The Raven Cycle by Maggie Steifvater

Seeing as we finally got a title for the fourth and last book the best series in the world today, I figure it seemed appropriate to write a quick series review for the books out so far in this gorgeous series.

My words are unerring tools of destruction, and I’ve come unequipped with the ability to disarm them.

This book is glorious and that is all.

Stats:

Genre: Paranormal 

Feelings: YES

Happiness: YES

Cuteness:SCREECHES

Fast pacing: No

Series: Praise the Lord, yes.

Read if you like: Beautiful angst, beautiful characters, beautiful concepts.

Content: Swearing.

In one sentence... Rich boys with lots of problems and a psychic’s daughter team up to find Glendower, a Welsh king from centuries before.

Thoughts: An orange camaro, a pair of frayed gloves, a green dress and an old church.

Overall:

Rating: 5/5

This review is SPOILER FREE

 The Lovely Bits:

Um the whole book? This book is snark. This book is witty characters, and sassy dead people. This book has adorable and sad, angsty and "What am I supposed to do now," 

Maggie's writing. She writes with this style I have never seen before. It's so unique and easy to sink into. She spends so much time with detail, that you really can't skim her books. You have to read them step by step, enjoying every moment. And you do. 

Blue is pretty much my favorite female main character in all of fiction. She's sassy and fierce, without being anywhere close to stereotypical. She's actually...sensible. And funny. Ah, the sass-off's. They are glorious. And Gansey? And NOAH? And Adam? And Ronan? Basically you love all the characters, even if you don't.

The Less lovely Bits:

As said before, these books are slower. They really unfold slowly, so you have to take your time with them. 

“In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them.

Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness.
Her raven boys.

Stats:

Genre: Cars.

Feelings: I screamed four times, threw the book, squealed, and jumped up and down reading this.

Happiness: Yes. 

Cuteness: SOBS AND SCREECHES.

Fast pacing: No.

Series: I wonder...

Read if you like: The first book? Even if you didn't, actually, keep reading. It's good for you.

Content: A lot more swearing.

In one sentence... Street racing, dream thieving, ghosting, angsting, hunting, crying, not kissing, almost kissing, pretend kissing, sad feelings, happy feelings, confused feelings.

Thoughts: Phone calls. Voices. A table in a diner.

Overall:

Rating: 5/5

This review is SPOILER FREE

The Lovely Bits:

This book gave me about a hundred more feelings than the first one. I loved finally seeing the group together and being way too cute together. I loved the development and back story. I loved....the book. I honestly can't say much without giving spoilers.

Basically, we get new characters and fall more in love with old characters. And there's crying and angry things.

Sequels can very quickly become boring. That, I believe, is what makes these books so amazing. It's easy to assume that popular authors make books trilogies sometimes just so they can get more out of one story. That's not a bad thing, but often that means the sequels are less good.

But The Raven Cycle is not that. This story is so complex. It's got so many secrets yet uncovered, and mysteries still unsolved, that it makes sense that it's a four book series. I don't ever think it gets boring, even with it's slow storytelling.

The Less Lovely Bits:

This one was a lot more confusing than the first one? It was a little hard to follow what was actually going on, really. It's one you need to re-read to grasp everything.

There is no good word for the opposite of lonesome. 

One might be tempted to suggest togetherness or contentment , but the fact that these two other words bear definitions unrelated to each other perfectly displays why lonesome cannot be properly mirrored. It does not mean solitude, nor alone, nor lonely, although lonesome can contain all of those words in itself. 

Lonesome means a state of being apart. Of being other. Alone-some.

Stats:

Genre: Glue. (Gansey+Blue)

Feelings: No one touch me I'm upset.

Happiness: No one touch me I'm elated.

Cuteness: No one touch me I'm conflicted.

Fast pacing: No one touch me I'm reading.

Series: No one touch me there's only one book left.

Read if you like: Gansey's face. Adam's face. All the faces.

Content: More swearing? Idk, no one touch me I'm still upset.

In one sentence... Blue Sargent: "NO ONE TOUCH ME. Except Gansey. I want to hold his hand"

Thoughts: A cave, a coffin, a secret.

Overall:

Rating: 5/5

This review is SPOILER FREE

The Lovely Bits: 

We get even more development. We get even more Gansey. And more...suspense. I flew through this one faster than the second, so I would consider it to be better? The relationships already built got tested, and even more new characters came. But there was loss. 

It was a solid book. It had some eh parts, but it was a really well done story, which is to be expected at this point. 

I really like the development we got with Gansey and Blue. They were tested, and also cute. That as well. 

I honestly cannot think of much. I just really love this series? It's really stuck with me. The characters speak to me. I feel like there's someone for everyone to relate to.

The first two books have been slow. They've been characters and set up. But this one just poured out the preparation for the last book. You get even more secrets, even more questions. The character arcs are amazingly written out. This book did a phenomenal job of making you desperately want to finish out the series...but still not want it to be over.

As said earlier, this is a complex story. So that fact that these stories have not yet become muddles with all the content is amazing. More proof of Maggie's skill.

The Less Lovely Bits:

The fact that it ended?

I feel like there should be something. I can't just give a five star review to every book and have nothing wrong with it. But I do?

These are books you really have to be in the right mind for. You have to be okay with some slightly weird things and slow, deep prose. But if you let yourself get into these stories...ah, what an adventure you have ahead of you. 

Also we have a title for book four!

The Throne of Glass Series by Sarah J Maas

They had survived, when so many had not. And no one ­else could understand what it was like to bear it, unless they had lost as much.


