Amateur Mini Book Club, Day One

Day One

Location -- Noisy Coffee Shop where I prove that I CAN be much noisier than the noise.

- Goodreads

- BookLikes

- Amazon

This is pretty much how it went down in a not so very brief-tastic summary with probable exaggerations and some paraphrased conversations because my memory sucks at exact details and maybe I should have been recording everything, but I didn't.  Anyway, long day aside, this is my best friend and my first attempt at committing to something like a book club.  But we tend to be more or less easy-going about books, so we agreed on simply discussing how we feel about the book thus far with no "high school style" deep analysis.

The session was overall pretty laid back, and as my best friend likes to remain anonymous within the online world (she doesn't even have a social networking account of any kind outside of her GR account that she rarely frequents), I shall refer to her as BFF.

Me: 

Shows up 15 minutes late and immediately starts talking about how life sucks and our table is in the middle of too much crowd.  Wonders what kind of fattening fancy coffee shop drink to get.

BFF:

"Yeah, it's really crowded tonight."  Proceeds to talk about book and how she had wanted to read more than our agreed upon ten chapters because she was enjoying it.  "I read all ten chapters in one whole sitting... then I sort of started on the next chapter a little bit..."

Me:

"Oh right.  The book."  Plops down onto the chair.  "Um... I'm enjoying it too.  But honestly, I liked Puck's portion of the narration more than the other guy."  Because Puck sounds wittier and livelier and I like wit and sarcasm and liveliness.  And I also like the relationship between Puck and her brothers.

Gives very brief "I can relate" segway with a roll of the eyes and wave of the hand about Puck's relationship with her brothers.  Continues to wonder what type of fancy drink to indulge in.

BFF: 

"I thought of that too!"  Proceeds to flip through book to end of Chapter 3 after Puck's elder brother, Gabe, announced that he's leaving the island... for good.  Puck feels abandoned, little brother Finn is semi-trying to keep the peace.  Puck tries to act nonchalant and brave.  

"I especially made the connection at this part," points to book, "here when Puck goes to her room and says something like, 'Jackass', or whatever.  I thought it sounded like you and your brother."

(Random tangent)

Well, the actual line is, "Selfish bastard," right before Puck sobs into her pillow after putting on a strong front and proclaiming that she's going to participate in the races that could get people killed because they'll need the money if she can win it.  But nonetheless, the sentiments and the feelings are there.  And yes, while I don't relate with Puck too much (she's pluckier and has more determination than I do), I can relate with her situation somewhat.  The difference is that her parents are gone and mine are still here, but between the "selfish bastard" big brother and the strange little brother with disjointed behavior and unpredictable color commentary, I think that's pretty similar in some ways.

(Random tangent end)

Me: 

Talks about the difference between Sean and Puck and why Puck is more easily related to than Sean.  Sean is too dark and broody -- dark and broody doesn't always work for main male characters.  

BFF:

Talks about some lines in certain chapters she has highlighted and why.

Me:

At some point during the discussion that I can't quite remember, points at a nearby taller table that just got vacated.  With a happy grin: "Window table."

And so the two of us scramble to the new table with our crap in tow as I finally decide that I need to get me one of those fancy coffee shop drinks before we get serious.  Moments later, when I return to the table, we start chatting about the book again, but there is a very distinct agreement between the two of us about certain things:

1)  The book is enjoyable and Puck is a nice, fun girl to follow.

2)  Sean is too broody and we both found his parts of the story too somber and too monotone so far.  We understand that he's broody for a reason (he'd recently lost his father to a water horse "accident" and watched his father die and he's stuck in this endless cycle of the Scorpio Races where everyone wants his opinion), but we believe that broodiness is just his way of being male and dramatic at the same time.  If he were a woman, people would be telling him to build a bridge.  

Also, we determined that Sean seems to have this complex where he seems to see himself on a different level than everyone else around him, in an arrogant, "I know more than you about these water horses" type of way which we think makes him feel superior to everyone else.

And the idea that Sean is drawn to the water the same way that the water horses are drawn to the sea... a little disturbing.

