In a few short weeks, the fourth and final novel in The Raven Cycle series, The Raven King, will hit bookstores, and fans of Maggie Stiefvater will finally have the answers to their burning questions. Well, they'll at least have the answer to that ONE question that has plagued fans since the very beginning: Will Gansey Die?
For those of you unfamiliar with The Raven Cycle, the series follows the adventures of four teenage boys from the prestigious Aglionby Academy in Henrietta, Virginia: Richard Gansey III, Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish, and Noah Czerny. Gansey, a boy with too much money and too much charm, has been obsessed with Glendower, the ancient Welsh king, since he suffered a near-death experience on a "ley line" as a child. He believes that the body of Glendower has been hidden somewhere near Henrietta, and his search for the sleeping king kicks into full gear when he meets Blue, a teenage townie who hails from a family of psychics. Though she has no psychic ability herself, Blue is able to amplify the powers of those around her. But Blue has also been stuck with an impossible curse: if she kisses her one true love, he will die. Therefore, she avoids boys — especially Aglionby boys — in an attempt to thwart the curse (and also, because Aglionby boys are assholes or bastards or something.) Despite her best intentions, she finds herself falling a little bit in love with all four boys, especially their fearless leader, Gansey. Despite her growing affection for Gansey, Blue cannot forget that her psychic family predicted that he will die before the next St. Mark's Eve — and she definitely cannot forget that she will likely be the reason for his death.
Despite endless taunts from Stiefvater, fans (including me!) remain hopeful that Richard Gansey III was in fact born for greatness — and not the kind that means something only after you're gone and in the ground. On April 26, the fate of Gansey, Blue, Adam, Ronan and Noah will finally become known in The Raven King . Until then, enjoy these The Raven Cycle quotes and remember why you love these five magical friends:
"It had been a long time ago, but also, it was no time at all.
Sometimes, Gansey felt like his life was made up of a dozen hours that he could never forget.”
“His heart hurt with the wanting of it, the hurt no less painful for being difficult to explain.”
“The only thing was, she didn't really want to see the future. What she wanted was to see something no one else could see or would see, and maybe that was asking for more magic that was in the world.”
“He was full of the restless, dissatisfied energy that always seemed to move into his heart after he visited home these days. It had something to do with the knowledge that his parents’ house wasn’t truly home anymore — if it had ever been — and something to do with the realization that they hadn’t changed; he had.”
"Listening to him tell the story now, it was clear to Adam that Glendower was more than a historical figure to Gansey. He was everything Gansey wished he could be: wise and brave, sure of his path, touched by the supernatural, respected by all, survived by his legacy.”
“Blue liked how polite he was. It seemed different than Gansey’s politeness. When Gansey was polite, it made him powerful. When Adam was polite, he was giving power away.”
“In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them.
Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness.Her raven boys.”
“While I'm gone," Gansey said, pausing, "dream me the world. Something new for every night.”
“If you never saw the stars, candles were enough.”
“You really didn't see the sadness or the longing unless you already knew it was there. But that was the trick, wasn't it? Everyone had their disappointment and their baggage; only, some people carried it in their inside pockets and not on their backs.”
“Boys like him didn't die; they got bronzed and installed outside public libraries.”
"It was a sort of ferocious, quiet beauty, the sort that wouldn't let you admire it. The sort of beauty that always hurt.”
“There aren't terrible ideas. Just ideas done terribly.”
"Humans were so circular; they lived the same slow cycles of joy and misery over and over, never learning. Every lesson in the universe had to be taught billions of times, and it never stuck. Maybe it was good that the world forgot every lesson, every good and bad memory, every triumph and failure, all of it dying with each generation. Perhaps this cultural amnesia spared them all. Perhaps if they remembered everything, hope would die instead.”
"There is no good word for the opposite of lonesome.
One might be tempted to suggest togetherness or contentment , but the fact that these two other words bear definitions unrelated to each other perfectly displays why lonesome cannot be properly mirrored. It does not mean solitude, nor alone, nor lonely, although lonesome can contain all of those words in itself. Lonesome means a state of being apart. Of being other. Alone-some.”
"You can be just friends with people, you know," Orla said. "I think it's crazy how you're in love with all those raven boys."
Orla wasn't wrong, of course. But what she didn't realize about Blue and her boys was that they were all in love with one another. She was no less obsessed with them than they were with her, or one another, analyzing every conversation and gesture, drawing out every joke into a longer and longer running gag, spending each moment either with one another or thinking about when next they would be with one another. Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn't all-encompassing, that wasn't blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she'd had this kind, she didn't want the other.”
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