Audiobook Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: The Raven Boys
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Series: The Raven Cycle #1
Narrator: Will Patton
Published: September 18, 2012
Publisher: Scholastic, Inc.
Length: 11 hrs, 8 mins
Source: Purchased
Purchase: Audible | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

“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.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

I'm kind of stumped on where to go with this review.  I want to start by saying I did enjoy the book.  I liked it... I just didn't love it.  I had high expectations for this book after reading all of the rave reviews.  I was so eager to read it I went out and purchased the audiobook so I could jump right in, even though I had the galley as well.  Maybe that was my mistake.

The Raven Boys started off quite slow to me.  You get to meet the characters, which is a bit overwhelming at first.  It felt like a lot of information was thrown at me, and it left me a bit confused on where the story would go.  I'm not sure if it was the narrator's voice or just the book itself, but I was having difficulty following the story.  I often became distracted and had to listen to parts over and over again.

About half way through the book the story picked up and was really quite enjoyable.  I'm definitely in the minority here because I know a lot of people absolutely adored this book.  It could definitely be a mixture of it being an audiobook, as well as it being a bit slow at first, that left me at a loss.  I'm having difficulty rating this book, as I did really enjoy about 40 percent of it.  The rest I wasn't a huge fan of.  I do plan to continue on with this series, but I won't get the audio for the others.