Observations on The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

dream thieves This is my favorite book in The Raven Cycle (so far). Gansey in his Ganseyness. Adam in his Adamness and Blue in her Blueness but most importantly Ronan in his Ronaness. I love him.

  • If you could dream anything and bring it back with you when you awoke, what would it be?
  • What really turned Declan and Ronan into enemies?  Is it just that Declan is a liar and that he upheld Niall’s will without a fight?
  • How long has Declan known about Ronan and Niall?
  • Oh Poor Adam.  It’s almost painful to read about his abuse and almost harder to read him think that he deserved it.
  • I know Adam had to accept his bargain but maybe when he started to see strange things, maybe that’s the time to go to the women who deal with strange things?
  • I don’t think I’ll understand the internet stanning for Kavinsky?  He’s a terrible human being to put it mildly.
  • I’m quite charmed by the courtship of Maura and the Gray Man. To quote Hamilton “So this is what it’s like to match wits”
  • Calla is amazing.  Her interactions with Ronan are always a delight.  They should have more scenes together.
  • I wish I knew more about the Gray Man and his brother.  I get his brother is a sociopath but I feel like there is more there.
  • champagne mistake.  the champagne atrocity.  I just loved how the Gray man described his rental car.
  • Let’s talk about Ronan’s sexuality or how little it’s talked about.  I think that’s it’s great that he never out right says his gay. He doesn’t have too. It’s pretty clear that he is.  Just as it’s pretty clear that Gansey is straight.
  • I wonder if there is more to the break in to Calla’s office at Aglionby.
  • Kate pointed this out but I do love how Maggie writes her female characters.  They stand up for themselves.  They never play the damsel in distress.  When Adam loses his cool when arguing with Adam, Blue doesn’t apologize for making him angry or stands and takes it.  She just tell Adam that she would be outside and he can join her if he calms down.  Take note ladies.

I think I had a few more thoughts but now I can’t remember.  Oh well.  Onto Blue Lily Lily Blue.

Countdown to The Raven King!

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Guess what Guys?!  I just figured out we can do slideshows! This is so exciting to me!  Anyhoo, it’s April!  Finally!  Only 25 more days until the release of the The Raven King!  FINALLY!!!!  I can’t wait!  I’m excited but dreading it all the same time because you know that none of us are coming out of this unscathed.  Now that I think about it, keep Stacks in your thoughts in the last week of April, first week of May because it’s going to be a couple of brutal weeks for Kate and I between this and Captain America.  So here we go, to help everyone prepare for the final book in the The Raven Cycle, we are going to look back at past reviews and commentary about one of our favorite series.

First, Let’s start from the beginning with Kate’s review of The Raven Boys and The Dream Thieves.  Somehow, I haven’t written a formal review for this series.  Strange.

Here are a few more posts about The Raven Cycle

Public Service Announcement

What I’m Thankful for

Books that Rocked My Face off, Part two

Dear Stackologist: Life is Full of Tough Choices

RE: Sexism, Twitter and Giant Insects

Highs and Lows of Fandoms by Cassandra Clare and Maggie Stiefvater

Cover Reveal: The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

Discussion Posts: Re-reading series before the new installment comes out

Fan Art

Books that Rocked My Face Off in 2015

What I Can’t Wait to Read in 2016

Currently Reading: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

And finally, First Listen of The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

Later this week, we will start discussion posts about what we think is going to happen in The Raven King.

First Listen of The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

the raven king
As you know we at Stacks are super excited for the release of The Raven King, the final book in her The Raven Cycle.  We are about a month away!  Today, Maggie Stiefvater posted clips of the Prologue and Chapter 1, read by actor Will Patton on her Tumblr.  There isn’t any spoilers since both excerpts have already been released online but Will does reads a mean book.  So go have a listen and come back and post what you think will happen to Blue and the Boys.  Can you believe it’s only a month away?!

 

http://maggie-stiefvater.tumblr.com/post/141617391621/maggie-stiefvater-heres-will-patton-reading

 

Diverse Stacks, Diverse Lives Reading Challenge.

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Beth and I have done a lot of talking about the kinds of things that reading can do for a person. It really is a magical thing. It can transport you to different worlds. It can imagine new history. It can see potential futures. Studies have even shown that reading literary fiction can help you relate better to other people. So, with this in mind, we’ve put together our first reading challenge. Inspired by #weneedmorediversebooks, we’ve come up with a challenge to make us think about who we are reading and what we are reading about. Our challenge has three sub-challenges: one related to characters, one related to authors, and one related to books themselves. Each sub-challenge is only ten books long, so you can do any of the sub-challenges without changing how you read for the whole year. As a reader, you can tackle the whole challenge or one or more of the sub-challenges.

I will be maintaining a page here on this blog full of possible books to fulfill the challenge that I find in my reading travels. Of course, any suggestions will be helpfully added to the list. Part of what makes diversifying your reading difficult is that you don’t always know something is diverse going in. We are going to endeavor to make that easy by keeping a separate page of suggestions.

Since this challenge is only 30 books, we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of diversity in literature and in life, but we hope that this list and the books that are read because of it will create interesting and thoughtful discussions. We hope that you will consider taking the challenge and reading along with us in 2016!

Cover Reveal: The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

The final book in Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle, The Raven King was supposed to be released later this month.  Unfortunately, Maggie said that she needed more time for editing so it has been pushed back until April.  Gah!  Five more months!  What are we going to do?  Well for now we are going to have to console ourselves with gazing at the gorgeous cover of The Raven King, revealed yesterday.

Featured image

Like the covers of the previous books it’s beautiful but doesn’t give much of way of plot or clues besides a deer will somehow play a part in the story.  In the meantime, we all can spend time theorizing over what is going to happen.  Are Blue and Gansey finally going to kiss and be the doom Gansey?  Are Ronan and Adam going to get together? What about Maura and Butterscotch?  Will they find Glendower? And what is up with Henry and what role does he have in all of this?  Stay Strong.  April will be here before we know it.