#i forgot how obsessed Gansey is with Adam

[waestlandbaby]

Adam Parrish laughing silently, The Dream Thieves, Maggie Stiefvater

Image 1: Gansey raised an eyebrow. "That? Is a toaster." / "Dream Toaster." / Adam laughed soundlessly.

Image 2: "Gansey, don't make light," Malory said sternly. "Those things look like bloody puffins." / Adam's body shook in silent convulsions of laughter.

[zephfair]

Sending you a fandom!! The Raven Cycle!!

Ah, my current unhealthy obsession! Thanks very much! 😘💖

The first character I first fell in love with:  Ronan. Who is this mysterious bad boy who "found" a baby raven and swears a lot and drives fast? He's perfect!🤣

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now: Gansey. I liked him a lot at the beginning, but as the story veered down other avenues, I sort of forgot how much I liked him. Then on the re-read, I was all🥰😍 Gansey.😍🥰 Also Henry. I thought he was a total deus ex machina, but when I read the series again, I forgave him for the Author's machinations and loved him for his fabulous self.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t: Uhh Kavinsky? Hennessy?

The character I love that everyone else hates:  Handcat. Also Niall Lynch.😔 Also also Bryde.🫢

The character I used to love but don’t any longer: PLEASE DON'T HATE ME OR STONE ME, OK, I'M SORRY BUT I TRY TO BE 100% HONEST. But for real, one paragraph in Greywaren just turned me from eh, I can like him🤷‍♀️, to eh, I knew I didn't like him or understand him for at least 3 books and this makes me dislike him as a person all over again😒😠. And now I'm too scared to say it because if I do, fandom will cancel me. I'm too fragile for that.😨 He's fine, it's all fine, I'm fine. I don't have to loooove him to appreciate him.🤣😔

The character I would totally smooch:  Gansey. Or Declan.😚

The character I’d want to be like: Blue. She's kind and hard-working, and she truly loves her friends and family. I really admire her dedication to trying to be her authentic self. I wish I'd had that kind of confidence at that age! Or now!

The character I’d slap:  Mor. But then she'd rip my arm off and slap me with it, so I'll keep my slaps to myself. Or Kavinsky, but again, I'm not fast enough and he'd meet my violence with extreme violence, I'm afraid.

A pairing that I love: Ronan and Adam! Ronan and Gansey! Gansey and Blue! Gansey Blue and Henry! Declan and Jordan! I actually have several het pairings for this fandom which is unusual, but they're awesome characters!

A pairing that I despise: I'll read just about any pairing if it's written well. 😉

Thank you so very much for the ask! This was enlightening to myself!🤣

Send me a fandom...

[strawberryswitchblader]

here are my prediction on how the resolving of SIX books and roughly 60000 plotlines is going to be done in 352 pages 

-ok so adam was scrying right? so i forgot how ley lines actually worked but ive decided that when the ley line power went out the connection between the waking and dream world is severed in other words adam’s soul is in the dreamscape where he was trying to reach ronan & his body is in a coma. ronan and bryde are also trapped in the dreamscape because why not i forgot what actually happened in mi. 

declan is like ok i should probably tell adam’s friends that he is in a coma or whatever so he calls gansey blue and henry to tell them what ronan has been up to they say hi. no hint of sarchengsey no iconic lines the line just goes dead. gansey, understandably upset that ronan has been committing ecoterrorism and NO ONE TOLD HIM, and also adam parrish prince among men is in a coma, crashed the car. they’re fucking dead. bye

declan also has to navigate adam’s pathetic apostles nice college friends being useless. jordan is also there and roasts them mercilessly of course.

-we get some boring ass farooq lane x liliana did anyone else feel like our only lesbian couple were kinda halfhearted? anyway that’s all the sapphic action we’re gonna get

-adam and ronan hate kiss and bryde is like yo i’m right here

-adam is worried hes gonna miss his exams and bryde is like do you see ronan? the foolishness of the common folk? the non dreamers dont give a shit about you or the ley lines or the world and you should never love a non dreamer actually you should never love anyone ever if their life doesnt revolve around you and their priorities don’t perfectly align with yours and ronan is like well i am weirdly obsessed with commitment and being super close and tbh this is appealing to me and adam is like hey some of us can’t dream food and money into existence 🙄

-declan is sitting at the foot of matthew’s bed. matthew is asleep because he’s a fucking dream. dusk is falling or whatever. declan angsts about his unprocessed grief for his mom and how he channels that into acting like dreams arent real. sad violins. 

