Why I Love the Raven Cycle and Thus Desire an ARC of Blue Lily, Lily Blue

Maggie Stiefvater is giving away a bunch of copies of Blue Lily, Lily Blue, and the way to win is to write (blog, tweet, post, status update) about one reason why you enjoyed reading the Raven Cycle.

The giveaway is open for ONE DAY ONLY.

So here I am writing about my love of these books when I should be getting ready for school tomorrow. 

 If you've been following my blog for the last few months at least, you'll know that there are many reasons why the Raven Cycle fascinates me: the fresh writing style, the distinct characters, the well-structured plot. But I'm supposed to only write about one reason, so I'm going to be a good little girl and follow the rules here. And for that, I'm going to choose:

Why I love the Raven Cycle: The Characters are fantastically real and distinct from one another. And I ADORE that.

Another thing you probably know (or have had shoved down your throat) if you know me is that the main criteria for me to like a book is for the characters to be excellent. The Raven Cycle fulfills this marvelously and so places itself on my Top Books of 2014 list. (That list is only in my head as of now.)

Why are the Raven Cycle characters so great? Here are some reasons:

1. No one can be mistaken for anyone else. When it's Gansey's POV, we know its Gansey's POV. When it's Blue's POV, we know that too. And when it's Ronan's POV, we definitely know it's Ronan. :-) There's no confusion. It all works.

2. There are five main characters but it's not overwhelming. Any author who can pull this off has my highest respect. This means that all the characters are distinctly Themselves, and so they are realistic. They aren't flat.

3. All characters have a backstory. Even the side ones. In the Raven Cycle, you can't trust a side character not to become a supporting character, since they're all so robustly characterized. (That sounds weird but you know what I mean.) For example, I loved that all the ladies at Blue's house have their own personalities and backstories. Who knew that Persephone would become such a Main Thing in Dream Thieves? 

I realize now that these three points are just three different ways of saying the same thing. Maggie's characters seem to just be plucked out of reality. They all have a three-dimensionality to them, whether they are leading or supporting; they all can be the main characters of their own story.

The more three-dimensional the characters are, the better I can "loose" myself in a book. And the better I can loose myself, the more I like it. 

Given this reasoning, it is of little surprise that I love the Raven Cycle so much! I'm so excited to see where my beloved characters will go in Blue Lily, Lily Blue.

~Sophia

Update: I didn't win, sadly. But I still consider this a fine post on The Raven Cycle, and maybe it makes up a bit for my teeny tiny review of The Dream Thieves.