His Letters Always Looked Like They Were Running From Something.
THE BOOKENING TITLE #9: The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater.
Standing next to him in his very alive state, she couldn't imagine that he would be dead in less than a year. He was wearing a teal polo shirt, and it seemed impossible that someone in a teal polo shirt could perish of anything other than heart disease at age eighty-six, possibly at a polo match.
Dear mystery person who gifted this to me back in June: I'm sorry it took me so long to finish it! (It was sent to me under the name 'Noah?', which was perplexing at the time and is frankly unsettling now that I've actually read the book.)
I really enjoyed Stiefvater's style; the narrative had a lot of great turns of phrase and quiet humour. ('Blue tried not to look at Gansey's boat shoes; she felt better about him as a person if she pretended he wasn't wearing them' is one of my favourite lines.) I liked Gansey and Adam and Blue, and the relationships between them. I didn't especially care for the plot - I've always found it difficult to get excited about ley lines - but the style and the characters carried me through very comfortably.
My favourite aspect of the book is the friendship between Adam and Gansey; it's so important to both of them, but Adam resents that importance because he feels it gives Gansey a hold over him. And on some level his fear might be justified; there is a part of Gansey that wants to own him. It's such an interesting dynamic. (I really love that Gansey's feelings about Blue are essentially 'yes, she feels right, this is one of the people I need.' If I get fannishly invested in these books, I suspect I'm going to end up 'shipping Gansey/everyone.)
Other parts I enjoyed: Gansey making a horrible first impression on Blue. The general sense of unreality in the scene where Gansey is threatened with a gun, as if he can't quite grasp that this is a real thing that's really happening to him. The long description of a car journey that takes ages to get to the point, the point being that the passenger is tied up in the back seat.
This novel feels very warm, somehow. It's about friendship, and how it's not always comfortable but always important. And it's also about ley lines, but let's ignore that. I liked it a great deal.
Standing next to him in his very alive state, she couldn't imagine that he would be dead in less than a year. He was wearing a teal polo shirt, and it seemed impossible that someone in a teal polo shirt could perish of anything other than heart disease at age eighty-six, possibly at a polo match.
Dear mystery person who gifted this to me back in June: I'm sorry it took me so long to finish it! (It was sent to me under the name 'Noah?', which was perplexing at the time and is frankly unsettling now that I've actually read the book.)
I really enjoyed Stiefvater's style; the narrative had a lot of great turns of phrase and quiet humour. ('Blue tried not to look at Gansey's boat shoes; she felt better about him as a person if she pretended he wasn't wearing them' is one of my favourite lines.) I liked Gansey and Adam and Blue, and the relationships between them. I didn't especially care for the plot - I've always found it difficult to get excited about ley lines - but the style and the characters carried me through very comfortably.
My favourite aspect of the book is the friendship between Adam and Gansey; it's so important to both of them, but Adam resents that importance because he feels it gives Gansey a hold over him. And on some level his fear might be justified; there is a part of Gansey that wants to own him. It's such an interesting dynamic. (I really love that Gansey's feelings about Blue are essentially 'yes, she feels right, this is one of the people I need.' If I get fannishly invested in these books, I suspect I'm going to end up 'shipping Gansey/everyone.)
Other parts I enjoyed: Gansey making a horrible first impression on Blue. The general sense of unreality in the scene where Gansey is threatened with a gun, as if he can't quite grasp that this is a real thing that's really happening to him. The long description of a car journey that takes ages to get to the point, the point being that the passenger is tied up in the back seat.
This novel feels very warm, somehow. It's about friendship, and how it's not always comfortable but always important. And it's also about ley lines, but let's ignore that. I liked it a great deal.