Lazy Saturday Review: Dream a Little Dream of Me…

I borrowed this idea from Lipsyy @ Lipsyy Lost & Found. Here is what she has to say about it:

I started doing ‘lazy Saturday reviews’ as a way of getting reviews done in just 30 mins, and they proved to be quite popular. They are quick and snappy, and concentrate less on the plot (or content) and writing and more on my overall feelings about said book. They generally end up being a bit of a rant. My fave!

Title: The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Publisher: Scholastic
Release date: September 30th 2014
Format: Paperback
Rating: ⭐️⭐️ and a half

If you could steal things from dreams, what would you take?

Ronan Lynch has secrets. Some he keeps from others. Some he keeps from himself.

One secret: Ronan can bring things out of his dreams.

And sometimes he’s not the only one who wants those things.

Ronan is one of the raven boys—a group of friends, practically brothers, searching for a dead king named Glendower, who they think is hidden somewhere in the hills by their elite private school, Aglionby Academy. The path to Glendower has long lived as an undercurrent beneath town. But now, like Ronan’s secrets, it is beginning to rise to the surface—changing everything in its wake.

If you never saw the stars, candles were enough.

Donna is not impressed.

This sentence perfectly sums up my impressions on The Dream Thieves.

Yes, the writing is still brilliant. Yes, the characters you fell in love with in the first book are still here. Yes, the place is the same. But something is off. While The Raven Boys engrossed me from the first page, The Dream Thieves failed to grab my attention for two third of the book. 2/3 of a 400 hundred pages book. Don’t ask me how many pages it equals to, I’m terrible at maths. You can think of it as twice the boredom you get when you’re stuck at the kids’ table during family reunions. I was bored, there is no other way to say it.

It surely has to do with the fact that Ronan Lynch is my least favorite character. I had a feeling the book would be about him (hint: that title does not leave room for imagination) but I was not expecting everyone else being reduced to secondary characters, or even appearances. Poor Noah. 400 pages surely left enough room for every character to get a bit of development. I’m gonna need so many chocolate bars to get over this disappointment.

All of us have secrets in our lives. We’re keepers or kept-from, players or played. Secrets and cockroaches —­­­ that’s what will be left at the end of it all.

Another issue I had with the second book in The Raven Cycle is the fast track used to solve a rather important issue regarding an essential point of the story (I can’t be more vague that this…!) I am always leery of romance and I roll my eyes a lot whenever love triangle drama happens. I did not have enough time to roll my eyes here. Everything was solved before I could say “of course!”. I would have liked to see things evolve more slowly and more naturally. It only felt as if the matter had to be done with in this part for the rest of the series to roll along.

The plot did not convince me either, despite the introduction of new characters. It did get better towards the end, as I could feel the vibe of the first book making its way back into the story, but it was too late for me to enjoy the story.

Bonus point: intriguing prologue (See, it happens!) and a few great quotes.

Verdict: Let’s forget about this and grab Blue Lily, Lily Blue soon.

Did you read The Dream Thieves? Is Ronan your book boyfriend? What did you think of the book?

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