_edited.jpg)
This book deserves no less than 5 stars! The review part will contain no spoilers for The Dream Thieves, but there will be spoilers for The Raven Boys if you have not read book one! & There's a warning before the spoilery section starts!
Summary:
The Dream Thieves is second book in The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater. The raven boys, a group of Aglionby students plus Blue Sargent, are searching for a lost Welsh king called Glendower. They believe he was buried on the ley line that crosses through Henrietta, Virginia and this book continues following their journey as they search for him.
This book is much more concentrated on Ronan, the most secretive and volatile of the raven boys. The prologue starts off but telling us that Ronan has lots of secrets and the secret this book is centered around is that he can pull objects out of his dreams. Having such a rare gift makes him desirable not just to his friends, but also to others who want to possess him.
Oh my goodness, this book was such a step up from The Raven Boys, no second book slump at all! I was completely blown away by everything that happened between page one and page fourhundredthirtynine. The ending was absolutely devastating (in a good way) because these cliffhangers (YES MULTIPLE open ended questions!) might be the death of me! I loved every single part of this book. I have no complaints whatsoever. The crazy action and wonderful mysteries were all there like the first book, but a million times better. The romance, the angst was perfect. Gansey and Blue are my favorite in this series and now have a special place in my heart. Ronan has finally won me over too!
Plot:
I was literally sucked in by page ONE, the prologue, no joke. I mean how cool is it that Ronan can bring things from his dreams into reality! The Raven Boys took a lot of time to develop the plot because there was just so much information that we needed to know, but now that all that is set up, The Dream Thieves was able to dive right into the action.
So they’ve woken the ley line at the end of book one, and now they need to figure out where to go next. Now, in my opinion, this story does not focus so much on trying to find Glendower. There are a few long scenes that involve them making trips to see if they discover anything, but really we just see a lot more of Ronan. Being in his head is honestly the most confusing, thrilling, anxiety-filled point of view I have ever been in. You really get to know him in this book and I can now see why many people love him as a character. He gets into serious situations throughout the story and there WILL BE moments when you are gasping, staring so hard at the words on the pages, and flipping anxiously to figure out what is going to happen to Ronan. Or maybe that’s just me. I honestly can’t say much more than that because spoilers!
Also, the romantic parts of the plot were much more present, which I cannot say I didn’t absolutely LOVE. I usually do not care for love triangle, but this one was done right. Blue goes through a crazy emotional ride in TDT and you get to experience it with her. You really do. You feel all the emotions and tension and angst and desire.
Altogether, this book is just MORE in all aspects. More action, definitely much more action. More mystery because we learn a lot, but we are left with so many questions. More suspense, the ending of this book… Oh man. The last fifty pages went by so so fast. And just more about the boys. We get to learn so much more by being in the heads of the boys. Oh, lastly, more characters. We get to meet the Gray Man, who I also really really like.
Characters:
In this book we see Ronan develop his gifts, get into trouble, and definitely grow as a character. Ronan is the secretive, cruel, rude, “snake” from book one, but as we get to know him in this book we get to see so much more of his personality. Not just the facade that he wants to give off. We even get to see more of his family. Everyone in his family and he was being protective of them. So protective and caring that it was extremely endearing. Then! Something even more intriguing is revealed about Ronan in the end. It’s not confirmed which is killing me, but I have an inkling and it makes me like his character even more.
So even though this book is more concentrated on Ronan and his story, we still get to be in Gansey’s and Adam’s head. Even Blue’e sometimes though not as much as the first book. I LOVE being in Gansey’s POV. He’s so honest in his point of view about his feelings because he can’t be honest verbally since that would ruin certain things. Sometimes these little admittances to himself about Blue are super cute and sometimes they’re just funny. Side note: Is it weird that I like how Gansey calls Blue, Jane, and she just accepts it. On another note, we get to know more about Gansey in general in this book. We see him interact with his family as well. His sibling relationship with Helen is one I would ask for because they just get each other and its lovely. I loooooove Gansey, he’s my fave.
Adam… Adam needs to get his stuff together. I cannot explain more about him in this section because that would spoil things, but I will down below in my spoilery section!
Blue is another of my faves. She’s described as sensible on more than one occasion and she is. She gets to experience certain things in this book that I really really realllllyyyyyy was happy about. I like the decisions she makes. And the points in the book where she was included always had something interesting happen.
The Gray Man is the new guy that appears. He adds a lot of the mysterious parts to this book because we just don’t know much about him. HOW we learn about him is stupidly funny. Calla and Maura… They just make me laugh so much. That another part of this book that adds a whole other dimension to the story. We get to see the adults (Maura, Calla, Persephone, and Gray Man) interact amongst not just themselves, but with the kids too. Maura and Blue’s relationship is such a wonderful mother-daughter bond.
PS:
Overall:
You can tell I couldn’t stop saying that this part and that part were my favorites because they were all my favorites! I was so happy with the events that took place in The Dream Thieves. It was everything I was looking/asking for and more! Cannot wait to pick up the third book in the Raven Cycle. Thank you for reading! :)
SPOILERY DISCUSSION BEGINS HERE! IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK, CONSIDER YOURSELF WARNED!
