Blue Lily, Lily Blue
Maggie Stiefvater
Blue and her Raven Boy friends are getting drawn further and further into Cabeswater. Each of them is experiencing something different, and working towards their own goals. Blue wants to go to college, Rowan wants to keep his dreams alive, Adam is struggling with his new role as the keeper of Cabeswater and Gansey is Gansey.
There are some interesting things going on in this novel. If you wait too long after reading something, you lose those things. It’s not that I’ve waited too long, its that I’ve read about 5 books in the mean time. Oops?
Finally people are paying attention to things! Rather than being stupid. Stupid people. Although really, they aren’t that bright. Or rather, they’re usually so caught up in their own business they don’t notice. So here we have others coming onto the scene of Cabeswater, and rather than actually working with what they have, they have to strive for more. No! Don’t be stupid! But that wouldn’t make a good story.
Do I see any character progression? I don’t know. Do I see any world-building? Yes, I think I do. Do I feel an empathy with the characters? Well, actually, I think I like Gansey and Blue the best, which is kind of annoying since they are the main characters anyway. But maybe it is because I am looking forward to Gansey dying. They could all die for all I care.
No complaints, but nothing special anyway. I don’t remember it enough to give a firm opinion, which is probably a bad thing. 3 stars? Yeah, I guess so.
The twist in this novel is that you don’t know there is a twist. I’m really not sure how long Will’s situation has been the way it is, but you get the snap-shot of when things are really changing. Will is very skittish, but cute all the same. Julian is not cute. He’s just annoying and pushy and a great friend.
Most of us want to hope that we won’t fall for a Con. Who would get into a pyramid scheme? Hell, I was almost pulled into one as a kid, but it didn’t work in Australia because we don’t have $1 notes to post. The deal was that you post $1 to each person on the list, then you add your name to the bottom of the list. Then the more people you send it to, the more you make back. Now it costs a $1 to send the damn letter, so you wouldn’t even break even!
I’m not certain what kind of audience this book is aimed for. Maybe for a tween girl? Someone who just wants to dip into a book, be inspired, then come back out. It took me maybe 5 minutes to read it, and I wouldn’t see myself buying the book myself.
I feel like it is possible that this novel had too many themes crammed into it, but instead I felt like they all balanced themselves out. It read exactly like the protagonist was thinking and feeling. Ash struck me as so confused, and yet so cute. And don’t be put off by the ‘teacher crush’ thing. It’s not a big deal, its just used as a prop for forwarding Ash’s character development.
Ah, the ending. It tidied things up nicely. Perhaps too nicely. Worlds never end like that. So it could be unexpected, except the minute a couple of people do their ‘expose’ thing, then it becomes obvious what is happening around that, and it proves to be inevitable. It was already so unpredictable, in its own way it was predictable.
All the characters feel one-dimensional, which is ironic, given that pretty much only 2D things can slip through the current crack used by Elliot and Madeline. I’m sure they could all pass through too!
This novel started so slowly and got so confusing at times that I couldn’t work out what was going on. I struggled to get into it, and found myself easily distracted. Near the end, I was finally hit with a shock of ‘wow’, but it only lasted a couple of pages.
I admit I had difficulty remembering which character was which for the majority of the novel. Not the main characters, but the side ones (haha). The abbreviations of their names tripped me up.
Elspeth goes from a lonely loner to someone who dares to have friends. Funny how losing everything seems to do that to a person. She progresses rapidly from someone only concerned about saving herself to someone who can and will help others. It’s that transformation that brought me back to this novel over and over again.