Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after...
*Contains small spoilers about minor plot points. Read with caution.
Review:
The Dream Thieves was a book that completely took me by surprise and not in the 'I thought it'd be terrible' way I KNEW it'd be brilliant I just wasn't quite prepared for how brilliant it really was. Maggie Stiefvater has a way of telling her stories that makes you feel like you're right there with the characters. The interaction between the characters whether they are friends or not is so genuine and real that it's hard to believe the story isn't based upon real people.
Despite the magical and fantastical elements that this book has the characters are very much human and at times it was easy for me to forget that these are people who go to school and worry about homework and who does or doesn't like them because they are so incredibly written and such amazing, funny, developed characters. There is never a moment in the book where you question what a character has done, there is never a time when you think 'That's not the Gansey I know, and has been written about' but that's not a bad thing. Not at all. It means that you begin to get comfortable with the characters, almost like you're their best friend, like you can predict their next move and it's one of the reasons why I loved this book so much.
I'm going to talk about the characters even more because the book is so heavily driven by it's characters. First we have Gansey whom I adore. We see a lot more of the different sides of Gansey in TDT that we do in TRB and it's really quite mesmerising. We get to see him start to care about Blue and develop feelings for her but we also see how much he is effected by everything and how attached he is to Glendower. Gansey is such an interesting character because he is someone different to everybody. All of his friends see him in a different way and they all care so deeply about him that at times it almost feels like he has them drinking a love potion (in the best way). I love Gansey. I can't talk about Gansey enough he is just an incredible character and not to mention he has some hilarious one liners. Blue is Blue. She's quirky and she's a raging feminist and she's beautiful and she cares about every single one of these boys no matter how much they offend her. RONAN LYCH. What can I say about Ronan Lynch? He's annoyingly attractive, most authority figures can't stand him, he's a complete and total badass, he doesn't care what people think and he's slightly in love with Gansey. Of course, who wouldn't be. I love Ronan. Ronan is everything to me. If Ronan gets hurt I'd throw myself out of a window. In TRB Adam annoyed me, in TDT I really grew to hate him. If there is one thing I can't stand it's people who are self righteous and who act like because something shit happened to them then are owed the world. Yes, what happened to him was awful but that doesn't mean he can go around acting so hard-done-by because some people have it better than he did. Side note: BLUE DOESN'T OWE YOU ANYTHING ADAM PARRISH SO GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS AND STOP ACTING LIKE SUCH A PRICK. Noah is an angel, as always. Noah broke my heart, again. Noah is that one character who is put in a book to make you fall completely head over heels in love and then just rip your insides out from you. It's just MEAN, Maggie Stiefvater, MEAN.
One of the best things I think about this series is the underlying sexual tension between all of the characters. Especially Ronan and Gansey. I think at one point Ronan even sent Gansey a nude? That part was incredible. It really adds a touch of humour to the books without it being overly cheesy and with the -mostly- lack of romantic relationships that this book has it really makes it all the more special. The Squad (Gansey, Ronan, Blue, Adam, Noah) is probably my favourite platonic friendship group from any book that I've ever read because they're all so different and yet they all get along so well and the dynamic is wonderful to read about. Honestly, The Dream Thieves had me laughing my head off one minute and then sobbing into my arms the next, and that was just one paragraph.
The plot of The Dream Thieves was quite a bit more complex than The Raven Boys and we got a bigger look at all of the magic that is happening in Henrietta and how fucked up the world can be. The creepiest parts of the book were the Night Horrors and they mostly just made me angry because they kept trying to hurt Ronan. No one hurts Ronan. I loved how much we got to learn about Ronan's family in this book and it certainly cleared up a lot of the confusion that I felt about that storyline in the first book and it did not disappoint. I found myself liking the Gray Man and being very wary of him at the same time which, when a hit man comes into play and is after something you know very well no one wants him to have, is not surprising.
THE ENDING THOUGH. HOW CAN YOU END A BOOK LIKE THAT. I'm still angry about that and I don't think my rage will settle until I pick up Blue Lily, Lily Blue which will hopefully happen very, very soon.
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