The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater: The Raven Cycle, Book 1

 Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood
there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever 
dared to dream before...
(Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven)

 I finally got a chance to read the much-anticipated Raven Boys, the first book of a projected four-book series,  by the multi-talented Maggie Stiefvater.  Stiefvater's reputation as a fantasy writer is stellar, particularly after her breakout trilogy The Wolves of Mercy Falls and last year's stand-alone blockbuster The Scorpio Races.   I kept thinking of Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising series as I was reading The Raven Boys, and also a book by Madeleine L'Engle called A Swiftly Tilting Planet--there are a lot of  thematic overlaps between these stories, as well as similarly mysterious characters and a compelling, slow-building atmosphere of suspense. 


The Raven Boys circles around a quest for the remains of Owain Glendower, legendary Welsh ruler who, like King Arthur, is said to be waiting to rise again when the time is right.  Gansey, one of the four Raven Boys in the novel (they're private school boys whose uniform has a raven on the jacket) is convinced that Glendower's remains lie somewhere in the area of Henrietta, Virginia  (that's in the USA, not Wales, but Gansey has an explanation for the geographic discrepancy) and has involved his three friends Adam, Noah and Connor in his search.   Meanwhile, Blue Sargent, a young woman born into a family of clairvoyant females, has a vivid and peculiar vision regarding Gansey and his death.  When Blue and the Raven Boys meet and begin to investigate the ley lines and other manifestations of mysterious energy in the Virginia landscape,  boundaries between the real world and the otherworldly begin to shift.

It's interesting that there are really two worlds at work here--Blue and her family, all women, all highly intuitive, private,  and  naturally attuned to the world of myth and spirit, and the Raven Boys,  living in a very masculine world of private school, grades, money, cars, and ambition.  Stiefvater is too sophisticated a writer to make this division simple, but moving back and forth between the two groups adds to the reading experience.  I really like how diverse the characters are, and how challenging some of them are to understand--I'm certain there's a lot more to find out about them.  The last line, uttered by Connor, utterly mystified me.  Stiefvater's always been great at creating atmosphere, and I would describe the atmosphere of The Raven Boys as "heightened".  By the end, I was getting chills up my spine.  Of course, I was reading in bed in the dead of night, when I should really have been sleeping...

As well as being a writer, Maggie Stiefvater is a musician and a visual artist.  Here is some art she drew for the trailer of The Raven Boys...I think it's exquisite.  Remember those 19th century illustrated novels for grown-ups, with their colour plates?  I so think Raven Boys could have been done like that. 

And here's the trailer:

Never Too Much Supernatural Romance: Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

I have been a follower of Kaleb Nation's quirky blog TwilightGuy for about a year now. Today I popped in and found out that he's just launched ShiverGuy, a new blog which will give us a male perspective on reading Shiver. I'm looking forward to hearing his thoughts.

I can see why Shiver has been so frequently compared to Twilight. It's a romance between a quiet high school girl and a haunting, tormented werewolf. It touches all the same chords. And, as Kaleb pointed out, it's popularity is snowballing much like Twilight's did. However, to me it stands very much apart from all the Twilight wannabees in the teen book world right now. Shiver is truly a book that stands on its own merits and would have found a rapt audience even without Twilight paving the way.

I found Shiver to be a more introspective book than the adrenaline-charged Twilight. Stiefvater's writing style is quiet and poetic. The language is so beautiful I found myself re-reading certain passages just to linger over the sound and imagery. The care Stiefvater obviously takes with the craft of writing is mirrored by her character Sam, the werewolf love interest in Shiver, who introduces Grace to the poetry of Rilke and writes love songs for her.

Stiefvater's characterization is subtle and interesting. Sam and Grace tell their stories in alternating chapters, and their relationship feels intimate in a way that I don't often experience when reading teen fiction. Heroes and villains are equally humanized by the end of Shiver. Stiefvater's depiction of the wolf world is just as complex. In many ways Sam and his pack seem more attuned to the natural world than Meyer's werewolves, and it calls to them more inevitably. It is wrenching to watch Sam fight for his humanity, and fascinating to see how some of the other werewolves adapt to and even embrace their cycles of change.

There is one scene in Shiver that I found truly disturbing, involving Sam's parents and his memories of their violence towards him when, as a young child, he first became a wolf. This scene, which is recalled twice, makes me hesitant to recommend this book to the tween crowd who lapped up Twilight. I think Shiver is a more mature story, for a slightly older audience.

Here is a link to Stiefvater's beautifully created trailer video for Shiver. (She's an artist and musician, too--a ridiculous amount of talent for one person to have.) I think it captures the mood of the book. Enjoy.