books – Page 20 – Lyndsey Hall

Review: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

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

I am a member of the Book Depository affiliate program, so if you click through and buy any of the books mentioned in this blog I might make a little commission, but I am not paid to review books and all reviews are my own opinions!

My Summer TBR

It’s been a few months since I shared what I’ve got on my to-be-read pile, so I thought I’d give you all a little insight into what I’ll be reading and listening to over the next couple of months.

King of Thorns & Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

I picked these up from the library today after putting them on hold pretty much as soon as I finished reading Prince of Thorns. I can’t wait to get lost in Jorg’s deliciously dark and bloody world again. If you love adult fantasy like Game of Thrones then you’ll love the Broken Empires series by Mark Lawrence. I think I’ll move onto Red Sister once I’ve finished this series, and then jump back to The Red Queen’s War series.

Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

I also grabbed this from the kids’ section of my library while I was there (all the best books seem to end up in the children’s section – this, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Ness, Terry Pratchett…). I got the Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them companion books when they originally came out, so this is the only one I never got my hands on and as soon as I saw it I had to bring it home. It’ll be a nice, heart-warming read after the Broken Empires series. Or, if the Deathly Hallows tale is anything to go by, it won’t be.

Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce

I bought this book on Amazon after coming across it whilst researching similar titles to my current WIP, The Fair Queen. I figured I should give it a read now I’m almost finished so I can use it as a comparable title in my query if it really is similar. I’m excited to read it and see how Pierce has done it – here’s hoping it doesn’t make me hate my own work, either for being too similar or painfully inferior!

On the other hand, I’m always keen to read fantasy authors I’ve never come across before, so I’m looking forward to discovering a potential new favourite!

The Scarecrow Queen by Melinda Salisbury

I cannot wait to read the conclusion of The Sin Eater’s Daughter trilogy! I’ve seen some great reviews online, and this has really become one of my favourite series, so I know it’s going to be a great read. I’ve also seen that there’s a new e-book collection of companion stories so I’ll be getting my hands on that as soon as possible when I finish this one.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

No TBR list is complete without at least one Stiefvater book. I’ve just finished listening to the audio book of The Dream Thieves (review to come) and I’m still absolutely adoring this series, so as soon as I’m done listening to A Court of Wings and Ruin by S.J. Maas I’ll be diving into the third book in the Raven Cycle series.

There you have it, those are the books I’ve added to my towering TBR and am hoping to read by the end of this summer. I’m sure my pile will continue to grow (I’ve still got a couple of others on hold at the library that haven’t come in yet) and I’m still trying to catch up with some of the books I already had, but I’ve almost finished my second draft and will soon be shipping my novel off to beta readers which will give me more time for reading.

What’s on your list for summer reading? I’m dreaming of reading more YA contemporary, but I keep being sucked back in by fantasy books! There have been so many incredible new releases this year, I’m spoilt for choice, but leave your recommendations in the comments!

Lyndsey

To DNF or not to DNF

For those of you who haven’t come across the term, DNF is short for Did Not Finish. I don’t tend to stop reading books without finishing them very often, but that might be because I’m pretty selective about what I read. I don’t read hundreds of books per year, my Goodreads challenge this year is set to 36 books and that will probably be a record for me, except for maybe when I was a kid and books were less than 100 pages.

First of all, I’d like to say there’s no shame or failure in putting down a book you’re just not enjoying, or not in the mood for. There are millions of books in the world, and thousands more being written and published every year, don’t waste your time slogging through 350-500 pages of a story that bores you or characters you hate. Life’s too short. Put down the classic or literary fiction book you thought you should read and pick up the romance or YA contemporary you really want to.

Reasons you might DNF a book:

You’re not into the plot – boring? Cliche? Put it down and try something else.
You hate the MC – you don’t want to spend hours or days stuck inside the head of someone awful, DNF it.
The genre isn’t doing it for you – not your usual bag? Drop it and read your fave genre, don’t feel like you have to love crime thrillers or erotica if you just don’t.
Not in the mood – we all have book slumps, hangovers and times when we just really fancy a specific kind of story. If it’s not doing it for you right now just put it down and come back it another time.
It’s offensive/triggering/contains bad or zero representation – if you genuinely feel like continuing to read this book could be harmful, or you don’t want to support the book or author, please just DNF it.

Books I Did Not Finish

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

I loved the film when it came out, it was so moody and atmospheric. There’s just something about the South that makes it the perfect backdrop for stories with magic and witches and mystery. That said, I found the book so boring I had to give up halfway through. I tried, I really tried. I kept it on my bedside table for about a year but every time I picked it up and read a few pages I just couldn’t get into it, it wasn’t pulling me into the story or the characters’ lives.

This should have been exactly my cup of tea, I love YA, especially fantasy, anything with magic, curses, historical back stories and star crossed lovers. Sadly, it wasn’t to be.

Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

I was bought this one for my birthday because it was getting a lot of hype at the time, it isn’t at all my kind of thing but I gave it a shot because so many people had said how good it was. It wasn’t the worst, but it was sort of slow and I struggled with the MC as she’s an old lady with dementia.

Apparently, the author has a relative with dementia and it’s very well researched and depicted (I know someone whose mother has dementia and she read this book and said it was exactly like her experience with her mother). I think it’s great that mental illnesses like dementia and Alzheimer’s are being represented in literature, but I couldn’t really get on with the story due to it jumping about all over the place. I might return to this one eventually, my Mum is borrowing it right now (she’s had it months and hasn’t finished it either), but it’s definitely on my DNF pile for now.

Like I said, I don’t DNF books very often, there are probably one or two more, but I tend to persevere to the end, even if it takes me months. Sometimes, when I come back to a book after a break I find I actually enjoy it, and it was me rather than the book that was just not quite right at the time.

My one piece of advice for you would be that if you DNF a book because you’re not feeling it right now, or not enjoying it even thought it would normally be right up your street, come back to it later. Read something else, or take a break from reading for a while – it’s easy to get overwhelmed by our TBRs and end up DNFing every other book because we weren’t hooked by page ten, but if you pick it up again later you might find yourself enjoying it.

One of the more controversial sides of DNFing is whether to write a book review or not. Some say you can’t review a book you didn’t finish, or didn’t even get halfway through, others are happy to learn from your bad experience and not waste their money. I can see it from both sides, as an author bad reviews, whilst part of the job, can be a huge blow to both confidence and reputation, and one where the reader didn’t even read to the end, where you might feel all their complaints would have been resolved (unlikely, and probably means you should have worked harder on the first half), might just feel like a slap in the face. As a reader they can be interesting and useful, if the reason the person didn’t finish isn’t something that bothers me I might still read it, but if I was having qualms about a certain book anyway I might now not.

Basically, DNF reviews have their place, and can be really useful, but explain your reasons for not finishing so that others can at least learn from your experience, don’t just shout about how much you hated it without any constructive criticism.

Which books have you DNFed? One series I think I’m going to DNF is Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, I’ve read King’s Cage and just have no interest in continuing so I think I’ll call that one DNFed and maybe check out the spoilers for the next book so I at least know what happened.

Until next time!

Lyndsey