

I say 'homoerotic', but he got very sexual with the asthmatic young lady a few episodes on, so perhaps Derek is just banging his way through the entire cast, regardless of gender. (If I write Teen Wolf fanfiction, this will be the plot.)

Comments

[thebaconfat]

I would read the heck out of that fanfic if written by you, but then I will read the heck out of most things written by you, so.

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts about the Raven Boys! I definitely recommend that you check out the second book regardless of your feelings on the first. The series is not as high on my list of favourites as The Scorpio Races is, but I did end up having A Lot of feelings about it.

[rionaleonhart]

Thank you for the second-book advice! (The other advice I've received regarding this series is 'STOP AFTER BOOK 3'.) If I enjoy these books, I might check out The Scorpio Races.

[thebaconfat]

(Really?? I liked Book 4 a lot!) I definitely recommend The Scorpio Races regardless of your feelings on the Raven Boys -- it has a totally different feel and is one of my favourite novels ever.

[rionaleonhart]

I was out with th_esaurus, who gave me that advice, when I received this comment.

Riona: One of my online friends says they liked Book 4 a lot.
RD, without hesitation: Well, they're wrong.

[jecca_mehlota]

Book 4 was everything I needed it to be (other than NEVER ENDING, but I guess that's a want, not a need) and I would be interested in hearing why she did not like it! But obviously not someplace where you will see spoilers, in case you do decide to read it.


(Also yes, Scorpio Races is probably her best work thus far, ugh it's so good. I cry every time, but not in a bad way. Everyone should read it.)

[rionaleonhart]

Sorry for all the editing! Commenting via phone is a bit of a nightmare, turns out. I suppose the giant space version will have to do.

[squeemu]

Your first impressions were basically my first impressions of the fist book, too, so I kind of want to reread it now that I've finished the entire series. I'm sure there's a lot I missed my first time through, especially because I, er, didn't really have a good idea of Blue's personality at first. I ended up getting quite invested in the characters though, and am glad I kept reading.

(I'm really surprised to hear that th_saurus didn't like the fourth book, too! It was ...very satisfying for me, although I suppose it might depend on which character you're most invested in? Maybe? But I really, really loved both Adam and Ronan's story arcs, including everything that happened in the fourth book.)

ALSO ALSO The Scorpio Races is honestly one of my favorite books I've ever read, which... will now set in on a very high pedestal, so let me say it was quite good and you should read it regardless of what you think of The Raven Boys.

(I just read what Baco said about Scorpio Races and have realized it's exactly what she said. WE ARE NOT THE SAME PERSON, I SWEAR.)

Also also also please write Teen Wolf fanfiction. Please. Like, Derek banging his way through the entire cast (especially Stiles and Jackson and Danny, maybe the last two at the same time) is basically all I want from this show. Well, also Stiles and Danny being awkward at each other. And Stiles and the Sheriff interacting FOREVER, ugh I love them so much.

[jecca_mehlota]

Okay but there's this book series I really like where one of the characters is actually called Books, and that's all I can think of at this entry title.

Aaaa I hope you read it (and post about it??). Maggie's one of my favourite authors, and I love the Raven Cycle so much.

(Also, the break in thing is creepy, augh. I'm glad things weren't worse.) D: )

[rionaleonhart]

If I ever write a novel (unlikely), there's going to be a character named No and it's going to be so confusing. (The title comes from this puzzling series of tweets from a bookshop.)

[jecca_mehlota]

Yessss, that would be fantastic.


ha! Bored twitter-monitoring employee, I guess. I like it, though.

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't read The Raven Boys but thought it sounded familiar, so I looked it up.

It's the author. I picked up a Maggie Stiefvater book quite some years ago, I think it may have been her debut novel and when it was new out - just mentioning it since everyone in the comments seems to be a fan of hers but they haven't mentioned that one. It was called Shiver. Have you guys read that one? What did you make of it?

For my part, I confess I remember little about it, and I never read the sequels for that reason. I seem to remember enjoying it enough, though, or it at the very least being inoffensive. But I really don't remember much at all about the plot.

Maybe I should look into the other books?

-timydamonkey

[jecca_mehlota]

I have not read the werewolves in love series (which, yeah, was her debut work. Someday perhaps I will get to it), but I am actually physically incapable of explaining how amazing Scorpio Races is (which makes rec'ing it really hard but, it's just...???? *flailing goes here*), and the Raven Cycle is a giant cluster of feelings bombs and loving the entire cast, and I would definitely recommend them. All of them. Horses and ravens both.

[thebaconfat]

I tried the first werewolf love book at some point and...... the werewolf was a singer who wrote songs to express his feelings, complete with in-text lyrics................

so I didn't get too many chapters in before I had to stop and lie down. I think this was pre-horses-and-ravens, though, if I were reading it now I might have given it more of a chance.

[jecca_mehlota]

lollll oh noooooooooo that's... well, they're teenagers?? (I think? I hope??)

I don't know if I'd be able to read it, but I still may try!

[spindizzy]

I was about to agree really hard with th_esaurus and then I realised that I'd misread, because Fake Sirius/Fake James is clearly the best pairing. But yes, I've only read the first two books, but your understanding sounds 100% correct to me?

(I'll be honest, I was kinda meh about The Raven Boys, but then I read The Dream Thieves and was full of incoherent glee, because apparently Fake Sirius is where my feels live.)

[thebaconfat]

Books 3 and 4 are Worth Reading.

[spindizzy]

I keep meaning to, and then it turns out that I am cursed and everything I pick up has more books in it? So I don't quite dare until I've finished some of the ones I've got.

[jecca_mehlota]

IN THESE COMMENTS: JECCA AND BACO AND SQUEEMU HAVING A LOT of STIEFVATER FEELINGS dear lord

[thebaconfat]

*rolls*

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

I like that you think the name "Richard Gansey III" is more ridiculous than "Blue".

All Scottish kings are experts on ley lines! They have to pass a test before being crowned! The aboition of the Scottish monarchy happened when someone lost the textbook!

Evil trees?

[rionaleonhart]

The Scottish monarchy wasn't abolished! It took over the English monarchy! At which there was great outrage, because a lot of English people didn't know a bloody thing about ley lines. I mean, come on.

I like that you think the name "Richard Gansey III" is more ridiculous than "Blue".

That... that is a fair point.

Evil trees?

I don't know any more than you do! I will let you know if the evil tree situation becomes clear upon reading.

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

So wait, Scotland took over England, and then tried to get independence? Couldn't they just...release you? Or break up with you, or whatever you call it?

Didn't ley lines come from druids? Who were English and/or French? (I know there were druids in Asterix.)

Keep me rigorously updated on the evil tree situation!

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

Evil Dead had evil trees, but tbf, they had just realised an evil spirit into the world, so I guess that evil spirit possessed a tree for a bit.

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

I remember those evil trees!

[dracothelizard.livejournal.com]

I think from Fail_Fandomanon I gathered about The Raven Boys that there might be a thing with Owain Glyndwr? Like they have to resurrect him?

Back when I watched Teen Wolf, 'Derek getting up close and personal with EVERYONE' was definitely a thing, and it's not limited to the younger generation too. Although I'm not sure if he ever slammed Sheriff Stilinski against a locker.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

The little I know of Teen Wolf makes it sound deeply homoerotic. According to the internet, Derek and Stiles are a couple; I see no need to read actual plot summaries so I can find out if this is true or not.