(Random personal tangent): When I first read the description of this book, I had pictured Sean as some gangly, young kid with a big-person ego too big for him to handle.  I was thinking of him as some stubborn child wanting to prove a point by racing in the Scorpio Races against professionals.  And now after reading the book, I realize that my pre-impression of him was quite wrong since he is obviously the Water Horse Yoda on the island.  Go figure.  (Random personal tangent end)

3)  BFF and I are both interested in seeing the first interaction between Sean and Puck with their differing personalities.  Puck lost her parents to water horses during one of the annual races as well in a "tragic accident", but she maintains a rather light view of life as seen here:

Setting them out on the table, three lonely plates where once there would've been five, depresses me, so I busy myself making some mint tea to go with them.  As I arrange and rearrange the teacups by our plates, it occurs to me, too late, that mint tea and apple cake might not go together.

The way in which Puck's mind operates is hard to grasp since these tiny little details also tells so much about how she feels, bringing a possible somber, melancholic moment into a more thoughtful, puzzling moment.  This is also setting aside the fact that the siblings are having apple cake for dinner.

4)  Water horses are super creepy.

5)  Maggie Stiefvater is awesome!

Okay, maybe that last one was all me, but there is no amount of words I can use to describe why I love Maggie's writing.

Moving along, we make other comments about the book.

My BFF seems to like big romantic ideals and gestures, so she points out that she highlighted the moment when Puck first sees Sean as he rides past on his red stallion... and then is known to her as "the rider on the red stallion" (BFF:  "That just sounded so hot!") until she learns his real name not long afterwards.  We both take note that Puck is attracted to Sean first (since he is obviously good looking as a main YA male character) and because he's "kinda hot" as the "rider on the red stallion". In hindsight, I agree that it was quite the description and rather grand; I take note and file the idea away for further blogging.

Surprisingly, despite my being a hopeless romantic, that moment that BFF mentions was completely overlooked by yours truly.  I seemed to have veered more towards the sibling relationship and enjoyed more moments between Puck and Finn:

- Puck and Finn racing in the first chapter.

- Puck and Finn having stilted conversation after Finn is shaken by the encounter with the water horse.

- Finn making hot chocolate in the morning for himself and Puck, but managing to botch it somehow and leaving the smell of burnt something on the stove as this exchange happens:

"You made this?"

Finn looks at me.  "No, Saint Anthony brought it to me in the night.  He was very put out I didn't give it to you right then."

[...]

I am shocked, both by the reappearance of Finn's humor and the gift of the hot chocolate.  I see now that the counter is an absolute mess of pots that Finn used to distill a single cup of cocoa, and I'm certain now that the odor hanging on the air is the smell of milk spilt on the hot burner, but it doesn't matter in the face of his intention.  It sort of makes my lower lip not quite sure of itself [...]

And basically the entirety of the whole hot chocolate scene makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside, because despite the sarcastic bantering and jibes, you can tell that these are siblings who care about each other a lot.  And it reminds me of my own relationship with my younger brothers.  I'm curious about Puck's relationship with Gabe, pre-"Gabe-is-a-selfish-bastard-who-is-abandoning-us", because I want to see what it was like.

And then we go into another 45 minute segway, detouring back to the sibling relationship as relates to Puck, Gabe and Finn... until we segway completely into the relationship between myself and my brothers.  And then we talk about work and life in general and about how my mother is super human; and some guy nearby shoots me frustrated looks as he puts on his head set because I am getting too loud.  And then I need another scone.  But none of that is really too important, though I have a feeling we'll keep coming back to the sibling relations as relates to myself and my brothers...

By the end of the little mini book club meeting between me and my best friend, we've decided that maybe 10 chapters was a little short and we were unable to grasp completely what's going on in the book as of yet, but that we are extra excited to continue.  Although I have a feeling that the excitement is really reserved for the fact that we are book-clubbing more so than for reading the book itself, despite how enjoyable I find it so far (because while enjoyable, it hasn't quite hooked me yet).

Due to my extremely good fortune, I have a mini-weekend and so we've agreed to try to finish another ten chapters by the next day and meet up again for more discussion.  Maybe this time I'll try harder to record our conversation so that it may be transcribed into blog form a bit better than what I managed this time around.

