RAVEN BOYS

Raven boys grabs the readers into the story as soon as the prologue introduces the premise filled with mysterious spirits, ley lines, death and divination.  It introduces characters that leap out of the pages and become real; not only because of their roles in the excitement within the words but simply because they contain traits that the readers will feel a part of. It uses popular English folklore which may prove unfamiliar to readers from other parts of the world but accepted and embraced nonetheless simply because of the beautifully woven premise.

Some scenes in the books felt like something you saw in a movie…at times, I can visualize THE COVENANT with the presence of prep boys saturated with the mysticism of magic. Sometimes, the DEAD POET SOCIETY comes to mind, although the boys here are much more interesting than the scholarly teenagers of the classic intellectual drama.

And just when you least expect it, some character’s dialogue jump at you with brilliant wit and oftentimes cynicism that you can’t help but laugh yet continue to think about the line until several paragraphs after. Then in the next chapters you get immersed into the angst, pains and growing up obstacles of teens, both boys and girls as they search and discover their very selves.

Not once but often, you begin to wonder if this is a fantasy book hiding the realities of life or is this a slice life filled with the fantasies that drive everyone to dream to make life easier? The characters are separate individuals; learning, growing and coping with whatever realities they have in their hands and striving to make something out of themselves, but all of them created like they were flesh and blood and not a string of words seemingly pulled out of thin air and made corporeal.

It shouts of friendships wanting to be heard over the din of the frailty of truth, it touches of pride of one’s self and of individuality and more importantly it screams of what friendship really is, raw and pure; to trust who, what and when all these are most important.

5 stars out of 5…