Audio review of The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: The Raven Boys (Raven Cycle, #1)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Narrator:Will Patton
Published by: Scholastic Audio Books
Length: 11 hours / 10 CDs
Source: Library
Format: Audio
Rating: 4 stars

Summary from Goodreads: 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

Maggie Stiefvater has a way with words.  Her descriptions are like a creek the cascades gently over stones lulling you into a tranquility you'd never expect, especially in a novel like The Raven Boys.

This novel is filled with the mystery and all things ambiguous that revolve around magic.  Gansey is obsessed and though he believes other people possess magic, he wants proof.  Him and his unlikely crew of misfit boys devote their lives to solving this puzzle and along the way discover a connection with Blue as well. 

The characters in this novel are ones you are unlikely to forget.  Each one is unique with specific  personality traits that are not always likable, and yet work together seamlessly.  Maggie Stiefvater gives us glimpses into each of the character's lives as the story unfolds, explaining their histories and how they became involved in this adventure. 

Will Patton did an excellent job of narrating this novel. His accents seemed spot on for Gansy and had the perfect amount of pretentiousness that seemed to flow well with certain characters. With this novel following many characters, Will Patton had to capture not only multiple accents but also multiple personalities, which he did wonderfully.

As for the plot it started out a little slow for me, but soon picked up.  There are interweaving mysterious that seem to tangle all of the characters together into one big mess as well as new secrets being revealed along the way.  Maggie Stiefvater did an excellent job of keeping readers on their toes, by giving the unexpected and shocking with each new page.  While some of those mysteries are solved others are not, which seems sets the scene for the rest of the series.  I do wish that a little more action would have happened in The Raven Boys, along with a little romance, but I guess we will have to wait for the next book to see that.        

The Raven Boys was a great start to what I'm sure will be an addicting series.