Although, to be fair, I DID show up late and hadn't had a chance to set up my laptop for note-taking on this session.  And then I just got lazy.

Finally, BFF will be reading this blog and will be allowed to demand editing of said transcript if she so desires.  I'm sure she'll appreciate the liberties I took to spruce up our conversation a little bit with my own perceived version of our amateurish mini book club discussion.  In all honesty, we're not very exciting people, but I try to make it sound like we are if I can.

I wish we could include other, more experienced book-bloggers, but we are also a bit concerned about sounding stupid in front of other people rather than sounding stupid between ourselves.

Until next time... which won't be long.

This post originally posted at Book Abyss @ BookLikes.com

Review: The Dream Thieves

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Edited 10/03/2014 with official review




10/03/2013

I’m going to try to relate this review more with the actual book than my emotionally stimulated feelings of “OMG, this book is so freakin’ awesome, so let me tell you how awesome I think it is!” type of gushing. I’m sure I did enough of that in The Raven Boys to scare off hordes of the more emotionally stable population out there.

Anyway…

Aside from a typical introductory segue to make my posts look a little more structured and lengthy, honestly, I suck at structure. I’m not sure how I managed to make it through high school and college with my inability to format my essays properly, but I did and I must say, I’m not sure I ever really learned anything from any of my English classes about proper structure for a piece of written work.

So here I am with more random segways (yes, the above), and random thoughts on The Dream Thieves. Because, well, who cares about structure anyway?

Let’s start with the beginning though.

Before I started reading The Dream Thieves, I was worried about being overwhelmed. Sometimes, when I love a book so much that it hurts, and when I am in such high anticipation of the next book in a series that I can’t sleep, it’s a dangerous situation. Because as the time approached for the release date of The Dream Thieves, I began to have little panicky moments of the usual: “What if this book isn’t as good as the first one?” “What if this book is so good, but I don’t catch onto how good it is and I can’t do it any justice when I’m reading it?” “What if Book One had been the exception?” “What if I have too high expectations?” “What if I just don’t know what to do anymore?” “What if my dog eats my book review?”

“What if, what if, what if….?!!”

I’m ALWAYS like this with sequels to books that I personally loved and found fabulous (also for movies and Asian drama series as well; sequels can give me a heart attack easily with just BEING there). I’m always worried that the sequel or the second book won’t hold up to the first and that I’ll be disappointed.

So, I’m ecstatically delighted to announce (as many probably already have guessed) that this was definitely, absolutely NOT the case with The Dream Thieves. As I already mentioned: so many “AWESOME!”s to put out there.

I first realized one of the main reasons why I’d been loving The Raven Cycle series so much after about three chapters into this book. From the review of the first book, I had already mentioned how much I loved the characters, their interaction and their development. In this book, having paid more attention during my reading, I found another reason to love Maggie Stiefvater: her writing style is just so consistently witty and amazing. Let’s see, what did I call it in a note to myself?

Her writing borders on fantastical fairy tale meets whimsical, magical and mystical, with a side dish of natural sarcasm and dry humor to boot. And honestly, this is a type of dry humor I can appreciate because it’s not even in a laugh out loud, “you’ve gotta laugh at this particular scene” type of comedy. They are the little descriptors and analogies, one-liners and strange quips… They are strewn all over the place, every few sentences as a thought or an action or just as part of the ending of a paragraph. It’s like “serious, serious, snicker, emotional, serious, strange, serious” and then suddenly, all too smoothly and naturally, “insert O.o quip here” and it always makes me giggle or chuckle or backtrack just to reread it only to be impressed by how genius it was. And then we keep moving along the story like I hadn’t just been laughing at something snarky. They are very fine, little details that just fit into the writing effortlessly.

And I’m a sucker for attention to detail, that’s for sure. It’s one of those things where, if you aren’t really looking and you couldn’t really appreciate it; and if you’re looking at other parts of the story, you probably wouldn’t notice it at all and it won’t tickle you in the right ways.


The Dream Thieves is centered on Ronan Lynch -- a boy with a secret that we learn early on. He’s able to pull things from his dreams, tangible objects that just appear to him when he dreams about them. But aside from this little magic trick, there are even deeper, darker secrets about Ronan Lynch that he hides behind his anger and dark sarcasm.

