On the second Monday of every month, we
choose an outstanding YA book to review. We want to spotlight books of interest
to aspiring writers, as well as highlight some of our favorite books and
authors!
Synopsis (from Goodreads):
Every year,
Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk
past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from
the dark and speaks directly to her.
His name is
Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the
local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys.
Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.
But Blue is
drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family
money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He
is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the
scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce
soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the
four, who notices many things but says very little.
For as long
as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to
die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes
caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so
sure anymore.
From Maggie
Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy
and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the
inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never
been before
First Line: “It was freezing in the churchyard, even before
the dead arrived.”
While the
passive voice has been (has been=passive) frowned upon by many writers since
Strunk & White’s attack on it in Elements
of Style nearly a hundred years ago, many writers make passive sing as
Stiefvater does in her opening line.
The power and
danger of the passive voice is that it is passive, and renders its nouns
passive as well. Here, the passive “was” removes the power from the churchyard;
she then juxtaposes an active “arrived” immediately following the passive
churchyard empowering those who are arriving: the dead. That move immediately
sets the tone that those in power here are the dead. So subtle. So well done.
The verb
unpower play here reminds me of my all-time favorite use of the passive voice:
James Joyce’s Dubliners. Joyce de-activates his verbs as a political warning to
his fellow Dubliners that they are losing voice and power to the Brits. His
culminating story in the work haunts like Stiefvater’s opening line as it is
aptly entitled “The Dead.” Both also use a haunting cold to prime the reader
for fear, which I like.
Highlights:
I was delighted by her plot twists. I
was surprised multiple times, and each time it felt as though I should have
seen it coming, a tough thing to pull off. Having grown up with all brothers in
a neighborhood of boys, I also liked being surrounded by a pack of well-drawn
guys, each fitting a different archetype: a trope perfected by One Direction, BIg Time Rush, The Jonas Brothers, Backstreet Boys,
In Sync, NKOTB, and the like, but done far less cheesily here.
Notes for Writers:
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| Signing at ALA |
Stiefvater wrote a spine shivery fun
book, but she also was able to weave in some timely and interesting thematic
elements really naturally. A lot of the dystopian novels have been playing with
the big questions of our day by taking them to their worst natural conclusion
as is the job of dystopia; here Stiefvater also tackles a big question, but
through character development.
Much of the tension in the pack of boys
here is derived from an economic gap. Readers may wrestle with issues of the 1
percent-ers and the 99 percent-ers through the subtle and overt friendship struggle
between best friends on either side. Interesting that the book will be released
a few months before a presidential election that may be won or lost on how
candidates treat the economy.
A Good Read For: Fans of Maggie Stiefvater (obviously), but also anyone who likes a good
ghost story, is into astrology, or who grew up on Harry Potter and now wants to spend time with a bunch of
rich boys and the quirky daughter of psychics helicoptering through forests in
search of power.
The Raven Boys will hit the shelves
September 2012
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| She signed both for me. So nice! |
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