Recently, I have finally finished the third book in Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass series, or what I like to call it: The Maas of Lots of Pain series. See what I did there?

Anyway. Long story short this series is amazing. In this post I will be writing quick reviews for the first two books and a longer one for the third. I read the first two last year, but I didn't want to just review the first two of a series.

Also. This is a post for the currently released books, seeing as there are going to be three more in the series.

Throne of glass is probably my least favorite out of them? It was amazing, but after reading all three, ths one isn't the greatets to me.

Stats:

Genre: High Fantasy

Feelings: Angry sympathetc ones

Happiness: Some? I just love Celaena

Cuteness: Not at this point, because I didn't like Dorian in this book.

Fast pacing: Ish? 

Series: Duh.

Read if you like: Kicking butt assasins who are still HUMAN and competitions and fantasy

Content: Violence, some swears.

In one sentence... The most feared assasin is hired as the kings champion in a fight to the death for freedom.

Overall:

Rating: 4/5

The Lovely and Less Lovely Bits:

This was a fun book. Instantly, I really liked Celaena. She was fierce and strong but still like pretty dresses even though she had daggers tucker underneath. Maas is a very good storyteller, and you could really see it. It was engaging enough to keep you into it, though at first all the competition stuff seemed a little cliche. 

The world was well crafted and you felt like you were really there decoding wyrdkeys with her. The characters were really fun to read, even the evil ones. I really love Sarah J Maas's writing. She's got a very to the point style, no tiring paragraphs about uninteresting things. 

This book was a little more info-dumpy, and really, a bit eh for all the hype this series gets. I am still completely happy that I continued in the series. It keeps getting better.

Crown of Midnight is lovely. It's fast and has some more interesting events in it. I had major book hangover after this one.

Stats:

Genre: High Fantasy

Feelings: Yes. A lot. 

Happiness: YES. OTP's that finally become canon.

Cuteness: YES.

Fast pacing: More engaging than the first.

Series: Gee....I wonder.

Read if you like: The first book? Hidden secrets, lying, more killing and more cute.

Content: Two characters sleep with each other off the page. Swearing, violence.

In one sentence... Things get more serious fast as secrets begin to come out about Celaena, her work, and her past.

Overall:
Rating: 5/5

Mild spoilers below about book couples.

The Lovely and Less Lovely Bits:

This one tore my soul out. Instantly you fall back into this world, and realize just how dense this story is. So much happens in so little pages. I have a lot of thoughts about this one.

First off, happiness. My OTP came true. Chaol and Celaena were so adorable and I love them so much.

You really got a lot more development on Celaena. Before she was cool, but a lot of her traits seemed really forced. In this one you get to see more of her, and I really appreciated that. A lot of characters you were so-so about begin to come out more, and you also get more about the pasts of characters.

There's a lot of twists. A lot of hidden secrets come out, and reveals that were next to impossible to see coming. Loss, love, determination. You will be left mouth hanging open. I still think this is my favorite of the series.

And finally, Heir of Fire. I was very much excited to read this. While it wasn't quite what I expected, I did enjoy all of it, and the ending left me out of breathe. 

Stats:

Genre: High Fantasy

Feelings: Mega ones

Happiness: Oh yes.

Cuteness: Eh?

Fast pacing: Ish.

Series: Guess.

Read if you like: FAERIES AND DEATH.

Content: Swears and violence.

In one sentence... More secrets are uncovered, new people are met, and darker dangers revealed.
Thoughts: Breaking and being fixed and breaking all over again.

Overall:

Rating: Tentative 5/5 

This review is SPOILER FREE

The Lovely Bits: 

The writing. The writing has matured quite a bit by now. The story is now denser, the characters a lot differnt. The changes you see in Celaena from book one to three are heartbreaking. I am so pumped to see how she changes. 

The story gets a lot more depth. Now we have witches, wyverms and Fae all bunched together. The Fae was a really intersting culture to read about. These weren't like any "faeries" I had ever read about. I don't want to give away too much, so I'll just leave it at that.

Also, the witches. Maas doesn't take shortcuts in developing the specie's in her stories. She doesn't call them just witches and leave you to picture warty old ladies in point hats. Nope. She describes their second eyelids, there way of life, even giving them iron teeth and claws. They're freaky, okay.

Sarah J. Maas really has a way of making you love and hate characters at the same time. She does that many times in this book. You start of hating someone and then all of a sudden you love them? What? She messes with your head. You're all set to want some character to go die in a deep dark hole but then suddenly you're clutching to them while crying.

Yeah. That's what this book is.

And Celaena's back story. The whole chapter where we learn everything that happened tore my soul to shreds. It was very different than what I was expecting.

Basically, this whole book was glorious.

The Less Lovely Bits

This book was freaking long. Honestly, I skipped most of the witch chapters. I was so engaged in everything else I wasn't that interested in the witch stuff. I felt like it should have been shorter or not there at all. 

While it was nice to have mean characters be actually good, it did get a little old. What was wrong with having a jerky character that wasn't on the evil side? There didn't always have to be some justifying reason to be cold.

The romance witch Sorscha and Dorian was really cute, but also felt a little rushed and unnecessary, though it did have some good character development.

Sarah J. Maas tends to have a POV chapter from every character. That is nice, but it's another thing that could be annoying.

Honestly, there wasn't much I didn't love in this. Everything was well thought out, but very dense.

Overall, I highly recommend this series. It's unlike anything I've read. It's a very unique way of storytelling, so I don't think it's for everyone. But I would defiantly give it a shot.