1) The Raven Boys ★★★★
2) The Dream Thieves ★★★★★
3) Blue Lily, Lily Blue ★★★★★
4) The Raven King ★★★★★

content warnings: death

“Her love him so hard that she felt sad because one day he would get old and die because that was what things with animalness did.”

I've been putting off reading Call Down the Hawk ever since my preorder came in, but finally reading this short story has made me not only want to read that but also reread the whole series. That's the power of Maggie Stiefvater's writing.

Opal is a short story that was included in some of The Raven King paperbacks and has since been released in ebook and audiobook format by itself. I had a couple Audible credits lying around so I decided to spend one of them on this because I was always so peeved that I had bought the hardcover and wasn't able to read it.

This is set after The Raven King and is told from the perspective of Opal, one of Ronan's dream creatures. Opal was an unexpectedly lovely perspective to view this world through because she's effectively a child and is not bogged down with the issues our other characters have. She's curious and stubborn and affectionate, and that's about it, and reading about different events through the eyes of a character like that puts a new perspective on a lot of things. Ronan, his and Adam's relationship, the Barns, magic, dreams, everything changes much more drastically than you would think all because we're seeing them all through Opal.

Along with Maggie Stiefvater's stunning writing, another thing that makes me want to reread the whole series is the audiobook. At first I was skeptical because I saw it was being narrated by Will Patton, an actor I quite enjoy (he was fantastic in the one season of Swamp Thing we got) but was worried wouldn't fit for a story being told by Opal. But to my surprise, he worked perfectly and I now really want to listen to other audiobooks he's narrated. The production in general was really good, with great sound effects and moody music.

I doubt she will, but I really hope that Maggie Stiefvater writes more of these one-offs from not only the perspectives of characters we don't normally get but from perspectives that actively change the way we as readers perceive this wonderful world she's created. This was exactly what I wanted and I'm now very excited to start reading the Dreamer trilogy.