Monday, May 27, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater




Blue Lily, Lily Blue is the third book in Maggie Stiefvater's "Raven Cycle," and the penultimate book in the series (A review of Book 1 can be found HERE and Book 2 was reviewed HERE on this blog).  I enjoyed the first two books quite a bit - both featured some really well done characters and plotlines for them that kept me interested, although both also had moments where I thought the characters went astray.  It's a tricky balance to write a book where one of the two most central protagonists is a rich boy of privilege and to get me to like him, but the first two books generally succeeded on that front, so I've been going forward with the series at a relatively quick pace.

Blue Lily, Lily Blue (I'm referring to it as "BLLB" from hereon out because that's a mouthful to type) is probably my favorite of the three books so far, and focuses more on the overall plot arc of the story, with long-term plot threads finally coming to roost, than the last book did.  It's the first book of the three to basically not have any moments that didn't work for me, and the ending is both satisfying and made me want to grab the last book right away with its cliffhanger.  So yeah, it won't be long till I finish off this series.

Note: I've been reading the series via audiobook, so if I get any spellings of names wrong, I apologize.  Still, the reader is REALLY good, and I strongly recommend this series in audio format.


-----------------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------
Maura Sargent is missing, underground somewhere, with no signs of returning any time soon.  Her disappearance has thrown Blue off her equilibrium, and it's not helped by the continued chaos of magic caused by the awakened Leyline.  And when a trip into the cave at Cabeswater results in a death scare for Gansey, Blue and the boys are thrown for a loss.  And on top of all that lies Blue and Gansey's increasing attraction to one another, and Blue's knowledge of the prophecy that her kiss will cause the death of her true love.

But things and others will not allow Blue and the boys simply to take their time figuring out what to do next.  The Gray Man's former employer Colin Greenmantle has come to town to both obtain Ronan's power and to get revenge upon The Gray Man - particularly by threatening Maura.  And he's brought along his wife Piper, who is just as deadly if more mercurial in her goals.  And then there's Adam's upcoming Court Date to deal with the charges he brought against his father for physical abuse, which will require Adam to once again face the man he was once most scared of.

In the middle of this the psychics at 300 Fox Way continue to prophecize that the gang will discover three sleepers underground - one to be woken, one they disagree on, and one sleeper who must definitely not be awoken for the good of all.  But in the midst of all that's happening, can the group come together to find a way to awaken only the right ones, or will their actions inadvertently cause disaster....
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BLLB continues telling its story in much the same way as the prior two books, with nearly all of the book told from the perspectives of Blue, Gansey, Adam and the antagonist's point of view, as in previous book (although Ronan, whose POV was a huge part of the prior book, loses his POV here).  But a key difference in this book from the prior one is that while The Dream Thieves was very much centered around its own Ronan specific story, which was related but not directly carrying from the long term plot arc (the search for Glendower, Gansey's death sentence), this book is significantly more directed towards dealing with the long term plot arc.  And the result works very well, as everything more clearly dove-tails together here as opposed to in the last book where the two plots seemed kind of disassociated with each other.

I'm not going to dedicate too much time for the old characters here, suffice to say if you've gotten this far you know that the series does an excellent job with the characters and that continues here.  Still, I'd like to highlight here that this book corrects what I felt was a misstep with Adam's character in book 2 (where Adam developed sudden violent anger issues out of nowhere with Blue the book unconvincingly suggested were due to his abusive upbringing), with Adam once again a really well rounded character dealing with the issues of loneliness, poverty, and dealing with those of privilege.  New antagonists Greenmantle (previously an offscreen villain) and his wife Piper however make up excellent additions to the cast as villains, although Colin's POV is kind of annoying since he's so blatantly self-centered.

But again, the overall plot, the mixture of real-world and fantasy elements, the romantic elements, etc - it all comes together here to form the strongest book in the series.  The book ends again on a satisfying note, with a major cliffhanger for the final book as you'd expect.  If I had any complaint, it's that the book spends a long time with the characters sort of afraid to take a step you absolutely know they're going to take eventually so it does kind of feel like stalling is going on, and one character opting not to take a gun to a final confrontation is just kind....huh?  Other than that though, this series remains excellent and I look forward to the conclusion. 
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