Review: The Dream Thieves

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book gets four stars from me, albeit four very confused stars.

The writing of this book is incredible! Maggie Steifvater really found herself with this one, both in terms of story and style. The way this book is written has such a surreal dream-like style without becoming purple prose. It's a perfect feel for the weird supernatural plot she's spun.

The characters are also spot-on. No one is a stock; there are layers and twisted backstories behind everyone. The way The Raven Boys was mostly Blue's Book, The Dream Thieves primarily follows Ronan as he learns about his supernatural powers--to pull objects out of his dreams--and how it relates to his family history. Ronan, while being a bit of a cliched bad boy, stands to be a strong main character.

Of course the rest of the crew gets their own stories. Blue struggles with her curse to kill her true love if she kisses him, Gansey continues to seek Glendower, Noah is popping in and out of existence, and Adam is struggling with money and his relationship with the ley line.

My absolute favorite character, who was just introduced in this book, is the Gray Man. He is perfectly suited to my dry dark humor because, well, he's a hit man. His interactions with Blue and Maura are priceless. To paraphrase some dialogue:

Blue: What's your favorite weapon?
Mr. Gray: Opportunity.

Praise aside, though, I'll repeat what seems to be everyone's major issue with this book: it was confusing. Like crazy confusing.

Have you ever felt like an author was in on some huge secret and expected you to be, too? Because that's exactly how I felt the entire time reading. To be fair, it's been over a year since reading The Raven Boys, but the more I got into the book, the more I realized that wasn't my only problem.

The thing that was hardest for me to understand was Ronan's relationship with Kavinsky. The drama and bitterness between them seemed so epic, but I never really grasped why. And when it was revealed that he [view spoiler][ is also a Graywarren, it's supposed to be some big deal. But why? He's some junky kid who dreams up drugs and thinks he can do anything. The same way The Gray Man easily prevailed over his brother, which was handled wonderfully, Ronan was better than Kavinsky from the start and a big showdown seemed almost unnecessary. (hide spoiler)]

The main reasons this gets such a great rating from me:
- Blue is such a sarcastic dark teen and I adore her to pieces.
- Gansey is a bastard and I love him.
- Mr. Gray's humor.
- The kiss scene. That kiss scene. The most exhilarating, depressing kiss of all kisses.
- Blue's household of hilariously odd psychics.

I'm not one to splurge buying books, but I'll be out to buy Blue Lily, Lily Blue within the week!


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