Many Characters in Search of Magic

This second installment in the Maggie Stiefvater’s series, The Raven Cycle, feels more diffused between all the characters searching for magic and the Welsh king, Glendower.  We get some of the story from Blue Sargent’s point of view (the main character from The Raven Boys) but the boys get more say here—starting with Ronan Lynch, the angry tattooed friend of Gansey, who just happens to be able to pull objects from his dreams.  Really, this is mostly Ronan’s story—as we learn more about what happened to his father and why he and his two brothers cannot return home without endangering their inheritance.  More characters are introduced, including another Aglionby boy named Kavinsky, who is the school’s source for drugs, fake IDs, and anything else not quite legal as well as  a dangerous man dressed all in grey, who seems far too interested in Ronan and his brothers.

There’s a lot going on in this novel and sometimes it feels like too much—too many characters, too many secrets, too many sacrifices, but Stiefvater writes with a kind of frantic beauty and you end up getting sucked in and wanting to see how the whole thing will play out.  Or at least I do.