Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater

Challenge #5 ~ “The first book in a series that you have not started.”

calldownthehawk

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

My opinion in three sentences:

There’s no way that my hopes couldn’t be raised after the exquisite series from which this spins off, and in quality of writing, Stiefvater more than delivers. I’ll admit, however, that I was a little disappointed by the content – I was prepared for some actual Adam/Ronan page-time, which was rather lacking! With so many different strands to the storyline being intermixed with one another, too, there were moments I was left a tad confused as to quite who was in the situation being narrated, and how it all fitted in with the rest of it.

(Without spoiling anything) the best bit:

It’s another Stiefvater novel, so of course I could spend this section praising the literary talent and the way she writes. But let’s spice things up! Another favourite element? The Brothers Lynch. I’ll admit from the original series, Ronan was hardly my favourite of the main characters, let alone average, forgettable Declan. But Stiefvater breathed life into them in Call Down the Hawk, offering some depth, relatability and realistic development from The Raven Cycle, whilst establishing them in their own right for new readers without repeating everything we knew from before. Somehow, Declan’s crept his way into my Raven Cycle conscience, and that’s some true Stiefvater magic.

A warning for the book:

It’s a multi-faceted story, and even now I couldn’t tell you where some of them fitted into the bigger story. From chapter to chapter, you’re tossed from one storyline to another, which is fine (even fabulous) for a certain number, but in Call Down the Hawk, Stiefvater seemed to pass this threshold, and I was left a little baffled. Maybe I was enjoying it so much that I was reading it too fast to keep concrete track of it all, but the best books are totally consuming, complex, and remain top quality despite the fast pace their intrigue demands.

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