Book review: Blue Lily, Lily Blue

Book review of “Blue Lily, Lily Blue”

“Blue Lily, Lily Blue” is the third book in The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater. It is succeeded by The Raven Boys and The Dream Thieves. A series about magic, psychics, spirit paths, dangers and mysteries of the past.

Summary

Blue and the boys are exploring the magical forest and a cave they’ve found, in the search of the grave with the welsh king. Blue’s mother disappears, a hitman’s former boss and his wife are also interested in the ley line (spirit path) and intrigue and dangers are plentiful in “Blue Lily, Lily Blue”.

Verdict

(To be fair, while I am writing this review, it’s already been a while since I read the book, and I could hardly remember exactly what happened in it. I recall The Raven Cycle as a whole, but couldn’t remember one book from the next. So I had to read up on it. Thus, it didn’t leave the biggest impression with me. That said, I do recall the reading experience as being very pleasant. I read the series within a short timeframe as I kept being curious and wanting to know how things would play out.)

Stiefvater is very good at keeping several plots and subplots going simultaneously, while keeping them all interesting. Apart from Blue and the boys, a the women in Blue’s household have their own storylines. As well as a few other people in the city. It all intertwines neatly and naturally, although it can seem a bit much at times. Like I mentioned in my review of The Dream Thieves, the second book in this series, I’m not really a fan of love-stories as subplots. This goes for “Blue Lily, Lily Blue” too, where it expands beyond the teenagers, to the adults in the book.

Magic and crimes

There are a lot of subplots being introduced and resolved in “Blue Lily, Lily Blue”. Some of them are amazing plot-twists and serve the overall story. But others a merely distractions and seem underdeveloped and as mere obstacles to our main protagonists, which is a shame in my opinion.

There are a few of the characters I really like and some I don’t care for. In this instance, I don’t much care for one of the boys, where Blue obviously does. I think the fact that Blue is a teenager and I am not, has a part to play in this, as I find him one dimensional and not really either mysterious or interesting or nice. This is where the teenage love story comes in and I read on for the sake of the magic and the crime mysteries. Thankfully, there is plenty of both, so I don’t mind the clichéd young love that much. It’s just a young adult book, stressing the young part.

All the crimes and darker mysteries coming forward in “Blue Lily, Lily Blue” range from domestic violence, to disappearing parents, car theft, murder and the whole thing. It seems like everything is there, yet none of it seems displaced.

Should you read it?

All in all, it’s been a very nice reading experience thus far and I can’t wait to get all the dots connected and read the final book “The Raven King”. The language, the worldbuilding and the characters are portrayed skillfully by Stiefvater. Although some of the subplots might be of less interest and are less refined than the main plot.

Are you a young adult who likes reading about magic and supernatural stuff? Magic that isn’t necessarily the classic witches and wizard stories? Including a romance or three, as well as a bunch of teens going up against adults? Then you’ll love this series!