I didn’t dislike any of the characters from the first book. Ronan had been a destructive bastard, a rich boy with a tendency to cause trouble and become antagonizing to everyone around him. But there had always been something about him that still drew me to like him for who he is -- dark, scathing humor and asshole personality all included. When I learned that the second book would be Ronan-centric, I was a little conflicted, because I’m sitting squarely in front of a Gansey pedestal. However, as I began to read The Dream Thieves, I realized that, despite being Ronan-centric, the telling of the book manages to capture so much more than just the base storyline.

Written in the third-person omniscient, we still get to see through the perspectives of each of the characters we fell in love with from the first book. In this, I believe is wherein lies a big success of this series. Because despite being a book about Ronan Lynch, it’s also a book that shows us the rest of the characters in varying degrees, smoothly tying everything up with Ronan’s journey.

So while we delve deeper into Ronan’s as well as the Lynch family’s secretive history, we’re also shown a lot of more reveals about the rest of the characters. Again, little moments that may not propel the main story, but manages to pick up significance in light of the surrounding actions.

It’s brilliant.

Characters continue to develop and their circumstances all continue to tug at heartstrings. There are so many moments in this book that make you smile and laugh, moments that make you churn those logical thinking wheels, and even a lot of gripping moments that have you at the edge of your seat waiting for the fall out. And then there are heartbreaking moments as well.

So much happens in this book that, if not handled properly, the story would have gotten out of hand and confusing. But The Dream Thieves manages to make it work, because even as more mysteries begin to occur and more side tangents present themselves, the story only manages to become more exciting.

On a final note, I feel like the characters are definitely the driving force of this series, and especially of this particular book. They’re all so intriguing that, even with an antagonist like The Gray Man, or the minor characters at 300 Fox Way or the Orphan Girl in Ronan’s dreams, I’m drawn to them and their significance -- no one seems to be “just a background character” with no rhyme or reason. I even enjoyed seeing the interaction between Ronan and his brothers, which draws upon so much more understanding of Ronan and his behavior. And it’s great! They all have their own stories if given the time.

I loved the interaction between the five friends -- the Aglionby boys and Blue -- and found that, despite my hopeless romantic love, I appreciate that the romance unfolds so subtly with such care. It’s the friendships that I love the most: between Blue and Gansey, between Gansey and Ronan, between Gansey and Adam, between Ronan and Adam, and especially between Blue and Noah. There’s a different air about each of these pairings in the friendship, and then the atmosphere is made all the different when they all come together.

I’m wholeheartedly and completely in Gansey’s boat. That boy has a charm to him that makes it hard NOT to love him. I’m particularly biased because I’ve let my love of Gansey get a little out of control. So, of course, I’d love to see Gansey and Blue complete their OTP pairing soon, and as the romance slowly unfolded itself in this book, it came to me that I loved how it was such a sweet, yet quiet occurrence. The fact that they started off as friends first and bonded through various interactions and sweet little moments made it all the better. Because I enjoyed the friendships in this book (and the series so far) that the romance is honestly the last of my priorities concerning The Raven Cycle series.

After the first book, it didn’t bother me at all that the romance seemed to be heading in a different direction with Blue and Adam starting a somewhat relationship. Because compared to Gansey, even though I loved all of the characters, I loved Gansey more and so it didn’t matter to me whether or not he paired up with the girl in the end.

I’m at least glad to say that I’ve grown to love Blue more in this book than I had from Book One. She has a strange and quirky personality, but in this book, she proved that she’s also feisty and fiery and doesn’t let anyone walk on her at all. It’s something I appreciate in a female character since, too often in a lot of books (especially YAs), the girl is painted in a demure, doormat fashion, written for readers to pity and sympathize with. No, I prefer the Blue Sargents of the world where, even if there are moments when she is scared or even when she doesn’t know how to act, she still doesn’t just lay there and let people walk all over her.

The Dream Thieves is a very magical, well written, fun and witty adventure (that’s not quite an adventure) with great characters and an intriguing story. There are times when you find that perfect book that you can’t help but to completely fall in love with.

Today, that book, for me, is this one.


