CBR14 Book 48: "Greywaren" by Maggie Stiefvater

Page count: 335 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Spoiler warning! This book is the third and final in the Dreamer trilogy, which in itself is a follow-up to the four-book Raven Cycle. It very much doesn't stand on its own and won't really make sense unless you've read the previous books. The place to begin is Call Down the Hawk, or if you want to read all the books about Ronan, Adam, and their friends, The Raven Boys. 

I'm going to be honest, while I normally love Stiefvater's writing and willingly go along with pretty much anything she comes up with, for a lot of this book, I was worried I was going to have to rate it a mere 3 stars, maybe rounded up to 3.5 if I was being generous. There was a lot of stuff in this book that didn't entirely work for me, and bits that I felt dragged rather a lot. Sadly, it's pretty much impossible for me to write about these things without spoiling some major plot points, and I don't want to influence anyone else's reading of the story - it may work better for them.

Let's just say that I wasn't exactly happy with Ronan's role in things for a lot of the book. I was also actively disappointed by the reveal of the "big bad" and the way the other characters had to rally to defeat said individual. I'm not sure what I expected for the final book in this trilogy, but it certainly wasn't that. Considering that Stiefvater is so clear about how this trilogy is all about the Lynch brothers, it felt odd that all three felt strangely sidelined for much of the plot in this one. Although, my new beloved Declan got to be pretty awesome, which seems to be about time. With every new detail revealed about the terrible life of poor Declan Lynch has led so far and the sacrifices he's had to make to keep his unusual brothers safe, the more I'm amazed that he's able to keep it together as well as he has. He deserved to finally let loose a bit. 

While the whole nefarious villain storyline was one I could have done without, and Carmen still mostly bored me (but is a LOT more fun when being constantly exasperated by Hennessey, who could clearly irriate the halo off a saint), the deep dives into the beginnings of the Lynch family, beginning with Mór and Niall and giving the readers more insight into young Declan, Ronan and finally Matthew, were lovely. I don't like Mór even a little bit, but I don't think she's meant to be likable and wouldn't care one jot what anyone thinks of her, but it was nice to see a more relatable side of Niall and once again, Stiefvater clearly has a strange and wonderful imagination. 

Lastly, it may be sentimental of me, but the epilogue, set four years after the main story, which some might see as fan-servicy and possibly wrapping up everything a bit too neatly into a little bow, felt like everything I'd wanted and hoped for as an ending. 

So, to sum up - this third book had some stuff that I kind of loved, some stuff that pretty much bored me and made me want to skip sections, and an epilogue that made me blissfully happy. I can't wait to see what Stiefvater is going to do next. 

Judging a book by its cover: While the fierce beasts on this cover may look intimidating, they represent Ronan's love for his brothers and the lengths he's willing to go to protect them. I agree that his sun hounds are rather terrifying, but it's not like they'll harm anyone who isn't out to harm the Lynch brothers. I also saw someone comment that the cover design very subtly shows one bird on the first book, two people on the second, and here three hounds. That's a nice subtle touch. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR14 Book 47: "Mister Impossible" by Maggie Stiefvater

Page count: 340 pages

Rating: 4 stars

This is NOT the place to start if you're not caught up. Begin either with the start of this trilogy, Call Down the Hawk, or with the start of the previous series (in which Ronan is an essential character), The Raven Boys. 

This book kicks off a little while after the rather dramatic cliffhanger that the previous book left us with. Ronan and Hennessey are fugitives from the Moderators, learning new and helpful tricks to deal with their mysterious hunters from the enigmatic Bryde. According to him, something is blocking and diminishing the powers of the dreamers and it's up to Bryde, Ronan, and Hennessey to unblock things. They remain incommunicado with those who worry and care for them - Declan, Matthew, Adam, and Jordan are all left to figure out how to proceed, while their loved ones seem to be taking up eco-terrorism. 

Jordan, especially, who has never lived alone in her life, needs to discover who she is away from Hennessey and her dead dreamt sisters. The mysterious women-run organisation known as Boudicca certainly seems interested in her art. Through them, Jordan discovers the existence of sweetmetals, strange objects that can keep a dreamed object (or person) awake even if their dreamer dies. And since Ronan and Hennessey certainly seem to be risking their lives doing whatever it is they're doing - both Jordan and Declan have a vested interest in trying to get their hands on some powerful sweetmetals as soon as possible, preferably without ending up in lifetime servitude to Boudicca. 

