Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

Hi, guys!
I'm back with another review for you!

BASICS
Title: Blue Lily, Lily Blue
Series: The Raven Cycle, book number 3
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Release Date: October 21st 2014
Publisher: Scholastic Press
ISBN: 0545424968
Number of Pages: 391
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Paranormal

SUMMARY
It's really tricky to summarize Blue Lily, Lily Blue without spoiling any of you, so I'll just copy the Goodreads "summary" because I think they did quite a good job:

There is danger in dreaming. But there is even more danger in waking up.
Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs.
The trick with found things though, is how easily they can be lost.

Friends can betray.
Mothers can disappear.
Visions can mislead.
Certainties can unravel.

MY OPINION

“Friendship of the unshakeable kind. Friendship you could swear on. That could be busted nearly to breaking and come back stronger than before.”
Even though so much is going on in this series, from murder to love to some weird Welsh king, I do think that the main theme is friendship. Those five teenagers are welded together and nothing will rip them apart. Not even death.
They make fun of each other, they fight a lot but they love each other unconditionally.
There are moments where they hate each other and moments where they would die for each other.
The friendship between Gansey, Blue, Ronan, Adam and Noah gives me life.


Blue Lily, Lily Blue is totally one of my favourite books in 2015, hell, one of my favourite books of all time.
Maggie Stiefvater is a brilliant author. Apart from being a hilarious and kind person, she can write like hell. You'll get sucked in the story so deep, it will never let you go again.
There's not a single day where I don't think about The Raven Cycle.
Maggie Stiefvater managed it through these three books to change my view on nature completely.
When I'm outside, it seems like, I'm looking closer at things than before.
It made nature more beautiful for me and there's this longing for Blue, Gansey, the Raven boys and their Welsh king.
I wish the last book would come out sooner but on the other hand I don't want this series to end and to have to say goodbye to all the characters I came to love.

Maggie has the talent to write unbelievably deep characters. They all have their flaws and tics and it's up to you if you love them or hate them.
I have to start with Blue because she's definitely one of my favourite protagonists of all time. Maybe even the favourite. She's herself, even if that means not fitting in, and doesn't care what people'll think of her. Her whole life she's been the one who's not special. While every other woman at 300 Fox Way was in some way a psychic, she had to stay in the background and watch.  However, Blue has some kind of ability of her own: She can make magical energy stronger and thus is very useful to her psychic relatives/housemates.

Blue never grew tired of being particularly needed, but sometimes she wished "needed" felt less like a synonym for "useful."

She's a big feminist and won't back down. And she's so sassy and has brilliant comebacks!
Here are some of her lines:

“Right, sure. Because there's no girls in politics! I have no interest. Voting? What? I forgot my apron. I think I ought to be in the kitchen right now, actually. My rolling pin-”

 “Then Maura made something with butter and Calla made something with bacon and Blue steamed broccoli in self-defense.”

[Adam:]“How do you feel about helicopters?"
                 There was a long pause. "How do you mean? Ethically?"
                "As a mode of transportation."
                "Faster than camels, but less sustainable.” 

“Blue tried not to look at Gansey's boat shoes; she felt better about him as a person if she pretended he wasn't wearing them.”


“Haven’t you heard of being hung, drawn, and quartered?”
Blue asked, “Is it as painful as conversations with Ronan?”
 Then there's Blue and Gansey's relationship. It's so heartbreaking, I can't even. Make full sentences anymore.
Sometimes Stiefvater throws a tiny morsel at you and you get overrun by feels.
And don't even get me started on their midnight phone calls. They give me life and kill me at the same time.




Let's talk about Gansey, too! He's so brilliantly written! At the beginning you felt with Blue and disliked Gansey a bit for his careless remarks. He can be quite condescending and 'stupid about money' (Adam). His family has always been rich and he never even thought that other people have to work hard to afford a living. You could say he's careless about money.
But Gansey has a heart of gold and is fiercly loyal to his friends.

This was why Adam could forgive that shallow, glossy version of Gansey he'd first met. Because of his money and his good family name, because of his handsome smile and his easy laugh, because he liked people (and despite his fears to the contrary) they liked him back, Gansey could've had any and all of the friends that he wanted. Instead, he had chosen the three of them, three guys who should've, for three different reasons, been friendless.

I adore him quite a bit. (Even though he wears Topsiders.)
He tries to learn from his mistakes and he doesn't want to offend anyone anymore.

Adam still scares me and he's actually the character I like the least.
I do see that he has a terrible past and always has to give and give and give but there were some scenes (especially the one with Blue) which confirmed my opinion of him.
Anyhow I hope that his burden will become lighter soon! He endured his for too long!
And I hope that Ronan's crush on Adam will evolve into something more. It would be cute. And Adam deserves some love in his life - so does Ronan.

We also get a new character in this installment!
A man who's called Colin Greenmantle and those of you who have read The Dream Thieves already know who he is and how high he is ranked on the bastard scale.
Anyway, we get to know him and his wife Piper (who's actually quite hilarious).



I physically NEED The Raven King right now. Why do we have to wait for so long?
I NEED ANSWERS.




RATING
5 out of 5 stars


Here are some drawings by Maggie Stiefvater herself!

Gansey:






Adam:


Blue:


Henry Cheng:


Calla, Persephone, Maura and 'a new person':


'Person I can't name without giving away too much information':