Discussion:
LOTS OF STUFF HAPPENS. So I was super engrossed in the book and I didn’t start taking notes of parts that were interesting or made me think or made me spaz out until like over a hundred pages in. I’m going to try to go in order of when things happened in the book.
I do remember one part in the beginning regarding Blue that made me really happy was that she could always stand her ground. Against Ronan, against Gansey trying to fight her battle against Ronan, and even against Adam when he kicked that basket and yelled at her. You go girl! You do not let those men try to act like anything less than gentlemen around you!
Continuing on, the part when Ronan first pulls something dangerous out of his dreams. The night horrors they’re called. I had a really hard time imagining what these creatures were to look like but, that first fight scene between the one monster and Gansey and Ronan. My heart was racing and then Ronan goes “The other one got away.” WHAT. Ronan! Where did that freakin’ thing go?! And then it’s just forgotten after that for a couple chapters.
My next favorite part was when the boys, plus Blue, plus Orla were about to go on a boat trip to scan the lake. I’m always so entertained when in Gansey's head, especially when he's thinking about not thinking about Blue. And all his little comments about how she’s way sexier than Orla could ever be in his eyes. Aw, I feel for you Gansey. He likes her and is willing to hide it for Adam’s happiness. Then at the end of the boat scene where Blue was asking Gansey if he'd "seen enough of Orla" and he challenged her comment asking "why should it matter?" and she basically said it doesn't but he knew it was a lie. He definitely realized right them and there that she could have feelings for him and it gave him a “thrill.” So he liked that she lied. That she had interest in him aside from Adam. There’s a certain wrongness for liking a friend of your boyfriend and in this case where I already did not like Adam+Blue, I was all for it. The wrongness made this type of relationship all the more angsty and just amazing.
Back to Ronan. I was starting to think he’s got a thing for Adam? He dreams about him a lot. And pretty tenderly. And in the end he says “his secret is Adam.” I need to know more about this! Another part in the book that was equally cute and funny was Blue kissing Noah. Noah is SUCH A SWEETHEART! Literally the best kissing scene between two unintended love interests ever! I've never read a kiss between a human and a ghost either. Omg. Weak. Another thought… Is that considered cheating? Since she's technically still dating Adam? So that kiss happened while Gansey and Adam were at Gansey’s mom’s party right. And they got into a fight. The fight didn’t bother me so much. At this point I was already over Adam and his “I must be a one man army” thing because I mean I firmly believe everyone could use a little help every now and them. Anyways, it was the after that I liked when Gansey actually gave into his emotions a little bit and called Blue! Like their conversation wasn’t even about anything significant, but just the fact that he needs her for comfort like warms my heart.
Then while they’re there, Ronan is over here in Henrietta trying to race Kavinsky and we’re getting hints about how he can dream things into reality too. Then the second beast finally makes its full blown appearance and attacks Ronan! Then Kavinsky actually saves Ronan… Wtf! Such great timing! And the start to a great, or not so great but really weird, friendship. The next morning in the Gansey house we realize that Adam is missing. This was the part where we see how close Gansey’s family really is. Especially him and his sister. They would do all they can to help each other because they are each important to each other which includes their friends. This also reminds me of how I loved Maura's protectiveness over Blue in the beginning of the book when she saw Blue and Gray Man talking to each other. Fierce momma! (I like how I said I would go in order, but that’s not really working haha) Continuing on, when Ronan dreams of his dad and says “It’s a thieves loophole” and he’s referring to the second like of the will, I knew exactly what he meant. Ronan just needs to dream up a new will, bam easy solution. I’m really glad he figured it out in the end. Then when Gansey and Adam come back to Henrietta, Adam finally confronts Blue. I continue to not like Adam and his attitude though I know its not his fault. Still… I was so proud of Blue when she broke it off with him. Awe and then Blue called Gansey this time! I like how throughout the book Gansey & Blue always go to each other for comfort even when they know they shouldn’t/don’t want the other to know their true feelings. Now they both definitely know how the other feels and OMG THE TENSION IS REAL. When he kissed her hand because he can’t kiss her (both to protect Adam and her), then when they hugged each other, and now they have to forget all about it! OMG. ISHIPITSOHARD. This is the type of romance that makes you crave the thrill of a wrongness because it feels right. Then in the end turns out I like the Gray Man. He's quite amusing. And actually a really good person despite the fact that he can get bought to kill people. But he falls in love with Maura! And makes the right choices.
The ending for the raven boys and Blue was INTENSE. Ronan was trying to fight off Kavinsky. I’m here thinking Kavinsky is like a wronged woman all hating on the guys that broke his heart (aka Ronan). Ronan is stuck in dream world because he need Adam to connect the power. Adam finally connects the power and Ronan dreams up a… Night horror. Not nearly as cool as the dragon that Kavinsky dreamt up, but it did the trick. I’m actually a bit sad Kavinsky died, but it’s probably for the best. Ending Questions: Ronan figured out that he needed to make a new will! Yay! So, Aurora lynch is alive again because he brought her to the newly revived Cabeswater. Speaking of Cabeswater… There’s a cave now?! I wonder when they’re going to explore that. Oh & the Gray Man is back!
Romans secret is Adam?
There's a cave?!
Maura is missing possibly in said cave?!!
What is up with these cliff hangers?!?!
I wanna know what is going to happen between Blue and Gansey!! They’re relationship give me life, guys. I love them individually and together.