-jordan is like dude you proposed to me meaning you secretly believe that dreams are actual persons. also can we talk about that proposal and the way both you and ronan have the same very specific idea of commitment 

-then hennessy walks in and is like what’s up here’s the deal about me and jordan mkay so she’s not a dream at all she is my twin sister. she used to be the dreamer and she had this lace problem the whole time until she dreamt the dream ability into me she also dreamt me the fake memories of dreaming her and also her most traumatic memories, the ones related to our mom, so that she doesn’t have to deal with them. i discovered this knowledge through the hard and introspective experience of liliana telling me.

-probably the mor o corra plotline gets shoehorned in there as well but i forgot what it was all about so decide for yourself what happened there. use your imagination.

-probably some other shit goes down too idk im hungry

-basically i expect maggie is gonna take all these fucking plotlines and character development waiting to happen and rollllll it up in the world’s messiest gayest ball of yarn and stuff it in 352 pages and everyone is gonna be stressed about it. have a good day

[neon-nocte]

Arielle re-reads The Dream Thieves (via audiobook)

I literally don’t care if anyone reads this, it’s fun. Also to set the scene 90% of the time I have been listening to this audiobook I have been playing animal crossing

Declan’s Aglionby dorm door reads “effervescent.” Yes ma’am

Declan pointing a gun at the grey man!! God I am excited for more badass Declan in mister impossible

“Ronan, a sinner himself, wasn’t as struck by the transgression as he was by Gansey’s insistence that they continue to pretend Adam was a saint.” (Ch 3) — and earlier in the chapter, the narration reflected that Ronan’s leather bracelets smelled like gasoline, which Ronan found sexy. I love me some “Ronan Lynch is in love with Adam Parrish” foreshadowing!!!!

Also, just the way Ronan Knows Adam. Adam’s “unknowable” arc, and the above quote, and when Blue says she doesn’t know Adam during their breakup scene, and in TRK when Adam talks to Gansey about his first kiss with Ronan, Gansey says that Adam knows Ronan better but Gansey has known Ronan longer.

“Blue was a fanciful but sensible thing, like a platypus, or one of those sandwiches that had been cut into circles for a fancy tea party.” (Ch 10) — omfg I cannot believe this quote isn’t more famous in this fandom. I’m obsessed[[more]]

The way that Maura & The Grey Man have instant chemistry... could’ve been Blue & Gansey’s dynamic if she wasn’t so stubbornly “choosing” Adam

The way the Adam-mask-dream scene parallels & foreshadows the Adam-choking-Ronan scene from TRK....

The entirety of 1) Ronan writing on the rock in Cabeswater 2) Ronan dreaming of Adam in the mask and 3) the gang visiting the barns for the first time scenes are soooo good

Gansey in a t-shirt and jeans and both Ronan and Blue are a little ☺️😮 at seeing his collarbones

Ah yes the Classic “Ronan wasn’t a fan of lamps”

How Gansey holding the sleeping mouse reminded Ronan of being at the barns with Matthew as a kid.... Ronan Lynch has 3 brothers and that’s canon 😭

Adam finding the mask in the house at the barns and Ronan knocking it put of his hands, then hating everything about the house and his father and himself. 😭Cant really tell Adam “don’t mess with this particular dream object because it fucked you over in my dream and I can’t stand that because I’m in love with you, which is the whole reason why you were in my dream to begin with.”

Do you ever get that strange sense of deja vu when rereading a book and getting to a scene you don’t remember well until you read it again?

Blue going back & forth on whether Gansey was “oblivious” or “enlightened” during the argument about tarot & religion. I forgot how fun it is to watch Blue’s opinion of Gansey evolve in real time. She wants to hate him, to find him annoying, but he just keeps surprising her

Ronan cracking up at the obvious show of “men being attracted to women” when Adam & Gansey are all awed over Orla during the lake scene always sends me

Some things want to be found. !!!!!!!