Meanwhile, Carmen Farooq-Lane is getting more and more convinced that while some dreamers may be dangerous and provide a threat to society, the vast majority are just harmless people trying to live their lives, and murdering them without compunction make the Moderators just as bad, if not worse, than most dreamers.

This is a bridging book of sorts, and I can tell you it very much didn't go where I was expecting it. A central concept in all of these books, starting with The Raven Cycle, is the importance of ley lines. I don't think either the characters or Ms. Stiefvater's readers were really prepared for how the ley lines were going to play into everything. I can say that anyone who was hoping that this trilogy would be the thrilling romantic continuation of Ronan Lynch and Adam Parrish are going to be very disappointed indeed. Of course, in place of the romance that I'm sure many wanted, we get the rather lovely romance of Declan Lynch (who I still can't believe I love and adore as much as I do) and Jordan, Hennessey's dreamed twin. 

There were certain things in the book that didn't really work so well for me. Bryde is far too mysterious and vague to really feel like a proper character. He keeps trying to force Ronan and Hennessey into learning to be better, more efficient dreamers with a lot of philosophical questions and platitudes, and I found him generally boring. I guess discovering where he came from was a bit interesting, but I'm still not entirely sure about the how and why of him. I was also generally not that interested in the ongoing moral qualms of Carmen and her visionary sidekick Liliana. Every time the plot focused too long on either Bryde or Carmen, I was tempted to skip ahead. 

Nevertheless, this was certainly an interesting ride, and I can't wait to see where Stiefvater is taking this next. She certainly excels at cliffhangers - and I'm so grateful that I waited until the trilogy was completed to catch up, so I don't have to wait an entire year to find out what happens to my fantastical babies next. 

Judging a book by its cover: It's obvious to anyone who has read the first book that the very cool individuals on the cover here are clearly Ronan and Hennessey. They have their dreamt swords and their careless attitudes and having now finished the book, I also know which car they're standing in front of. I still think the cover is a strange follow-up to the hawk on the cover of book 1, the image styles don't really go together. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 52: "Call Down the Hawk" by Maggie Stiefvater

Page count: 480 pages
Audio book length: 13 hrs 45 mins
Rating: 4 stars

#CBR12 Bingo: Orange

This is the start of a new series, so it stands alone. You don't have to have read Stiefvater's Raven Cycle series, starting with The Raven Boys, but it gives a lot of useful background to Ronan and the other Lynch brothers. 

Official book description:

The dreamers walk among us . . . and so do the dreamed. Those who dream cannot stop dreaming – they can only try to control it. Those who are dreamed cannot have their own lives – they will sleep forever if their dreamers die.

And then there are those who are drawn to the dreamers. To use them. To trap them. To kill them before their dreams destroy us all.

Ronan Lynch is a dreamer. He can pull both curiosities and catastrophes out of his dreams and into his compromised reality.

Jordan Hennessy is a thief. The closer she comes to the dream object she is after, the more inextricably she becomes tied to it.

Carmen Farooq-Lane is a hunter. Her brother was a dreamer . . . and a killer. She has seen what dreaming can do to a person. And she has seen the damage that dreamers can do. But that is nothing compared to the destruction that is about to be unleashed. . . . 

In this new Dreamer trilogy, Maggie Stiefvater takes some of the characters from her Raven Cycle, like the deeply spiky and hostile Ronan Lynch and his boyfriend Adam Parrish and writes a new story, which also gives more room and development to some who were very peripheral supporting cast, like Ronan's brothers Declan and Matthew. She also introduces a number of new characters, like the talented art forger Jordan Hennessey, who hides the fact that all the women she lives with, are in fact, copies of herself that she dreamed into being. Women who will become comatose shells if she ever dies - and with each dream where she brings forth a copy, she comes a little bit closer to that point. There's also Carmen Farooq-Lane, who works with a group of people determined to track down dreamers, and either make them stop dreaming (which is impossible, then they'll eventually die) or kill them. There is a dangerous prophecy, you see, that one or more dreamers will bring forth the end of the world. While she's unhappy about her assignment and haunted by the fact that she had to help bring down her own brother, she really doesn't feel she has a choice. She's helping to stop Armageddon. 