***

08/28/2013

I just saw a rating of 4.5 stars pop up from one of the reviewers I follow.

Aaand.... so now we are counting down the days until the release of this book! September 17 seems like so MUCH longer than just the 20 days from this moment... well, 21 days, but I'm rounding down a little for my own benefit.

Oh man, I'm all fidgeting just waiting for the book release. I need this book so BADLY! RIGHT NOW!


09/19/2013

If I thought I loved the first book... I think I love this second book just as much and am not even quite sure which one I loved more. It's safe to say I've found another favorite series to add to my list, and officially declaring another favorite author I will be following.

So many thoughts, so many "AWESOME!"s to put out there. And I'm not even sure how this will go. But if I had to highlight every line of this book that I personally loved, my book would look like a striped lollipop.

Going to try to put my thoughts together in a more timely fashion this time, although I'm not sure how well that will serve my review since my review of the last book was simply a big ol' four page declaration of how much I loved The Raven Boys. I doubt there will be much different for The Dream Thieves -- though there may be a lot of added gushing over Maggie Stiefvater, my newest girl crush of an author.

She is so freakin' brilliant!

Review to come... maybe. If I can stop gushing. And after I get some sleep.



View all my reviews

Review: The Dream Thieves

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



08/28/2013

I just saw a rating of 4.5 stars pop up from one of the reviewers I follow.

Aaand.... so now we are counting down the days until the release of this book! September 17 seems like so MUCH longer than just the 20 days from this moment... well, 21 days, but I'm rounding down a little for my own benefit.

Oh man, I'm all fidgeting just waiting for the book release. I need this book so BADLY! RIGHT NOW!


09/19/2013

If I thought I loved the first book... I think I love this second book just as much and am not even quite sure which one I loved more. It's safe to say I've found another favorite series to add to my list, and officially declaring another favorite author I will be following.

So many thoughts, so many "AWESOME!"s to put out there. And I'm not even sure how this will go. But if I had to highlight every line of this book that I personally loved, my book would look like a striped lollipop.

Going to try to put my thoughts together in a more timely fashion this time, although I'm not sure how well that will serve my review since my review of the last book was simply a big ol' four page declaration of how much I loved The Raven Boys. I doubt there will be much different for The Dream Thieves -- though there may be a lot of added gushing over Maggie Stiefvater, my newest girl crush of an author.

She is so freakin' brilliant!

Review to come... maybe. If I can stop gushing. And after I get some sleep.



View all my reviews

Review: The Dream Thieves

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

My rating: n/a



I just saw a rating of 4.5 stars pop up from one of the reviewers I follow.

Aaand.... so now we are counting down the days until the release of this book! September 17 seems like so MUCH longer than just the 20 days from this moment... well, 21 days, but I'm rounding down a little for my own benefit.

Oh man, I'm all fidgeting just waiting for the book release. I need this book so BADLY! RIGHT NOW!



View all my reviews

Review: The Raven Boys

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


June 6, 2013

I really liked this one. Review to come when I get my thoughts together after my vacation. On that note, ready for the next book... RIGHT NOW.

Also, I'm sure I love Gansey.


August 11, 2013

And yes, this review took quite some time for me to get around to, but that happens cause I'm a professional procrastinator...

But here it is:

I believe that once in every random while you come across that one book which is perfect for you, personally, in every way. And in that particular book and with that particular author, you get to experience everything you’ve ever loved in any story. From the characters and their development, to the writing style and progression, with a nice healthy dose of each and every one of your favorite genres and subgenres, an intriguing storyline, and finally a nice sprinkle of witty humor throughout the entire telling (at least humor you personally appreciate)... In particular, the author just happens to create the perfect group of characters with the right amount of development, unique personalities, witty banter, and relatable interactions, and so on and so forth...

It just totally makes your day!

I’m not a professional when it comes to the written English language, story creation, or even inspirational ideals in writing. I like what I like. Many others may not agree. And as far as I can tell, (despite this being a book released in 2012 and I hadn’t necessarily been anticipating it before), The Raven Boys is thus far sitting at the top ranking out of all the books I’ve read this year. (I am currently crossing my fingers with all hopes that the second book coming out this year will be just as great or even better.)

