Haven’t read The Raven Boys yet? Check out my spoiler free review here. There will be spoilers for book one in this review so don’t read on if you haven’t read it!
I listened to the audio book of The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater earlier this month, the second book in The Raven Cycle series. It’s narrated by Will Patton again, who does a great job of creating tension and giving each of the characters their own sound. His voice is very gravelly, which is perfectly suited to Ronan!
The Dream Thieves shifts focus slightly away from Gansey and on to Ronan, who’s learning more about his strange ability to take things – like Chainsaw, the raven – out of his dreams.
“He danced on the knife’s edge between awareness and sleep. When he dreamt like this, he was a king. The world was his to bend. His to burn.”
Adam is now living in an apartment he rents from the nuns, refusing to move into Monmouth Manufacturing with the other boys. Typical Adam.
“It was nothing, but it was Adam Parrish’s nothing. How he hated and loved it. How proud he was of it, how wretched it was.”
Gansey is still looking for Glendower, and now Cabeswater, which has decided to disappear from its usual spot in the forest. The now live leyline is tripping the electrics across Henrietta, power surges causing the town’s generators to blow on a semi-regular basis.
A sinister man dressed in grey has arrived in town and is on the hunt for the Grey Warren, unaware that it’s a who and not a what. And an angry, shaved-headed who at that.
“He was clearly related to Declan: same nose, same dark eyebrows, same phenomenal teeth. But there was a carefully cultivated sense of danger to this Lynch brother. This was not a rattlesnake hidden in the grass, but a deadly coral snake striped with warning colours. Everything about him was a warning: If this snake bit you, you had no one to blame but yourself.”
I really enjoyed this book, it was great to slip straight into the story without too much introduction as we’re already well acquainted with the characters. I actually really liked the change of pace and getting to know Ronan a bit more, and the new characters that were introduced were fascinating and layered.
I’ve seen some people complain that it’s not really a sequel, it’s more like a spin off about Ronan, but I completely disagree (plus, there’s an entire series about Ronan coming soon!). We see plenty of the other characters, I would just say that whereas the focus of book one was Blue and Gansey, in this one it’s Ronan and Adam. I actually think it works better as a sequel than if we’d stuck with Blue and Gansey and left the others as somewhat secondary characters – this way it’s more of an ensemble cast.
“So what you’re saying is you can’t explain it.”
“I did explain it.”
“No, you used nouns and verbs together in a pleasing but illogical format.”
The group dynamic is just as dysfunctional and hilarious as in book one, with the relationships between Blue and Adam and Gansey becoming ever more complicated. I loved seeing more of Gansey’s and Ronan’s families, and it goes without saying that some of my favourite parts happened at 300 Fox Way. Maura, Calla and Persephone are great characters and add a lot of humour to the book.
“I thought you said scrying was a bad idea.”
“It’s like vodka,” Calla said. “It really depends on who’s doing it.”
I gave The Dream Thieves 4 stars, I really loved being back in Henrietta with this co-dependent, magical bunch, but it has a slightly different feel to The Raven Boys. If I’m honest, I’m not sure about the whole Kavinsky thing, it felt a little bit too convenient, but that might become clearer in the next book.
I’m currently listening to A Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas, and as soon as that’s finished I’ll be jumping straight into Blue Lily, Lily Blue, so expect a review of book three soon!
Have you read The Raven Cycle series? What did you think? Who’s your favourite character? I was leaning towards Adam but I’ve taken a liking to Noah after this book!
Lyndsey
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Lyndsey Hall | Author 
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