Welcome to the review section of Wonder Words. So far in this section, I have reviewed a book of folktales, a middle-grade novel, two non-fiction picture books and an illustrated book for children on Aboriginal culture. You can find the links to these reviews at the bottom of this post. This time I’m switching back to fiction, exploring YA and reviewing an author rather than a book.
A few months ago one of my blog partners, Candice, recommended Maggie Stiefvater. I have learned that Candice’s recommendations are always worth reading, so I searched out Maggie Stiefvater and, by my count, discovered she is the author or co-author of twenty books, all published since 2008! That is a phenomenal output. With that number to choose from it was pretty hard to narrow it down to the two I would base this review on. I knew I didn’t want to read a full series because that wouldn’t show me her versatility, so I picked the first book in the Raven Cycle series, The Raven Boys published in 2012. Then I looked for something that sounded completely different and chose The Scorpio Races, a standalone novel published in 2011 containing flesh-eating water-horses.
Here are snippets from the back cover blurb for each book:
“Even if Blue hadn’t been told her true love would die if she kissed him, she would stay away from boys. Especially the ones from the local private school. Known as Raven Boys, they only mean trouble.”
“It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.”
Such different premises from the same author, and her other books are equally varied.
This is a short description for shiver, the first book in The Shiver Trilogy: “Grace has spent years watching the wolves in the woods behind her house. One yellow-eyed wolf – her wolf – watches back. He feels deeply familiar to her, but she doesn’t know why.”
This for Lament: “Sixteen-year-old Deirdre Monaghan is a painfully shy but prodigiously gifted musician. She’s about to find out she’s also a cloverhand—one who can see faeries.”
And this for All the Crooked Saints: “Any visitor to Bicho Raro, Colorado, is likely to find a landscape of dark saints, forbidden love, scientific dreams, miracle-mad owls, estranged affections, one or two orphans, and a sky full of watchful desert stars.”
If pulling crazy ideas into coherent stories isn’t enough, Maggie Stiefvater also develops interesting and engaging characters and writes beautifully. Her stories are compelling, mysterious, lyrical and quirky. If you can place a dead-boy-living in a story and have the reveal seem so natural and expected, then you are a master storyteller. If you can cause a reader to fall in love with a vicious, man-eating water-horse then you are a master in mood and character development. Maggie Stiefvater is this and much more. I stand by Candice’s recommendation 100% – Maggie Stiefvater’s books are worth reading!
Links to previous book reviews by Katharine on Wonder Words:
Once Long Ago (a book of folktales)
The Mapmakers Race (middle-grade fiction)
The Diamond and the Boy (picture book nonfiction)
The Important Thing about Margaret Wise Brown (picture book nonfiction)
Playground (children’s illustrated nonfiction)
The Wonder of Words 