Because while reading The Raven Boys, when I suddenly found myself smiling like a giddy fool at the humorous dialogue, or fawning over something that just gets me RIGHT THERE, or even pinpointing the exact point in the story where I exclaimed, “Well, I really love this boy now!”, I know I’ve been sucked into the world of our little makeshift friendship group slash family of spiritual ley line hunters. It’s a delight, even, when you hadn’t been expecting much from the book in the first place since the dinky little summary provided doesn’t even really do the true story line of The Raven Boys any justice.

Honestly, I thought I was just going to be stepping into some young adult paranormal romance with a mixing of magic stuff and maybe an attempted mystery. Well, the tagline was intriguing enough: “There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.” Coupled with that, you even get a rather ominous first sentence in the prologue: ”Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told that she would kill her true love.”

Death prophecies almost immediately at the beginning? Dark and moody atmosphere? Hook, line and sinker!

I promise I’m not psychotic or anything, but really, what a way to get my attention. The rest of the book is written in a way that conveys an almost melancholic, dark setting, yet at the same time it’s laced with enough youthful energy that the balance is wonderful. Side characters came to life with their own lush backstories despite the fact that they’re not center-stage. I’m not sure I found even one character I wasn’t at least mildly interested in, because they each carried their own weight so well.

But there was so much more to the story despite it being rather tame anyway; and to be totally honest, it’s the mystery pitch as well as the character interaction that makes this book GO for me. I love character interaction and when there is great character interaction, I swoon like a shameless fangirl. I’m chuckling and re-reading lines, I’m highlighting and making notes of my own reactions, I’m bookmarking and slapping my thighs because the dialogue definitely DELIVERS.

ANY book that has the ability to make me laugh out loud already gets an automatic star since I’m a sucker for great humor of the dry sarcastic, yet nonsensical variety. I’m an even bigger sucker for banter that just makes you think about it and why it makes you smile in such a dopey way. There are random one-liners thrown out by our characters that make me make this O.o blinky face and have to pause for a moment. Things catch you by surprise if you read through too quickly, making you backtrack to reread some parts only to realize: “Huh, that was good. That was really good.”

Most importantly (to me), there’s a development of sorts for our characters in their own lives as individuals, and then as well as with each other, either as a new friendship between Blue and the boys, or as old friendship between the boys amongst themselves. Everything just sort of falls into place just perfectly enough for me that here I am, trying to shamelessly plug to everyone how much I really LOVED this book, without even really given enough reason aside from: These are just the elements of a story that gets me in all the right places.

My opinions don’t even start to talk about the story plotting and what the book is about at all (not that I ever bother to relay any brief, paraphrased summaries in my reviews anyway, so whatevs). And this review doesn’t do justice to people wanting to know why I loved this book so much.

I wish I could say more about The Raven Boys. I wish I could analyze the crap out of the dialogue, the action, the mystery and whatnot, but the fact of the matter is, I really, really, really, really enjoyed this book A LOT. It was just THAT simple.

And all of these paragraphs... well, they might just be moot.

There have only been few other books in the past that had all the pieces I loved in all the right places for me, personally (Harry Potter and Book of a Thousand Days are recent ones from recent years). It’s been a long time, actually, that I’ve come across a book that just hit on all the elements I love about storytelling.

Today, this book is The Raven Boys, and I hope to anything in the universe that I will continue to enjoy the rest of the series as I have loved this first book.

***

And now on a separate tangent altogether....


Why I love Gansey:

While Blue Sargent was certainly the main character in this book, and while her character and development and quirky personality was lovable and relatable, the true star character who stood out for me was none other than Richard “Dick” Campbell Gansey III -- or just Gansey.

To be totally honest, I don’t even really know what it is I love about him. To many others, he’s the entitled, spoiled rich boy with ivory tower ideals and an extraordinary mission. If this were the fantasy or medieval world, he’d be THAT prince with nothing better to do in his life than to accomplish some self-serving task he’s given himself. And of course, this task also ends up being something so huge that it affects so many other things in the lives around him.

Self-serving Prince maybe needs to find a new hobby that doesn’t involve ghosts, evil spirits and death.

