Words On Paper: Bookanistas Review: The Dream Thieves

Given how much I love Maggie Stiefvater’s writing and how much I thoroughly enjoyed The Raven Boys, I wasn’t surprised that I loved The DreamThieves. It’s every bit as beautiful as the first book, the characters every bit as wonderful.

So instead of telling you about all the things I loved about this book—which is pretty much everything—I’ll give you my top four.

1. Ronan. In the first book, we got to know Ronan through the eyes of Gansey, Blue, and Adam, but The Dream Thieves is very much Ronan’s book. We still have the other three POVs, but Ronan’s is by far the largest. I knew he was a complicated character, but I loved seeing the world through his eyes, seeing how he loved others. (I was especially fond of him when we learn about something he did for Adam.) He’s not as easy to sympathize with as Gansey (who despite my affections for Ronan still remains my favorite Raven Boy), but he’s real and often raw and such a rich character.

2. Adam. I’ll be honest, Adam kind of irked me in the last book. He treated Gansey like crap because he’s a prideful boy, and turned his back on his best friends. In this book, Adam’s no saint. But there’s a point at the end when he finally knows who he is, when he finally realizes that nothing needs to hold him back—not even where he came from. There’s a line I won’t repeat because of spoilers, but another character speaks it to Adam and it’s a beautiful, beautiful moment of self-acceptance.

3. Noah and Blue. Oh goodness. There’s a scene in the book between Noah and Blue that I read twice because it was so adorable. I’m talking jelly beans and cotton candy sweet. The friendship between those two was a surprising and welcome addition to the story, and this scene? One of my two favorite in the book.

4. Gansey and Blue. My second favorite scene in the book is between the two characters I want more than anything to get together but who can’t because, as Blue knows, it’s doomed. There’s such a sweet scene between the two of them that made me smile a sad smile. My only complaint is that these two felt a bit sidelined by other storylines, and I found myself wishing I could have spent more time with them.

And there you have it. Of course, there are a million other reasons for you to pick up this excellent second book, but here’s all you need to know: This is most definitely worth a read.