I had forgotten that Ronan had dreamed about Adam tracing his tattoo on his bare back with his fingers! Foreshadowing to TRK!!!!

Seeing Adam incredibly nervous for the event with Gansey’s family one moment and then cracking the fuck up at the conversation about the pigeon show with Malory the next moment made me happy!

Mmm Blue admitting to herself that she is crushing on Gansey and NOT on Adam, finally we can get this show on the road. And by show I mean both Bluesey and Pynch

It’s the Blue picturing the dreaming tree vision of kissing Gansey to get in the mood for her kissing practice with Noah for me

The Adam/Blue breakup scene is so fucking iconic... for some reason “it’s not gonna be you” has always been hilarious to me

Adam, honey.... we should all be raging feminists. regardless of whether we are dating blue sargent.

I loveeeeeeeeee the Adam & Persephone dynamic and I’m so excited to see more of it in BLLB even tho :/ happens

I cannot stop myself from grinning like a fool during chapter 50 as Fully Psychic Adam refuses the narrative that his 3-card spread tells and pulls a 4th card. The magician!!! Yes boo!

When Adam asks Persephone if he’s different and she tells him that he already was but not the others won’t be able to stop noticing. Makes me think about Ronan, and how this is really when his & Ronan’s friendship changes, so it’s interesting that this occurs literally the very next scene after Adam’s breakup with blue

Scholar Gansey is my favorite Gansey too Blue

Blue & Gansey’s “let’s just pretend” scene 😭😭😭😭

Blue just trying to remain sensible the one time it actually fucking matters, he’s gonna be dead within the year! But she can’t resist! Because Gansey is canonically her soulmate 😭😭😭

Sometimes I get so into pynch that I forget how fucking tragically beautiful the Bluesey story is. They’re so good I love them so much

If I’m ever in a situation where I’m like “I’m not sure if I’m meant to be with This person or That person” I just need to reread all of the Bluesey scenes in this book for clarity

disregard all of the above my favorite ship in the series is blue Sargent/pink switchblade

“Gansey, who had looked aghast at the idea of the Grey Man having to abandon his books...” (ch 54) — god I love Gansey

Thinking about the TDT Ronan who is just learning how to control what he takes from his dreams vs CDTH Ronan who is like Hennessy’s Dreaming Professor

In other words, Ronan is to Hennessey in CDTH what Persephone is to Adam in TDT/BLLB. Or what Kavinsky is to Ronan minus literally everything about him besides his knowledge of how to dream

I remember when I first read this series I was lowkey shook at the “Ronan’s second secret was Adam” part even though it was obvious by then that Ronan was 1) gay and 2) gay for Adam. But as a lesbian who has been burned by queerbaiting so many times I was like yay! The bar is so low I stg

BLLB is the Book of Pining within the series so that will be extremely fun to listen to

[wondereads]

Personal Review (05/01/22)

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Why am I reviewing this book?

I actually meant to review this book ages ago, but for some reason I completely forgot. I feel really bad about it because I actually really enjoyed this book! This one may be a little bit less in dept because it's been a few months, but I'll do my best!

Plot 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

When Blue Sargent asks for the name of a ghost that's supposed to die within the next year, he tells her the name "Gansey". Only a few days later, he and his friends show up at the restaurant where Blue works. Not only that, but Gansey, Adam, Rowan, and Noah are hunting down an ancient Welsh king, Glyndwr, who supposedly never died and will grant a wish to whoever wakes him. Blue is intrigued, but they aren't the only people in town with their eyes on the wish.

I will say, this book is sort of slow-paced. It takes quite a while for any progress to be made towards their search, but it's pretty obvious it isn't about Glyndwr (or Glendower); it's about how the characters develop as the search continues. Still, that's not to say nothing happens at all.

The overarching plot, even beyond Glyndwr, is between Blue and Gansey. Despite them tolerating each other at best, she keeps having prophetic visions related to him, ones that usually predict tragedy. The end of the book keeps that open-ended, so there's definitely encouragement to keep reading as if the last line wasn't enough. On top of that is one of the boys' professors who seems to be obsessed with Glyndwr. And then there's all the interpersonal conflict between the main characters and their families. Also, what's going on with Neeve? Definitely enough to keep the plot moving, even if it keeps a meandering pace.