Ronan and Declan, always at odds, are both haunted by the legacy of their father, the charming, but dangerous Niall Lynch. He was killed very suddenly, and clearly didn't have the time, or possibly just didn't have the inclination, to teach his son the art of dreaming safely. Adam, Ronan's true love, has gone away to college, and due to the dangers that Ronan can manifest when he dreams, he cannot move from the family home, and unfortunate and difficult to explain away things happen when he goes to visit Adam at school, effectively banning him from campus. Now he basically starts having guest appearances in his dreams from another dreamer, who keeps setting him tasks and leading him on a merry chase, for reasons unknown. 

Declan, the eldest, left with the legal responsibility for his brothers when their father died, and their mother, a dream creation of his, drifted into sleep forever, tries desperately to appear as normal and inconspicuous as possible. He dresses to be non-descript, he makes sure to make himself invaluable to his employers in Washington D.C, but not so much so that he might get promoted into a position where people might take a good look at him or his family. Declan has trouble eating and sleeping and worries constantly, something neither of his brothers seem aware of at all. Declan comes to discover that there are more secrets in his past than even he suspected, and he and Ronan will need to find a way to work together to figure them out.

Sweet, good-natured Matthew Lynch has absolutely no idea that he isn't actually one of Niall's three sons, that he was dreamt into creation by Ronan as a child, and raised alongside the two young men he considers brother. If Ronan and Declan are united in anything, it's that Matthew is to be kept safe, and unaware of his own true nature. But something is up with Matthew. He keeps leaving his fancy prep school and running off to look at a particular river - and it may prove difficult to keep the truth from him for much longer.

As well as the Lynch brothers, we have Hennessey and her unfortunate dreamt sisters, whose doom is approaching all the quicker if Hennessey doesn't learn to control her dreams more. While Ronan learned little from his own father, Hennessey learned even less from her famous artist mother, who committed suicide in front of her. She sets a timer to keep herself from falling asleep for more than a few minutes at a time, knowing that each time she dreams properly, she brings out another copy of herself from the dreams, and comes one step closer to her own death.

There is also Carmen Farooq-Lane, who has to babysit a surly, German, teenage visionary, trying to figure out where the dreamer who is going to doom them all is located. She's dutiful, yet conflicted and frequently feels frustrated about her mission brief. 

I remember thinking that The Raven King, the fourth and concluding volume in the Raven Cycle wasn't everything I wanted it to be, and was a bit let down by the ending and pacing of the book. In October 2019, Maggie Stiefvater posted a lengthy, very honest blog post, explaining just how little of the book she actually remembers writing, because she was struggling with really debilitating health problems at the time, and nearly died before they figured out what was wrong with her. So it seems the fact that it works as well as it does is remarkable. 

Now that Stiefvater is healthy again, she writes as lyrically and vividly as always. She's hidden that Ronan is one of her favourite characters, and that there is a lot of her in him. He's a character who it's difficult to like, because he's so angry and defensive and sharp, but you can't help but love him. I really liked learning more about his brothers, and hope the family dynamics become something closer and healthier in the coming books, after some of the revelations in this one. 

I was glad to revisit characters I already knew, and it's always good to meet more of Stiefvater's creations. She writes so well, and I'm glad she's healthy and thriving and writing a new series of books for me to enjoy. Neither the title nor the release date for book 2 is out yet, so I shall just sit, impatiently waiting, for more about the Lynches, and Jordan and Hennessey and Farooq-Lane. I suspect they are all going interesting places. 

 

Judging a book by its cover: This is one of those books that I ended up owning both in paperback and audio format. The paperback I have is the UK edition, where the hawk on the cover (and of the title) looks a bit more stylised and the colour scheme is more peach than orange. Nevertheless, the audiobook cover is the US one, with a lot of orange both in the font used for the title and in the background for the swooping hawk. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.