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.