There are two significant plot twists in this book. The first one is about two-thirds of the way through. According to my friends, this one is an easy one to predict, but it completely knocked me off my feet. Up until that point, I was enjoying the book, but it wasn't anything special. That plot twist changed my mind. The second is revealed in the very last line, but it certainly is a doozy. Have fun!

Characters 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

The characters are definitely the strongest point of this book. The main character Blue is very well executed. For a girl with pretty much no friends beyond four boys she picked up on the side of a road, it would be so easy to make her into some sort of "not like other girls" or "pick me" stereotype. However, she never falls into the trap of thinking badly about other girls, at least not yet. Blue knows getting involved with a boy would spell bad news for her, and she manages to keep a pretty level head about the whole thing. I do love sensible main characters.

The boys are still somewhat enigmas to me. Sure, I have a good grasp on their characters, but I have a feeling there's much more than meets the eye that will be revealed in later books. Gansey and Adam are both incredibly well-developed, and neither of their personalities are boiled down to "love interest". Also, the tension between them, not because of Blue but because of class difference is so interesting. The way it's been handled so far is pretty superb, and the uneasiness of their relationship, especially towards the end, adds an extra layer. Rowan is pretty one-dimensional, angry and snarky, up until the latter parts of the book, but something tells me there'll be more focus on him in the next book.

There isn't much to say about the side characters except for the antagonist, but I feel like saying too much about him spoils things. He's driven, and his obsession comes through quite well. The rest of the characters do lack development because Blue and the boys spend most of their time only with each other.

Writing Style 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

I think the voices of the characters came through very well in this book. The perspective jumps around from chapter to chapter, but I was still able to feel a genuine connection to the characters. Blue and Whelk in particular came through strongly; Blue's sensibility and Whelk's crazed fixation. However, the boys were a little more neutral in their perspectives, and I think it's a side effect of trying to keep secrets about their characters.

The descriptions themselves were pretty typical, though the scenes that particularly stood out were the ones that dealt with the supernatural, such as Blue's visions. The emotions tend to run high in those parts, and the writing reflects it.

Overall 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10

Going into this book, I wasn't expecting to like it so much. The summary on the back of the book does not do this story justice. Despite being on the slower side, the plot could never be considered boring, and the characters and their relationships with each other were fascinating. I found myself very easily getting attached to Blue since her sensibility definitely appeals to me.

The Author

Maggie Stiefvater: American, 40, also wrote Shiver, The Scorpio Races, and Call Down the Hawk

The Reviewer

My name is Wonderose; I try to post a review every two weeks, sometimes once a week, usually over vacations. I take recommendations! Check out my about me post for more!

[bookcub]

TRC Update Five

pg 142- I just love Blue and Ronan’s relationship. I want a book about them, just being snarky and defending the people they love. 

pg 143- “Blue’s look said, I’m so, so sorry. Gansey’s said, Am I the pretty one?” (I just love that line)

pg 177- The Little Mermaid: The Original Tail (ha, get it?) (Also, Mr. Grey and Blue’s interactions are wonderful) 

pg 191- How can physical descriptions of people compare after reading Magigie Stiefvater’s? (how well her collarbone and neck got along.) 

pg 206- I was just in stitches reading the scene with Malory and the birds. (by the way, German Beauty Homers do look like bloody puffins) 

pg 211- The scene where Blue and Noah kiss is so sweet. 

pg 249- Gansey is so smitten with Blue. He thinks of her and her home as relaxing and very Henrietta. So cute. 

pg 271- On that note, Kavinsky is obsessed with Ronan and it is creepy. (Ronan go back to Adam!!!) 

pg 332- The Grey Man gently throws people. 

pg 340- Blue makes steamed broccoli in self defense. Ha. 

pg 356- I forgot that Kravinsky found out Ronan was gay first. He should be able to come out to who he wants when he wants. 

pg 359- Ronan pays part of Adam’s rent. So sweet. 

pg 360- Also, the epilogue about the secrets reminds me of The Name of the Wind, especially the part about silence and the part about sleep. 

@logarithmicpanda here’s my wrap up!