But that kind of description of Gansey is just the basis of his characterization in this time frame. There was so much more depth to Gansey than even I expected to come across, because, to be honest, it hadn’t been until much further into the book that I started appreciating how much I felt I could relate with Gansey compared to the rest of the characters. I began to see a wit and an intelligence in this spoiled rich noble that made me really think about him as another person WITHOUT his defining characteristics.

And what did I end up finding? Honestly, I’m still not quite sure.

Gansey is a boy who shuns away from his father because (as is typical of a lot of more noble rich brats) he doesn’t like the way his father operates life. However, he also doesn’t seem to shy away from taking advantage of the fact that he’s a Gansey -- that his power is a very highly influential playing card in getting what he wants for the sake of the people he cares about and for the sake of his mission. Which brings us to the fact that while Gansey is a carefree boy who has his life set, he also seems to be a boy who wants to live life like everyone else. He wants to have true friendships and he wants to be able to take care of his friends. He desires that deep companionship that comes along with a set of friends bonding over a common cause. He loves his friends and would do anything for them, and yet, at the same time, said friends are either making it hard for him to accomplish this task, or said friends will shove him away, criticizing him for trying to work life into his own liking.

I know it sounds like Gansey really is nothing but a nosy busybody. It sounds like he DOES like having all of his “ducks in a row”, so to speak. It sounds like he’s just another rich boy who likes to see things occur for him in his own ideal way. He sees life happening in one direction, while others see him trying to force life to happen in that direction. He just tries too hard to make life around him into “his” perfect, ideal world.

Things like that can get rather annoying for someone like Gansey who seems to be lacking in tact or social skill.

But there is no denying that underneath all of that ignorant, bumbling naivete, Gansey has a very big heart.

Gansey has had a life-altering moment that we see in flashback. And because of this life-altering moment is why he’s so dead set on finding the ley lines and pursuing an entity who can grant him that one favor.

I might be making excuses for this boy. In a certain light, anyone can see that he’s just another rich boy. But to me, for any amount of odd reasoning, I just really fell in love with him. In certain aspects, he’s an arrogant dumbass who needs to check his mouth before he talks. He certainly needs to really think about what he’s saying to whom, but in a way, isn’t it kind of unfair to him to force him to walk on eggshells around his friends just because they get offended easily? Because they’ve already classified Gansey in the same exact light that a random stranger would classify him?

I’m usually one of the last people to take the side of the standard rich boy, because, honestly, they’re all the same as... say, Ronan. You’ve got money, you’ve got power, you’ve got your life set for the rest of your life (and maybe even the hereafter). But you’re destructive and arrogant and troublesome and you’re still unhappy with your life and under-appreciative of what you have. Granted, I like Ronan too, but that has more to do with his latent dark humor and wit than it has to do with his actual personality, ‘cause he’s a Grade A Asshole, from what I can see.

And maybe that’s just it. In a very rough comparison, Gansey has all the same defining characteristics as Ronan. Except, rather than being a thorn in everyone’s side as some emo drama king, Gansey actually tries. He tries to be everyone’s friend. He tries to see the positive side of things. He’s trying so hard to make something of his life outside of being a rich and powerful Gansey. He’s trying to take care of his friends because he cares about them. He’s just trying to make everyone happy. He’s such a noble idiot that you can’t help BUT to fall in love with him.

It’s a rather interesting dynamic. Because I personally hate everything about his defining characteristics: rich, entitled, powerful, carefree, ignorant. He’s got a very stereotypical rich boy dilemma in which he’s expected to behave and react in certain ways. And I’m also not much a fan of the noble idiot’s naive, frustrating ideals about life. But you give Gansey enough of an uncertainty about himself, enough of a big heart when it comes to others, enough of an unexpected ambition for some mission in his life, and enough of his charming wit and humor and intelligence and somehow, I’m now obsessed with him.

In a nutshell, there are reasons why I love Gansey and there are reasons why I shouldn’t. And there they are. And I lean towards loving him.





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Review: The Raven Boys

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I really liked this one. Review to come when I get my thoughts together after my vacation. On that note, ready for the next book... RIGHT NOW.

Also, I'm sure I love Gansey.



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