It's here! It's finally here! After months of waiting, one of our mutually adored authors has finally published her latest books. And, like I warned you, Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys is definitely my pick.
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| Image from the Ironwood Carnegie Library Website |
First things first, I'd like to point out a bit of irony with the timing. I've been reading her book all week (September 30-October 5), which just so happens to be Banned Books Week. And believe me when I say this book is definitely going to cause quite a stir and, depending on how popular it becomes, it may even end up on the 2012 top banned books list. Because it's got some "questionable" material in it to be sure--lots of violence and witchcraft/occult subject matter.
For some reason, her incorporation of the occult world--from seemingly innocuous psychics to ritual sacrifice and what appear to be demonic summons--really threw me for a loop and, if I'm being completely honest, often made me feel uncomfortable. I've read books with bits and pieces of this subject mater before--Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy involves demonic summons, Cassandra Clare's multiple trilogies for young adults revolves around battles with demons and Nephilim--and those didn't throw me the way this book did. I think the difference is this: all those other series, while they definitely exist in the realm of magic realism, the authors treat their "magic" as if it could only exist in the world of the book; never did I feel as if what happened within the pages of the book could someday happen in reality.
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| The beautiful cover art |
Stiefvater, on the other hand, uses witchcraft and the occult not as if it's some "other" whose existence is wholly dependent on a fictional realm, but as if it's real. Much of that credit, I'm sure, goes to the amount of research she had to have done for this book. The rituals are very specific, and don't appear to be a simple figment of her imagination. While I wouldn't say the other authors I mentioned didn't do their research, Stiefvater used it in what I'll call a literal application. There is no "other." The world of Henrietta exists on the same temporal plane as the reader, and everything that happens in this small town can and does happen in our world (or so it seems). This takes quite a bit of powerful writing on Stiefvater's part, especially since I continued reading despite my discomfort, so props should be given to her for that. However, I certainly did not devour this book as I'm often apt to do, and I think it is because my unease made it impossible for me to become completely immersed in the story.
What I LOVED about this book, however, is her incorporation of historical figures and legends from the British Isles--in this case, Owain Glyndwr. I love it when authors play with stories that have been around for centuries, such as D.J. MacHale who took the title of Pendragon--the title used in recent literature to refer to the mysterious King Arthur of Britain--and re-imagined it into a young adult scifi/fantasy series. However, the series I was most reminded of was The Dark is Rising Sequence, by Susan Cooper. This is a classic YA fantasy series, which again re-imagines myths and legends born out of Wales. There's just something about those old stories that entrance me...but again, they don't leave me on edge the way The Raven Boys does. Hmm. Well, reading is supposed to make you uncomfortable, right?
Anyways, this post is far longer than it should be, so I'll stop here. Hopefully I can get my book up to you in time so you can get it signed! But, in the meantime, here's a picture of Maggie and me at the LA Times Festival of Books with my favorite work by this author, The Scorpio Races (which also uses cool myths!).
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| I look horrible! Ah! |
Keep Calm and Read On,
Becca
PS~ My favorite quote from this book is also about the stars:
She recognized the strange happiness that came from loving something without knowing why you did, that strange happiness that was sometimes so big that it felt like sadness. It was the way she felt when she looked at the stars.
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